How to set Outlook to send outgoing messages in Unicode (UTF-8) – Exclaimer Knowledge Base

Scenario

You are using Exclaimer and you need to ensure that any language-specific characters display properly on the recipient's Outlook client.

Some languages (such as Spanish, Dutch, Greek and so on) use language-specific characters.

To resolve such issues, you can either:

Enable individual users to configure the encoding directly in their Outlook client - for more information, please see Foreign characters are not displayed correctly.

or
Set a global encoding policy for the recipients using Outlook at the server level.

Pre-requisites

Before you start to initiate the global encoding policy, please ensure:

You have the Administrative Template File (ADM) for the Outlook version that is used by your users. As required, please download the appropriate version.

"ADM files are template files that are used by Group Policies to describe where registry-based policy settings are stored in the registry. ADM files also describe the user interface that administrators see in the Group Policy Object Editor snap-in. Group Policy Object Editor is used by administrators when they create or modify Group Policy objects (GPOs)." - sourced from Microsoft.

Press the [Windows key] + [R] to display the Run window.
Enter gpedit.msc and press [Enter].
The Local Group Policy Editor window is displayed.
From the right-hand side, expand User Configuration then right-click Administrative Templates and select Add/Remove Templates....
Click Add and navigate to the folder where the AMD file is downloaded.

Once the AMD file has been successfully added, within the Administrative Templates list, you will see the Microsoft Outlook option.
Now, expand the Microsoft Outlook option, expand Outlook Options, expand Mail Format and select International Options.
From the right-hand side pane, double-click Encoding for outgoing messages.
The Encoding for outgoing messages window is displayed.
For Encoding for outgoing messages, select Enabled.
From the Options section, for Use this encoding for outgoing messages drop-down list, select the default Unicode (UTF-8) option.
Click OK to confirm your changes.