How to fix question marks (?) replacing accented characters in Classic Outlook email signatures

Short answer:
If accented or special characters in your email signature are replaced with question marks (?), Classic Outlook typically uses an incorrect character encoding. Changing the message encoding to Unicode (UTF-8) usually resolves the issue.

This issue can affect characters such as:

• é, è, ê
• ä, ö, ü
• å, æ, ø
• ç, ñ
• Other language-specific or extended Unicode characters

The problem is not caused by Xink itself but by how Classic Outlook encodes the email message when the signature is inserted.

Symptoms

You may notice one or more of the following:

• Accented characters display correctly in Xink.
• Accented characters display correctly in Outlook settings or signature previews.
• After inserting the signature, some characters appear as question marks (?).
• Recipients receive question marks instead of the original characters.

Why this happens

Classic Outlook supports multiple message encoding formats.

If Outlook is configured to use a legacy encoding rather than Unicode (UTF-8), characters not supported by the selected code page may be replaced with question marks.

This commonly occurs in multilingual environments where signatures contain international characters.

Solution: Change Outlook encoding to Unicode (UTF-8)

1. Open Classic Outlook.
2. Click File > Options.
3. Select Advanced.
4. Scroll to the International options section.
5. Under Preferred encoding for outgoing messages, select Unicode (UTF-8).
   
   
   
6. Click OK.
7. Restart Outlook.

Verify the result

1. Create a new email.
2. Insert or refresh your Xink signature.
3. Confirm that accented and special characters display correctly.
4. Send a test message to verify the recipient also sees the correct characters.

Troubleshooting

Only some users experience the issue

The encoding setting is configured locally in Outlook. Two users can have different encoding settings even when using the same Xink template.

The issue only occurs in Classic Outlook

This behaviour is typically associated with Classic Outlook for Windows. New Outlook and Outlook on the web generally use modern Unicode handling and are less likely to experience this issue.

The signature contains "ÿþ"

If your signature contains ÿþ, the issue is typically caused by a character encoding mismatch rather than a missing character.

The characters ÿþ often appear when text encoded in UTF-16 is interpreted using a different encoding format.

If you see ÿþ in your signature, review any imported signature content, employee data sources, or third-party tools that may be modifying the signature before it reaches Outlook.

This issue is different from accented characters being replaced with question marks (?), but is also related to character encoding.

The characters are already stored as question marks in Xink

If the employee data or template content already contains question marks, update the original data source and re-sync the employee information before testing again.

Related articles

• Microsoft: Classic Outlook replaces accented and extended characters with question marks
• How to update email signatures in Outlook using the Xink Outlook add-in

Need help?

If changing the encoding does not resolve the issue, contact your IT administrator or Xink Support and include:

• A screenshot showing the incorrect characters.
• Your Outlook version.
• An example of the affected text.
• Whether the issue occurs in Classic Outlook, New Outlook, or Outlook on the web.