Most of us want to portray a professional image in all aspects of our work and personal life.

Over the past four years countless users of Outlook for Mac 2011 have reported issues that after formatting and sending their HTLM email (in basic fonts) that the recipient receives an email that not only is in a different font but the font and font sizes within sentences and paragraphs can vary greatly without any logical explanation.  In essence, your well formatted email is transformed into something a rebellious 5 year old would be proud of.  Here are some threads by way of example:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2011-macoutlook/font-problem-when-sending-email-with-office-2011/0b6a8321-383f-46ed-a85f-6d78d9dae6ad

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2011-macoutlook/outlook-for-mac-2011-mixed-font-size-and-type-when/62fcecdc-e358-41cb-a3c2-40c1c61f156c

Together we have all wasted thousands of hours trying to solve our problem in chat rooms and on help desk lines.  The biggest surprise is that the problem is worst between Outlook for Mac and Outlook for windows, both Microsoft products.  The Microsoft posts, help and support desks are not addressing the issue, whilst they always reply they are only providing "red herring" answers that fundamentally make no difference e.g. your OS is not compatible (no it is latest version), your computer is old (no Macbook pro with retina screen is not old), what version of Outlook for Mac are you running use (always the latest version because I am waiting for the problem to be fixed), use a text editor first (that doesn't fix the problem), it is the recipients email setup (but they are running outlook too and they have the same fonts installed) and as a last resort Microsoft explain in detail about rendering and pixels versus points.  We all purchased the Microsoft product because Microsoft are a leading IT company with really smart programmers and the product is meant to improve our productivity and professionalism, not impair it as the case has been.    

As a Outlook for Mac user please don't bother reporting the problem to Microsoft or queuing on their phone lines.  You need to understand that Office for Mac users have been doing that since 2010.  Your efforts will not make any difference at all.  The bottom line is, four years on there is still no fix for this problem.

Therefore if you want to send a professional looking email then do what most of us have been doing and put your old PC/laptop back on your desk and type the email on Outlook in HTML, format it and send it directly to the intended recipient.   Your email will arrive as intended.

If you want to keep using your new Mac running Outlook for Mac then turn off HTLM and have your email look like it is from the 1990's (no formatting).  Yes that is the official response from the Microsoft Supervisor in on the help desk and in many discussion threads. 

If you want Microsoft to take your concern seriously then:

1. Write to your local National consumer affairs association and complain that the product you purchased is "Office for Mac 2011 is not fit for purpose" because you are not able to compose and format an email (and for it to be received in an acceptable from by the recipient) as should be expected from the latest email client. 

2. Spread the news that there is no fix (as of March 2014).

As disappointing as the above is to hear, I hope it saves some frustration and allows you to take positive action that will bring about change.