How Do You Fix Broken Umlauts in Outlook Signatures?

Struggling with Broken Umlaut Errors in Outlook Signatures? Try These Effective Fixes Today!

Sometimes, Outlook 365 signatures stored in the cloud fail to display umlauts correctly. This issue has frustrated administrators and users alike. It’s not isolated—several reports confirm sporadic occurrences across Microsoft 365 accounts. The culprit seems to be the “Store my Outlook settings in the cloud” option, which can lead to encoding issues.

When Outlook saves signatures in the cloud, it uses roaming signature files. These files sometimes adopt incorrect encoding (e.g., charset=windows-1252), causing special characters like umlauts to break. Disabling cloud storage or manually correcting the encoding resolves the issue.

Solutions to Fix Umlaut Issues

Here are actionable fixes for resolving this problem:

Solution 1: Disable Cloud Storage for Signatures

1. Go to Outlook Settings > General > Store my Outlook settings in the cloud.
2. Uncheck this option.
3. Move your signatures to a local profile.

Solution 2: Modify Registry Settings

Prevent roaming signature files by adding this registry entry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Setup]
"DisableRoamingSignaturesTemporaryToggle"=dword:00000001

Save this as a .reg file. Double-click it to apply changes.

Solution 3: Correct Signature Encoding Manually

Use Notepad++ to fix encoding issues:

1. Open Outlook > File > Options > Email > Signatures (hold CTRL while clicking).
2. Locate the signature folder.
3. Right-click the desired .html file > Open with Notepad++.
4. Go to Encoding > Select UTF-8 > Convert to ANSI.
5. Save changes.

Repeat for all affected .html files.

Automated Fix: Abneco’s Repair Tool

A French developer created a Java-based tool that automatically corrects encoding issues in Outlook signatures. Here’s how it works:

• Source: Available on GitHub under neuronics-outlook-correctif-encodage-signature.
• Functionality: Scans .htm files in the signature folder, identifies corrupt characters, and fixes them.
• Backup: Automatically creates backups before making changes.

Requirements

• Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 21 (download from Adoptium).
• Correctly configured JAVA_HOME and PATH environment variables.

Execution Command

java -jar "-Dlog4j.skipJansi=false -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Dsun.stdout.encoding=UTF-8 -Dsun.stderr.encoding=UTF-8" .\neuronics-outlook-corrective-encodage-signature-2025-1.0.0.jar

Risks

The tool is open-source, but usage is at your own risk. Inspect the code on GitHub before proceeding.

This guide simplifies complex technical fixes into actionable steps, ensuring you can resolve broken umlauts in Outlook signatures efficiently.