Local (Danish) letters change to ?

Question

During the last two weeks I have seen a new weird bug i Outlook (classic). Whenever I compose a text the local (Danish) letters change to ? (the character questionmark).

Local Danish letters are æ, Æ, ø, Ø, å, Å.

Here is an example:

Header) området → omr?det

1. være → v?re
2. være → v?re, slås → sl?s, på → p?
3. på → p?, gøres → g?res
4. BEMÆRK → BEM?RK, højde → h?jde

Please notice that the example is from a draft (not send email).

I have also seen this in new appointments where the agenda suddenly changes the letters, not while you write the text, but after the invitation has been sent. If you open the appointment the letters have been exchanged with ?. I then correct it and save the appointment but then the letters change again.

The example is from a colleague but the part about appointments are from my Outlook. And I have more colleagues with the same experience.

These are my advanced settings in Outlook:

I have not changed them - it is the default settings from when I installed Office (Microsoft 365 Premium).

I have tested the new Outlook but there it works fine. I can enter the agenda, save it, no changes. If I do the same in Outlook classic, the letters will change as soon as I save (update) the appointment or draft.

Any suggestions to solve the bug?

[Moderator note: personal info removed] 

Answer 1

Hi @Morten Fly

Thank you for posting your question in Microsoft Q&A. 

Please note that our forum is a public platform, and we will modify your question to hide your personal information in the description. Kindly ensure that you hide any personal or organizational information the next time you post an error or other details to protect personal data. 

Based on my research, Microsoft has acknowledged this issue and is currently investigating it in Outlook Classic for Windows. The behavior you’re experiencing, where Danish characters such as æ, Æ, ø, Ø, å, Å are replaced with “?”, matches the issue Microsoft has listed as affecting recent Classic Outlook builds.

As a workaround, you could consider the following options: 

Use Outlook Web Access (OWA) or the New Outlook.

This can temporarily help you avoid the issue in Classic Outlook. You’ve already noticed that New Outlook works correctly, which confirms you’re affected by the same known issue. 

Revert Classic Outlook to the previous version (Version 2512, Build 19530.20184).

You could consider rolling back to the previous working build and temporarily disable updates. After Microsoft releases a newer update, you can enable updates again and re‑test to confirm whether the issue is still present.

 

Disable Outlook automatically selecting the encoding for outgoing messages

Go to File > Options > Advanced.

Under International Options, uncheck Automatically select encoding for outgoing messages.

Remember to set a reminder for March 10th to re‑enable this option, or check back on the Known Issue page to see if Microsoft has released a fix earlier.

You can refer  more via: Classic Outlook replaces accented and extended characters with question marks - Microsoft Support 

If you have any additional concerns, feel free to comment below. I would be more than happy to assist. 

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