Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions concerning these web pages.
gboyd@expita.com
There are a three main reasons for NOT doing this:
However, when you send an attached word processor file, it will appear on the other end as the exact same type of file. The recipient must have hardware and software that can read that file. For example, if you attach an MS Word file, and the recipient of your message is using a word processor that can't open MS Word files, that person isn't going to be able to open your attachment.
Plain text is how your messages should be formatted when sending Email to mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups or to any other recipient. Though this rule is not yet cast in "Netiquette" stone, it is a good policy to follow if you want quick and informative responses to your questions and wish to avoid being "flamed" as a clueless newbie.
HTML is meant for the WWW; not for mailing lists, Usenet newsgroups postings, proper business Email correspondence and preferably not for personal Email unless the recipient is expecting it.
MIME encoded mail is used to send attachments that consist of pictures, sound files, spreadsheets, word-processing documents, zip files, or other binary files to recipients that have use the same operating system, the same word processing program and a common Email program such as Eudora, Pegasus, Netscape, or Outlook.
These types of files are not wanted on mailing lists, Usenet newsgroups postings, business Email correspondence, and preferably not for personal Email unless the recipient is expecting it.
There are now a variety of HTML/MIME programs, including but not limited to:
If options are available for turning off attachments, do so, except perhaps for specific correspondents known to have the ability to view the attachments. This is particularly relevant to users of mail systems in Microsoft operating environments.
Microsoft TNEF data (WINMAIL.DAT attachments), for example, which was very common during 1996 and 1997, is not something that most Internet correspondents can presently handle. In addition to attachments, TNEF data may include links to OLE objects, fonts, colors, and other information that doesn't have the same form or meaning outside a Microsoft operating environment.
Agent currently does MIME quoted printable. Free Agent does not.
The MIME quoted printable option can be configured separately for each language you have configured in Agent.
AOL automatically converts all attachments to MIME when you click on the "Attach" button. So don't use this button.
AOL now supports Multipart/Alternative formatted messages which means that a single message sent from a user now contains a plain-text version and a formatted version. Users who use email programs that do NOT support HTML will be able to read the plain-text version of the message without any of the cryptic HTML codes.
Likewise, if the email client supports the HTML format, then the user will read that version.
The headers will show the Content-Type line similar to:
Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=blah...blah... Content-Disposition: Inline X-Mailer: 6.0 sub 171
AOL recommends this method to send plain text:
The headers may show the Content-Type line similar to:
Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: 6.0 sub 336
The "Customer Care" folks at AOL also offer the following solution: Use AOL Mail on the Web to send mail to Internet addresses that don't allow formatting - AOL Mail on the Web sends mail as plain text only.
NOTE: To use AOL Mail on the Web you will need to signoff AOL.
The Unofficial AOL Email FAQ recommends that an AOL 6.0 user can turn off the HTML using the following steps:
Note that changing the text to normal will eliminate the "blue bar" quoted text indicator, but will not remove some HTML elements of the quoted text. The entire quoted section must be deleted (or simply not quoted in the first place), followed by the re-entry of the text quoted manually, prior to changing the text to normal. Changing the text to normal will also eliminate any styled text that would have been seen by AOL recipients of the message, which cannot be re-added. Testing also suggests that messages with hyperlinks cannot be converted to normal text, requiring the prior removal of the link.
You can have Eudora warn you before sending messages that contain styled text or HTML.
If you want to make sure that you never accidentally send a message with styled or HTML text, you can have Eudora automatically discard the styles before sending any message.
This means that even if your message is filled with bold and italics, colors, and font changes, the message will be sent out without any of this formatting; instead it will be stripped down to the basic plain text before Eudora sends it. Also, the quoted-printable method of character encoding (used by non-US versions for foreign character recognition) can cause some formatting problems for some mail readers. If you do not need to type these foreign characters, you should turn off the quoted- printable option.
If you want to make sure that you never accidentally send a message with styled or HTML text, you can have Eudora automatically discard the styles before sending any message.
This means that even if your message is filled with bold and italics, colors, and font changes, the message will be sent out without any of this formatting; instead it will be stripped down to the basic plain text before Eudora sends it. Also, the quoted-printable method of character encoding (used by non-US versions for foreign character recognition) can cause some formatting problems for some mail readers. If you do not need to type these foreign characters, you should turn off the quoted- printable option.
Eudora Pro has a "Styled Text" option, which makes messages available in RTF. Currently Eudora Pro doesn't support HTML within the body of a message. When posting a message to a mailing list, you can click on the button on the far right of each individual message's tool bar to "Clear Formatting." You can also set up the options to either warn you of outgoing messages that contain styled text or to discard the styles before sending the messages:
You can have Eudora turn off MIME encoding when sending messages that contain special characters.
Eudora automatically uses quoted-printable (MIME) encoding if your mail contains special characters. Eudora also uses quoted-printable encoding for attached plain text files. If your recipients don't have MIME, then just turn off the QP button in the message icon bar when you are sending text files to those recipients.
Eudora Pro has a "Styled Text" option, which makes messages available in HTML format within the body of a message. When posting a message to a mailing list, you can click on the button on the far right of each individual message's tool bar to "Clear Formatting." You can also set up the options to either send plain text or styled text or both.
You can have Eudora turn off MIME encoding when sending messages that contain special characters.
Eudora automatically uses quoted-printable (MIME) encoding if your mail contains special characters. Eudora also uses quoted-printable encoding for attached plain text files. If your recipients don't have MIME, then just turn off the QP button in the message icon bar when you are sending text files to those recipients.
Eudora has a "Styled Text" option, which makes messages available in HTML format within the body of a message. When posting a message to a mailing list, you can click on the button on the far right of each individual message's tool bar to "Clear Formatting." You can also set up the options to either send plain text or styled text or both.
You can have Eudora turn off MIME encoding when sending messages that contain special characters.
Eudora automatically uses quoted-printable (MIME) encoding if your mail contains special characters. Eudora also uses quoted-printable encoding for attached plain text files. If your recipients don't have MIME, then just turn off the QP button in the message icon bar when you are sending text files to those recipients.
With Juno you can now send HTML e-mail as well as plain text messages. The default format for new messages you compose in the Write screen is plain text. As you write your message and add any kind of formatting (color, images, font), the format automatically changes to HTML. If you know that the person you are sending the message to uses an e-mail program that is not HTML compatible, make sure to change the message format to plain text (otherwise, the person might not be able to read your message).
To change the e-mail message format to plain text:
If you want to override the default for any individual message, click on "Format" within the message and choose the desired format. Outlook 2000 lets you select the email format for a mail message on-the-fly. You can start a new message in a different format than the standard one by selecting New Mail Message Using from the Actions menu (you can select stationery from this menu too).
Outlook doesn't have any way to select the mail format to use when sending mail to a particular recipient when you use the drop-down list on a contact item or an address list entry.
Unfortunately Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and 5 come packaged with mail programs whose default configuration is to send HTML formatted mail.
MSIE comes with the program Outlook Express as its mail client. To configure Outlook Express to send text only messages:
All of your messages will now be sent as plain text. Outlook Express 4.x can also be configured to send Business Cards (also referred to as vCards) with your email. These are attachments, which show up as strings of unreadable code on most mailing lists. To turn these off:
All of your messages will now be sent as plain text. Outlook Express 5.x can also be configured to send Business Cards (also referred to as vCards) with your email. These are attachments, which show up as strings of unreadable code on most mailing lists. To turn these off:
MORE TO BE ADDED
When in a new message screenUnfortunately, Netscape Communicator 4.5, 4.6, 4.7 also come packaged with mail programs whose default configuration is to send HTML formatted mail.
Netscape Messenger can also be configured to send Address Book Cards (also referred to as vCards) with your email. These are attachments, which show up as strings of unreadable code on most mailing lists. To turn these off:
Unfortunately, Netscape Communicator 4 also comes packaged with mail programs whose default configuration is to send HTML formatted mail.
Netscape Messenger can also be configured to send Address Book Cards (also referred to as vCards) with your email. These are attachments, which show up as strings of unreadable code on most mailing lists. To turn these off:
Unfortunately, Netscape Communicator 3 also comes packaged with mail programs whose default configuration is to send HTML formatted mail.
The original version of Outlook 97 (the one without the Office 97 Service Release 1 (SR1) installed) automatically formats all messages you send when you hit the "Reply" button in Rich Text Format, which then shows as an attachment on a mailing list (or in any email program other than Microsoft Exchange or Outlook). This "Reply bug" can be fixed in any of the following four ways:
If you are using your Outlook 97 address book to send messages to the mail list, make certain you do not have Rich Text Format selected for that address book entry:
If you are using your Outlook 97 address book to send messages to the mail list, make certain you do not have Rich Text Format selected for that address book entry:
MSN Explorer Tech support states "that MSN Explorer and MSN.com send web-based HTML email only and cannot be configured to send plain text."
However, if you use MSN as your mail service (i.e., username@msn.com) you can simply go to Hotmail.com and send email from there in plain text (via their so-called PASSPORT system). Same inbox, address book, etc.
You just have to remember to send or reply to POP3 and plain text email from Hotmail and not from MSN. A real nuisance but at least an option.
Unfortunately the transfer to Hotmail from Msn.com email takes you through 3 screens and requires you to reenter your password even if you checked the "remember my password" box.
Note: As you close the various windows on the way back a message will appear, advising that "configuration changes will not take effect until the next time you log onto Internet Mail".
When I send mail to an Internet mailing list, its members complain that my messages contain big binary attachments called WINMAIL.DAT. What's happening? How can I get rid of these?
Either intentionally or accidentally, you have been sending messages in Microsoft rich text format to recipients using mail programs that cannot decipher this format.
When Exchange thinks that it is sending mail to another Exchange user on the Internet, Exchange (more properly, the Internet Mail message service provider) encodes the message, along with attached files, embedded OLE objects, and their associated icons, into a special data block called the TNEF (pronounced tee-neff) block. This block can be seen in the mail header and looks similar to:
------ =_NextPart_000_01BB9403.FCDBDA20 Content-Type: application/ms-tnef Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
This block encapsulates the complete original content of the Exchange message, so that the message arrives at its destination with all proper formatting intact, including boldface, underlining, fonts, and colors. Otherwise, Exchange formats the message in an Internet standard fashion, discarding all rich text attributes and ensuring that all attached files appear as standard attachments.
The problem arises when people not using Exchange or Outlook receive a message in the TNEF format: instead of seeing a formatted message, they see a big chunk of UUENCODE data if the sender used UUENCODE format, or a MIME body part application/ms-tnef if the sender used MIME. Depending on which mail program they use, they may either see a long sequence of hexadecimal digits, or they may see an attached binary file named WINMAIL.DAT.
Exchange specifies whether it emits TNEF or not as a property of the recipient, appearing as a field on the property page of the underlined recipient object within an Exchange To or Cc field. (The underline in the To field means that Exchange has recognized the name, and associated an address and other information with it.) To see this recipient property page, double click the underlined recipient: when using either the Internet Mail provider or Microsoft Exchange Server, the popup that appears should include a check box labeled Send to this recipient in Microsoft rich text format. If this check box is set, Exchange/Internet Mail will use a TNEF block when sending messages to that user; otherwise, it will strip the rich information and send plain text. The sender can also set and clear this flag on entries in the Personal Address Book. Should the sender address a message using an entry from the Address Book, Exchange will use the setting of this flag from that entry.
Never set this check box if you suspect that your recipient isn't using Exchange or Outlook, or if you are sending mail to an Internet mailing list. Otherwise, your mail will include binary garbage.
Here's how to turn it off:
Step #1:
Step #2:
Note: Either of these methods should work for most users, but sometimes nothing seems to work - yet another brilliant design strategy by Microsoft. If you plan to be sending lots of internet email, you should seriously consider using a mail program more suited to the task, such as Pegasus or Eudora.
Note: A bug ("feature"?) in Exchange may cause line feeds to be replaced with equal signs when rich text mail is disabled.
Unfortunately, there are several ways to send Internet mail messages in TNEF format by accident.
Some workarounds:
Microsoft has their own explanation of this phenomenon in the Knowledge Base article Q136204 (XCLN: Sending Messages In Rich-Text Format)
Microsoft also has an article on how to prevent WINMAIL.DAT from being sent in the Knowledge Base article Q138053 (XFOR: How to Prevent the Winmail.dat File from Being Sent to Internet Users)
The entire preceding discussion assumes that you are using either the Internet Mail (SMTP/POP3) or Microsoft Exchange Server messaging service. If instead you are using the Microsoft Mail messaging service, and depending on a Microsoft Mail gateway to carry your message onto the Internet, you are out of luck, unless you have a gateway clever enough to strip WINMAIL.DAT.
When I send mail to Internet users, they complain that my text has equals signs at the end of each line. What is this? How can I make it stop?
You are sending your messages in the MIME message format. The Microsoft Windows95 Plus! Internet Mail transport bundles message plain text into a MIME format called Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-Printable. The mail header usually shows something similar to:
Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
If you find this bothersome, you have several options. You can keep all of your lines less than 76 characters long, in which case the Internet Mail service provider will not have to insert these soft line break sequences. You can send your mail in a format other than MIME, via the Message Format setting. If your correspondent is using Exchange, you can specify that Exchange send rich text along with the message. Or your correspondent can use a MIME mail reader, which presumably will know how to handle this encoding correctly.
If your message contains extended characters, the Internet Mail service may intersperse equals sign MIME escape sequences into the plain text body of your message, and may append the following preamble to your message:
Sender composed mail containing characters not in
the US-ASCII set
These characters have been transformed into a
printable form.
This is identified in the mail header under the Content-Type line similar to:
Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
To correct this, change your default character set from ISO 8859-1 to US ASCII, or else take any of the precautions listed above. For more information, see the Knowledge Base article Q146629 (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Lines End with a "="). The mail headers should then show:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Note that the Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector (IMC) only encodes content this way on multipart MIME messages. When the IMC processes a message lacking extended characters or attachments, it instead hard wraps the plain text.
This is identified in the mail header under the Content-Type line similar to:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
To correct this, change your default character set from ISO 8859-1 to US ASCII.
For Windows 95 do the following:
By default all mail in Lotus Notes is in the Notes Rich Text Format but may be set to MIME.
To send mail or news postings in plain text or HTML or both:
Generally it is assumed that the email server does not alter the message at all, and that the sender and their client software is entirely in control of the message which is sent. In some systems, such as Lotus ccMail, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange or Novell Groupwise, the client and server do not follow this model, do not use Internet standards and do not necessarily follow the conventions and standards of Internet email. In those cases compatibility with Internet standards may be handled by a third item of software - a gateway. Thus there can be problems of a significant difference between what the sender sees when they write the email (which is probably similar to how it appears to recipients in their office), and what is actually sent to Internet recipients.
Users of Internet compliant software sometimes disparage the continued use of proprietary systems such as Novell Groupwise or Lotus Notes, based on the awkward or hard-to-read emails they sometimes receive from these systems. However their continued use is inevitable since within their own system they provide additional powerful "groupware" functionality which is valuable to larger organizations and which cannot currently be provided with standard Internet protocols. All these systems can be configured to respect Internet technical standards and conventions (although perhaps not in a way which the sender can see or control) - the problem is that they are sometimes mis-configured by default, creating difficulties for all their users.
Some email client programs can be configured (or are configured by default) to send each paragraph as one long line. Some email systems such as Groupwise (and apparently Lotus Notes), have a single setting in the server (the Message Transfer Agent, which may include a SMTP gateway) which either wraps all outgoing emails of all users to a particular line length, or sends all emails of all users with each paragraph as an arbitrarily long line (unless the user manually sets the line length by pressing "enter"). In neither case does the user control this single, system-wide, setting. Nor may the server's wrapping correspond to what they see on screen when writing.
Arbitrarily long lines can be sent within SMTP standards using the "quoted-printable" MIME type.
If such arbitrarily long lines are sent as plain text, then the 1,000 character limit of SMTP may be reached and the sending client or system may wrap the line arbitrarily there, or may send it out longer than 1,000 characters. If this happens, a recipient SMTP server may reject it, or break the line. In one instance a plain text email from Groupwise 4.2 exceeded the 1,000 character per line limit. That paragraph, of 1,253 characters was broken in mid word by a SMTP server just before the 1,000th character. This and later versions of Groupwise are used in a significant number of VET institutes, where the system is valued for many functions apart from its Internet email capabilities.
Quoting styles. The established approach to quoting a line of text: "> " or ">" is no longer the only approach. Other methods, which are the default in Groupwise and perhaps other clients or email systems, are much harder to understand, at least in some circumstances, since they mark only the start of the paragraph as a comment, rather than the start of each line. A plethora of incompatible quoting styles is a source of error and frustration for novices and experienced users alike - so an operational guideline standardise on "> " or ">" was decided upon, with the matter to be reviewed within 12 months or so.
NOTE: 8-bit characters are treated - this radio
group allows you to set the method used to handle
8-bit (non-ASCII) characters. If you are using
only the English alphabet, this feature is not
very significant to you because all English
characters are ASCII characters and will go
through the net without any problems. However, if
you are using accented characters or character
sets other than English, you should choose the
method carefully because there still are some
mail servers which do not allow appearance of
8-bit characters in email messages. If you are
not sure that such servers are functioning in the
way you write your messages, it is better to
choose either Base64 or Quoted-printable
encoding. The difference between these two
encoding methods is that Base64 produces totally
unreadable text. Quoted-printable encoding still
can be read if your alphabet is almost Latin,
only accented characters are encoded. If your
recipient's are using The Bat! or another program
which can recognise Base64 and quoted-printable
encoding automatically, you may choose either of
these two methods.
Last Revised: February 22, 2001
Please let me know if you have any questions, comments,
or suggestions concerning these web pages.
gboyd@expita.com