A hard return is inserted after every 72 characters in a plain text message in Exchange Server 2003

Assume that you send a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) plain text message from a MAPI client through Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. In this situation, a hard return is inserted after every 72 characters in the plain text message.

This issue occurs when a plain text message uses the ASCII character set. ASCII always inserts a hard return after every 72 characters in the message. Plain text messages that are sent in the ISO-8859-1 character set or in other character sets do not insert a hard return after every 72 characters.

To work around this issue, use Exchange System Manager to change the word-wrap settings in the default domain or in the specific domain from which the message is sent. After you change the word-wrap settings, you can use the ASCII character set to send a plain text message that has no extra hard returns. To change the word-wrap settings, use one of the following procedures.

How to change the word-wrap settings in the default domain

1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click System Manager.
2. Expand Global Settings, and then click Internet Message Formats.
3. Right-click the default domain, and then click Properties.
4. On the Advanced tab, click Use at column in the Message text word wrap area, and then type 0 in the Use at column box.
5. Click OK, and then close Exchange System Manager.

How to change the word-wrap settings in a specific domain

1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click System Manager.
2. Expand Global Settings, right-click Internet Message Formats, point to New, and then click Domain.
3. In the Name box, type a descriptive name for the object.
4. In the SMTP domain box, type the name of the SMTP domain to which you want to apply this SMTP policy.
5. On the Advanced tab, click Use at column in the Message text word wrap area, and then type 0 in the Use at column box.
6. Click OK, and then close Exchange System Manager.

Typically, plain text messages that use the ASCII character set are sent to older mail systems that use terminal mail readers. Or, these messages are sent to systems that are compatible only with the ASCII character set. Terminal mail readers can generally display only 80 characters per line. Messages that are sent through Exchanger Server 2003 are limited to 72 characters per line. This 72-character limit leaves room for quoting symbols (>) to be added to the messages. When a MAPI client sends a message to the Exchange store, the Exchange store completes the MIME conversion of the message.

The MAPI client uses SMTP to send messages through an Internet mail account. Additionally, the MAPI client completes the MIME conversion. To change the word-wrap settings for these SMTP plain text messages, you must change the registry on the computer that is running the MAPI client. For more information about word-wrap settings on a computer that is running a MAPI client, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about Internet e-mail message formats, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: