This is such a dumb question, I'm embarassed that I can't figure it out for myself.

I use Outlook Express as my email client (don't need anything fancier for my very limited needs) running under Windows XP.

I have the option of creating or replying to emails using "Rich Text" (HTML) or "Plain Text".

When creating a new message, "Rich Text" is the default. When replying to a message, it always seems to default to "Plain Text" as the writing mode.

Is this because the message to which I am replying was sent as plain text and the default is just mimicing that message? Or is there a default I can set somewhere to always reply in Rich Text?

tanstaafl.