My problem:
I have a .NET application that sends out newsletters via email. When the newsletters are viewed in outlook, outlook displays a question mark in place
You can remove all control characters from your input string with something like this:
string input; // this is your input string
string output = new string(input.Where(c => !char.IsControl(c)).ToArray());
Here is the documentation for the IsControl() method.
Or if you want to keep letters and digits only, you can also use the IsLetter and IsDigit function:
string output = new string(input.Where(c => char.IsLetter(c) || char.IsDigit(c)).ToArray());