![Diane Poremsky [Outlook MVP]](http://www.outlook-tips.net/images/2014/MVP_BlueOnly.png)
Occasionally people will see weird html text in their messages and think Outlook (or Word) is really screwed up. A few people think they are infected with a virus. If the text uses brackets like this: {HYPERLINK} it's a field code. Press Alt+F9 to toggle it the field and show or hide the code.
If the message contains real HTML tags, like <a href=, then it means an HTML message is malformed and Outlook is treating it as plain text, not HTML formatted. In most cases, it's a problem with the sending mail client but it also could be caused by either the sender's mail server or yours.
Published August 9, 2006. Last updated on June 17, 2011.