Share via

DSN Message Text

  • Article

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will reach end of support on April 11, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

 

Applies to: Exchange Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Exchange Server 2007 SP2, Exchange Server 2007 SP3

This topic explains what you can include in the text of a customized delivery status notification (DSN) message in Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and how to format that text in HTML.

You can include any information that you want to display to the recipient of the DSN message. For example, you can include a detailed description of the DSN, contact information for your help desk, and a link to your support department's Web site.

Note

Each DSN message can contain a maximum of 512 characters.

Because DSN messages can be displayed in HTML, you can embed HTML formatting tags in the DSN text. For example, if you want to make some text in your DSN message bold, enclose the text in <B> and </B> HTML tags. Table 1 provides some examples of valid HTML tags that can be used in DSN message text.

Table 1   Valid HTML tags for use in DSN messages

HTML tag Description

<B>

Bold start

</B>

Bold end

<A HREF="url">

Hyperlink start

</A>

Hyperlink end

<BR>

Link break

<EM>

Italic start

</EM>

Italic end

<P>

Paragraph start

</P>

Paragraph end

Note

By default, Exchange Server 2007 sends HTML DSN messages, but you can configure whether Exchange Server 2007 sends HTML DSN messages to internal senders, external senders, or both. To configure this behavior, modify the InternalDsnSendHtml parameter and the ExternalDsnSendHtml parameter with the Set-TransportServer command.
If the InternalDsnSendHtml parameter is set to $false, Exchange Server 2007 suppresses HTML tags in DSN messages that are sent to internal senders. If the ExternalDsnSendHtml parameter is set to $false, Exchange Server 2007 suppresses HTML tags in DSN messages that are sent to external senders.

The following characters that Exchange Server 2007 uses in DSN message text have special meanings:

  • The greater-than sign (>)

  • The less-than sign (<)

  • The ampersand (&)

  • Double quotation marks (")

These characters are used to determine where HTML tags begin and end, and where text that should be displayed to senders starts and ends. If you want to display these characters in your DSN messages, you must use the escape codes in Table 2.

Table 2   DSN message character escape codes

Escape code Character

&lt;

<

&gt;

>

&quot;

"

&amp;

&

Important

If you include an HTML tag in your DSN message text that contains double quotation marks ("), such as <A HREF="url">, you must use single quotation marks (') around the whole DSN message text. You will receive an error if you use double quotation marks around the whole DSN message text and around an HTML tag.

For example, if you want to display the message "Please contact the Help Desk at <1234>.", you must add "Please contact the Help Desk at &lt;1234&gt;." to the DSN message text.

For More Information

For more information about how to manage DSNs, see the following topics: