Email from SharePoint showing raw text line break <br />

Dear @Fausat Kasali,

Thank you for reaching out and for bringing this to our attention. I understand how confusing and inconvenient it can be when the email content does not display as expected.

From what you’ve described, this behavior usually occurs when SharePoint sends notification emails using HTML formatting, but the email client interprets part of the content as plain text. As a result, HTML line break tags such as <br /> may appear directly in the email body instead of being rendered as proper line breaks. This can depend on several factors, including how the email is generated by SharePoint and how the email client (for example, Outlook) processes or strips certain HTML styles.

To help me better understand the situation, may I ask whether this is the first time you’ve experienced this issue, or if it has happened before?

Additionally, to investigate this further and ensure I fully understand the formatting issue, could you please share a screenshot of the affected email with me via private message? This will allow me to review the exact content and formatting and check more accurately.

Please click here to check your private messages.

Thank you for your cooperation, and I appreciate your patience while I look into this for you.

The behavior is caused by how different email clients interpret and sometimes modify HTML, especially line breaks and formatting in HTML emails.

From the provided context, several related factors are known:

1. Plain text vs HTML handling in Outlook
   • Outlook can receive or convert messages to Plain Text, HTML, or Rich Text.
   • In Plain Text format, all HTML tags such as <br /> are treated as literal text and shown as <br /> instead of creating a visual line break.
   • Outlook also has a feature to remove extra line breaks in plain text messages, which can change how line breaks appear or disappear entirely.
2. Automatic conversion and stripping of formatting
   • Outlook may convert incoming HTML or Rich Text messages to plain text or another format depending on configuration or the recipient’s client. When this happens, formatting, pictures, and HTML tags can be lost or displayed as raw text.
   • For Rich Text (TNEF) messages, non‑Exchange systems may not interpret the format correctly, which can result in unexpected rendering.
3. Rendering engine and post‑processing of HTML
   • Outlook uses a rendering engine that may post‑process HTML emails, including inlining or stripping CSS and altering markup. This can cause differences between how the same HTML is rendered in different views or clients and can break expected formatting.

Putting this together for a SharePoint “Send as email” scenario:

• SharePoint generates an HTML email that includes <br /> tags for line breaks.
• If the recipient’s Outlook (or another client) converts the message to Plain Text or strips certain HTML/CSS, the <br /> tags are no longer interpreted as HTML and instead appear as raw text.
• Outlook’s plain text handling and line‑break removal feature can further change how breaks appear, making the issue more visible.

To avoid this behavior, the email must be received and rendered as HTML (not converted to plain text), and Outlook’s line‑break removal feature should not interfere with plain text messages.

References:

• Line breaks are removed in posts made in plain text format in Outlook
• Change the message format to HTML, Rich Text Format, or plain text in Outlook
• How message format affects email messages
• Troubleshooting: Fix email rendering issues
• How come the new outlook client is inconsistent in its' rendering of emails - Microsoft Q&A