I gather from the comments in this thread that use of HTML in e-mail is problematic, though I do not appreciate the condescending tone. Several posters in this thread, myself included, are genuinely annoyed/inconvenienced by this behavior in our e-mail clients, and we came here seeking advice, not derision. Also, as far as I can tell no one has actually provided a useful suggestion as to how to overcome the problem.
My particular problem is that often when I copy-paste some text from one e-mail into a new e-mail, I cannot insert the text into the precise location I want. Instead, the pasted text always appears a line above where I want it, usually at the beginning of the paragraph. This behavior occurs whether I am using Outlook 2011 OR Apple Mail. It also occurs whether I am using my company's e-mail account (an exchange server) OR my personal e-mail account (gmail imap), in either client (Outlook or Mail). Shutting off HTML formatting is a successful workaround, but means I cannot embed clickable links which make my messages more convenient for the recipients. I am running Lion 10.7.4.
I have used HTML-enabled e-mail for many years and have never experienced this annoyance before. I only encountered these problems after switching jobs to a new company, and also switching from Snow Leopard to Lion. Up until finding this thread, I didn't know whether the different behavior was due to my new company or the upgraded OS. I use Mail on my home mac (Snow Leopard) and don't have these problems. I use both Mail and Outlook on my company work mac (using the same e-mail accounts) and DO have these problems (Lion).
I gather from one of the comments here that different companies somehow apply different standards for HTML e-mail on their installed e-mail clients? Is this true? Is there any reason to think this is somehow related to Snow Leopard vs. Lion?