Is there any way to inject a French character in an Outlook Express
message, one complete with the appropriate accent?

Dear nautico-ga
I?m glad you asked this, it has forced me into finding out the correct
way it should be done. Before, I have always prepared it in Word and
cut and pasted it onto an HMTL format email.

However, this was is a lot easier using ANSI character set numbers:

Open up Outlook Express and open an email. Put on your number lock. To
type an e acute, hold down the Alt key and type 0233 on the number
pad, then release the Alt key. The letter should then appear.
The list of ANSI codes appear at www.fingertipsoft.com/3dkbd/ansitable.html
Ensure you place a zero at the start of each code. 
I?ve sent some emails and it works okay for me.

This and other suggestions / alternatives appear on
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/netnews/story/0,12582,862264,00.html
and
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,875195,00.html


I hope this answers your question. If it does not, or the answer is
unclear, or it does not work, then please ask for clarification of
this research before rating the answer. I shall respond to the
clarification request as soon as I receive it.
Thank you
answerfinder

Search strategy
"outlook express" french accent
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22outlook+express%22+french+accent

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Clarification of Answer by answerfinder-ga on 09 Feb 2004 00:25 PST

Dear nautico-ga,
As Owain observes there may be a problom if you're using US ACII. If
this applies to you, click on this link and go to the bottom of the
page to the section 'Accents on email'.
http://www.lrc.salemstate.edu/aske/accents.htm
Thanks for the tip, but do ask for clarification if you have trouble
with any of this. I'll monitor it.
answerfinder-ga

Great! Many thanks!

As well as inserting the character in the body of the message, it may
be necessary to go to Format | Encoding and specify an encoding method
that supports accented characters (such as Western European ISO).

If the message is sent in US ASCII the accent probably won't make it through. 

If the message is being sent in reply to one including correctly
formatted characters OE may detect and use a correct encoding
automaticall, or warn if characters may be lost.

Owain

I have encoding set at Western European (Windows) and the accents made
it through intact. For some reason, though, I now don't see US ASCII
as one of the choices in that drop-down menu. Where might it have
gone?

Dear nautico-ga,
I'm a little in the dark as I'm in the UK, I do not have US ASCII on
my settings. To clarify your query, if you go to Tools> Options> Send>
International Settings. Does US ASCII appear there in the drop down
list?
answerfinder-ga

No, US ASCII does not appear there as a choice. Perhaps it never did!

In that case, as long as it works, leave it as it is. 
Any further problems, do get in contact.
answerfinder-ga