As a followup while experimenting I can't compose a message in plain text
either. If I do a new--mail message--format--plain text, it won't even
allow me to place the insertion point in the body.


"Mike" wrote in message
...
New install of Office 2003 basic (Outlook (11.8002.6568) SP2) running on
XP
home SP2

Outlook is setup for one POP3 account. Any messages received that were
composed in HTML are readable. The body of all messages received that were
composed in plain text is not displayed. If I turn on autopreview it
shows
the first few sentences of the plain text message but if I double click
the
message the reading pane is empty. If I turn the reading pane on and
autopreview off the reading pane is empty for plain text messages. If I
turn
the reading pane and autopreview off and double click the message the
reading pane is empty.

Any suggestions?