What is wrong with sending HTML and MIME messages?
There are a three main reasons for NOT doing this:
- Many Email and Usenet News reader programs, usually the mail and news
reader programs that come with browser packages, allow users to include binary
attachments or formatted text within their Email messages. They even allow HTML
that is normally used in web pages. This makes URLs into clickable links and it
means that graphics can also be included in Email messages. While this makes
your Email pretty and interesting to look at, it can cause many problems for
other people who receive your Email because they may use different Email
programs, different computer systems, and different word processing programs,
whose files are often not fully compatible with each other. Any of these can
cause trouble with attachments. Most of the time all they see is the actual
HTML code behind the message. In some cases, the message is nothing but garbled
text. 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.
- HTML or MIME messages are larger and more wasteful than simple text
messages. Using HTML or MIME in Email messages makes the messages larger in
size by some two thirds. These will take longer to download and they take up
more storage space than standard Email messages. Email storage is important
because many people retain copies of messages they receive and in the case of
mailing list digests, the individual messages are combined in one large message
and sent to the user at the end of the day. In addition, the mailings lists
archive the messages for periods of up to 6 months to enable users to search
for particular postings at a later time.
- HTML or MIME messages leave or include unwanted files (attachments) on the
machines of the recipients of these messages.
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.
Turning Off HTML or MIME
There are now a variety of HTML/MIME programs, including but not limited to:
-
-
For creators of MIME messages, here are some suggestions
- Know how your attachments are going to be sent. Bear in mind that what's
reasonable for another recipient isn't necessarily reasonable for the rest of
the world. For example, sending a Microsoft Word document as an attachment
might not work out as well as you think it should. 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.
- Be somewhat conservative about Content-Types when sending to mailing lists
or other public forums, or consider using multipart/alternative.
- Watch character set selections and content transfer encodings. For example,
some commonly used character sets computers use 8 bits, not the standard 7
bits.
Agent/Free Agent
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.
- Select Options
- Select General Preferences
- Select Languages
- Under Usenet Text and Email Text, make sure MIME is off.
AOL 5.0 and earlier
AOL automatically converts all attachments to MIME when you click on the
"Attach" button. So don't use this button.
AOL 6.0
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:
- Make sure your font is set to Arial (which should be the default).
- Type your message (in Arial) and then highlight it. Then, right mouse
click, select text, then select normal.
- Send your plain text message.
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.
Eudora Light v3.0.5 and earlier
You can have Eudora warn you before sending messages that contain styled
text or HTML.
- Click on Tools: Options
- Select the Extra Warnings category
- Check the box for Warn me when I "Queue a message with Styled
Text".
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.
- Click on Tools: Options
- Select the Styled Text tab
- Check the box for "Discard styles before sending messages"
- Click on Tools: Options
- Select the Sending Mail category
- Uncheck the check box for "May use quoted-printable"
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 Light v3.0.6
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.
- Click on Tools: Options
- Select the Sending Mail category
- Uncheck the check box for "May use quoted-printable"
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 v4.0.2 and earlier
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:
- Click on Tools: Options
- Highlight (Select) Styled Text
- Check either or both of these boxes:
- Warn me when I queue a message with styled text.
- Discard styles before sending 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 v4.2 and later
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.
- Click on Tools: Options
- Check these 3 boxes:
- Show formatting toolbar - If this is on, the formatting toolbar displays by
default in new message windows. If this is off, the formatting toolbar is
hidden by default in new message windows. This toolbar lets you easily format
text styles in new messages.
- Send plain text only
- Ask me each time - If this is on, you are warned when you try to send or
queue a message with text styles. And you are given the option to send a plain
text version, an HTML version, or both in a single message.
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 v5.0
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.
- Click on Tools: Options
- Check these 3 boxes:
- Show formatting toolbar - If this is on, the formatting toolbar displays by
default in new message windows. If this is off, the formatting toolbar is
hidden by default in new message windows. This toolbar lets you easily format
text styles in new messages.
- Send plain text only
- Ask me each time - If this is on, you are warned when you try to send or
queue a message with text styles. And you are given the option to send a plain
text version, an HTML version, or both in a single message.
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.
Juno v5.0
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:
- On the Edit menu, point to E-mail Message Format, point to View as and
click Plain Text.
- In the Remove Formatting dialog box, click Yes to change the format.
Outlook 2000
- Select "Tools" then click on "Options..."
- Click on "Mail Format" tab
- In the "Message Format" section, the pull-down menu in "Send
in this message format" list offers three choices: Plain Text, Microsoft
Rich Text, and HTML. Select Plain Text.
NOTE: there is a "Send e-mail using plain text only" checkbox on the
properties sheet of an address book entry, but it doesn't do anything if you
have the HTML mail format selected here.
- Make sure the check box is unchecked (empty) in front of "Use
Microsoft Word to edit e-mail messages".
NOTE: Outlook Help states that you can switch message formats after starting an
email message, but this doesn't work if you use Word as your email editor, only
if you use the internal Outlook mail editor (and then only switch between plain
text and HTML formats).
- Click OK
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.
MS Internet Explorer 4.0, 5.0 and 5.50
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:
Outlook Express 4.0
- Select "Tools" then click on "Options..."
- Click on "Send" tab
- In the "Mail Sending Format" and "News Sending Format"
sections, click on "Plain Text" bullet in both places
- In the "Mail Sending Format" section, click on "Plain Text
Settings..." button.
- In the "Plain Text Settings" window and the Message format
section
- Click MIME bullet
- Set "Encode text using:" to None.
- Uncheck the "Allow 8-bit characters in headers"
- Set Automatically wrap text at 72
- Check the box in front of "Indent original text with> when
replying or forwarding"
- Click OK
- In the "News Sending Format" section, click on "Plain Text
Settings..." button.
- In the "Plain Text Settings" window and the Message format
section
- Click MIME bullet
- Set "Encode text using:" to None.
- Uncheck the "Allow 8-bit characters in headers"
- Set Automatically wrap text at 72
- Check the box in front of "Indent original text with> when
replying or forwarding"
- Click OK
- While still in the "Send" tab, Uncheck "Reply to messages
using the format in which they were sent"
- Click on "OK" and on "OK" again.
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:
- Select "Tools" then click on "Stationery..."
- In the "Signature" area, click on the "Signature"
button.
- In the "Personal Business Card" area, uncheck the check box in
front of "Attach card to all outgoing messages"
- Click on "OK" and on "OK" again.
Outlook Express 5.0 and 5.50
- Select "Tools" then click on "Options..."
- Click on "Send" tab
- In the "Mail Sending Format" and "News Sending Format"
sections, click on "Plain Text" bullet in both places
- In the "Mail Sending Format" section, click on "Plain Text
Settings..." button.
- In the "Plain Text Settings" window and the Message format
section
- Click MIME bullet
- Set "Encode text using:" to None.
- Uncheck the "Allow 8-bit characters in headers"
- Set Automatically wrap text at 72
- Check the box in front of "Indent the original text with> when
replying or forwarding"
- Click OK
- In the "News Sending Format" section, click on "Plain Text
Settings..." button.
- In the "Plain Text Settings" window and the Message format
section
- Click MIME bullet
- Set "Encode text using:" to None.
- Uncheck the "Allow 8-bit characters in headers"
- Set Automatically wrap text at 72
- Check the box in front of "Indent the original text with> when
replying or forwarding"
- Click OK
- While still in the "Send" tab, Uncheck "Reply to messages
using the format in which they were sent"
- Click on "Apply" and then on "OK".
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:
- Select "Tools" then click on "Options..."
- Click on "Compose" tab
- In the "Business Card" area, uncheck the check boxes in front of
Mail and News for "Include my business card when creating new
messages."
- Click on "Apply" and then on "OK".
Netscape Communicator 6.0
DETAILS TO BE ADDED
Netscape Communicator 4.5, 4.6, 4.7
Unfortunately, Netscape Communicator 4.5, 4.6, 4.7 also come packaged with
mail programs whose default configuration is to send HTML formatted mail.
- Select "Edit" then click on "Preferences..."
- Click on the plus sign "+" before "Mail &
Newsgroups"
- Click on "Messages" in left pane
- In the "Forward and Replying to Messages", change the "By
default, forward messages:" to Inline.
- In the "Send messages that use 8-bit characters", click on
"As is".
- Click on "Formatting" in left pane
- In the section "Message formatting", click on "Use the plain
text editor to compose messages"
- In the section "When sending HTML mail messages...", click on
"Ask me what to do..."
- Click on "OK".
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:
- Select "Edit" then click on "Preferences..."
- Click on the plus sign "+" before "Mail &
Newsgroups"
- Click on "Identity" in the left pane
- Uncheck the check box that says "Attach my personal card..."
- Click on "OK"
Netscape Communicator 4.0x - 4.4x
Unfortunately, Netscape Communicator 4 also comes packaged with mail
programs whose default configuration is to send HTML formatted mail.
- Select "Edit" then click on "Preferences..."
- Click on the plus sign "+" before "Mail and Groups &
Messages"
- Click on "Messages"
- Uncheck the check box that says "By default, send HTML messages".
- Click on "More Options..."
- In the section "When sending HTML messages to recipients who are not
listed as being able to receive HTML", click "Always convert the
message into plain text (may lose some formatting)"
- Click on "OK" and on "OK" again.
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:
- Select "Edit" then click on "Preferences..."
- Click on the plus sign "+" before "Mail and Groups &
Messages"
- Click on "Identity"
- Uncheck the check box that says "Always send Address Book Cards"
- Click on "OK"
Netscape Communicator 3.xx
Unfortunately, Netscape Communicator 3 also comes packaged with mail
programs whose default configuration is to send HTML formatted mail.
- Click "Tools" then click on "Mail Options"
- Click on the "Send" tab.
- In the "Mail Sending Format" area, click the check box next to
"Plain Text"
- Click on "Settings..."
- In the section "Message Format", click "MIME". In the
check box next to "Encode text using", select "None".
- Uncheck the check box next to "Allow 8-bit characters in headers"
- Click on "OK"
Outlook 97 (without Service Release 1 SR1)
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:
- Download and install the
HREF="http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/nonIE4/DownloadDetails/sr1off97detailnonie4.htm">Office
97 Service Release 1 (SR1)
- Download and install
HREF="http://www.mscworld.com/95update/update_mailservice.htm">inetmail.exe
which updates Outlook 97.
- In the E-mail box, double-click the email address. Clear the "Always
send to this recipient in Windows Messaging Rich Text Format" check box.
(Note: This must be done *each* time a message is sent via the Reply button.)
- Download and install
HREF="http://www.darkweb.com/~beng/exchange/rtfguard.htm">"RTFGuard"
written by Ben Goetter This will alert you when a message is about to be sent
with RTF formatting, giving you the option to discard the formatting before
sending.
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:
- Open the "Personal Address Book"
- Double Click on the recipients name
- Uncheck the check box " Always send to this recipient in Windows
Messaging Rich Text Format"
- Close Options window
Outlook 97 (with Service Release 1 SR1)
- Select "Tools" then click on "Options..."
- Click on "Internet Email" tab
- Click the circle next to "MIME" and not "UUENCODE"
- Uncheck the check box "Allow 8-bit characters in headers"
- Check the "Line wrap" box and set to 80 or less. Preferably 72
- Make sure to use "US ASCII" character set
- Click "OK"
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:
- Open the "Personal Address Book"
- Double Click on the recipients name
- Uncheck the check box " Always send to this recipient in Windows
Messaging Rich Text Format"
- Close Options window
Outlook 98 (Work group version)
- Select "Tools" then click on "Options..."
- Click on "Mail Format" tab
- In "Send in this message format" area, select "Plain
Text" from the drop- down box.
- Click on "Internet E-mail" tab
- In "Internet E-mail Sending Format" area, click the circle next
to "MIME".
- Uncheck the check box "Allow 8-bit characters in headers"
- In the drop down box "Encode text using:", select
"none"
- Click "OK"
Outlook 98 (Internet version)
- Select "Tools" then click on "Options..."
- Click on "Mail Format" tab
- In "Mail Formatting" area, select "Plain Text" from the
drop- down box.
- Click on "Settings..." button
- Select "MIME"
- In the drop down box "Encode text using:", select
"none"
- Click "OK"
MSN Explorer 6.0
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.
MS Exchange and other
- From the Microsoft Exchange toolbar select "Tools"
- Select the "Services" tab.
- Highlight "Internet Mail"
- Click on "Properties..." An "Internet Mail, General"
window will appear.
- Select "Message Format..." then make sure "Use MIME when
sending messages" is unchecked. If you turn off MIME here, it will send
attachments UUEncoded.
- Next, select "Character Set..." in the "Message Format"
window
- In the "UUENCODE Character Set" window
- Click the down arrow that shows next to the rectangular "window"
below where it says "specify a character set for message" text. A set
of options will appear, including both "ISO 8859-1" and "US
ASCII".
- Check "US ASCII", then click "OK". This will remove
equal signs and "=3D" codes in messages.
- Then click "OK" on the "Options" menu.
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".
WINMAIL.DAT
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
- Double click on the Mail and Fax icon in Control Panel.
- Click on the Services tab, and select Internet Mail from the list. If
Internet Mail is not listed, click Add - add this service.
- Click Properties, and then Message Format.
- Turn off the option that reads Use MIME when sending messages.
- Click OK and then OK again.
Step
- Double click on the name of each recipient in your Address Book.
- Turn off the option that reads Always send to this recipient in Microsoft
rich text format.
- This option needs to be set for each recipient of a message - if even one
has this turned on, all recipients will still get the attachment.
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.
- If you address the message by typing a literal name@domain.xxx SMTP
address, or by entering the address in Exchange's explicit one off format -
i.e., by typing [SMTP:name@domain.xxx] - and you use the version of Microsoft
Exchange released with retail Windows 95 (as opposed to Windows Messaging, or
the version released as the client of Microsoft Exchange Server), the entry
will have its Send to this recipient in Microsoft rich text format check box
set by default.
- If you address the message by typing a name and letting the system pick an
entry from your Personal Address Book, and that address book entry specifies
Send to this recipient in Microsoft rich text format, then the recipient in the
message will, too.
- If you address the message by giving the reply command in Exchange, and the
message to which you were replying had an explicit RFC822 Reply-To header (such
as is the case on many messages arriving via Internet mailing lists), and you
use a version of the Internet Mail provider prior to the Internet Mail
Enhancement Patch (IMEP), the resulting entry in the To field will have its
Send to this recipient in Microsoft rich text format check box set by default.
Note that a reply will never reference an entry in your Personal Address Book
unless you replace the contents of the reply note's To field yourself.
Some workarounds:
- If you are using the original version of retail Windows 95 Microsoft
Exchange, update to a more recent version, such as the Windows Messaging
update.
- Know the contents of your Personal Address Book, and ensure that you have
not erroneously set the rich text flag on any entries therein.
- Use the most recent version of the Internet Mail message service provider.
(Note: Microsoft Exchange Server users do not use this component, since they
send mail to the Internet through a component of Exchange Server.)
- On replies to Internet mailing lists, manually clear the rich text flag, or
else replace the reply address with a known entry from your Personal Address
Book.
- Use HREF="http://www.darkweb.com/~beng/exchange/rtfguard.htm">"RTFGuard"
or Rich Text Sentry widget, which watches for outgoing Internet messages in
rich text format, or install a recent version of Internet Idioms and configure
it to do likewise.
Microsoft has their own explanation of this phenomenon in the Knowledge Base
article
HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q136/2/04.asp">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
HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q138/0/53.ASP">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.
Equal signs at end of lines
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
HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q146/6/29.asp">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.
ISO 8859-1 or other character set
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:
- In Control Panel, double-click Mail And Fax.
- Click Internet Mail, and then click Properties
- On the General tab, click Message Format, and then click Character Set.
- Change the option from ISO 8859-1 to US ASCII, or click the "Use MIME
when sending messages" check box to clear it.
Lotus Notes R5
By default all mail in Lotus Notes is in the Notes Rich Text Format but may
be set to MIME.
- Choose File/Mobile/Edit Current Location
- Select the mail tab
- In the field, "Format for messages addressed to Internet
addresses", select MIME Format instead of Rich Text Format.
To send mail or news postings in plain text or HTML or both:
- Choose File/Preferences/User Preferences
- Click the Mail and News Icon
- Under "Internet message format" (or Internet News Format), choose
an option:
- Plain text
- HTML format
- HTML and Plain Text.
Novell Groupwise
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.
Pegasus Mail 3.x
- Select "Tools" then click on "Options..."
- Click on "Sending Mail" tab
- In "When sending messages containing rich (formatted) text"
section
- Check the radio button "Always remove formatting."
- In "Advanced settings" section, uncheck all four options Make
sure "Allow 8-bit MIME message is unchecked"
- Click on "OK"
Pegasus Mail 4.x
- Select "Tools" then click on "Options..."
- Click on "Sending Mail" tab
- In "When sending messages containing rich (formatted) text"
section
- Check the radio button "Always remove formatting."
- In "Advanced settings" section, uncheck all four options Make
sure "Allow 8-bit MIME message is unchecked"
- Advanced check, make sure you DON'T add "information" section to
multi-part message.
- Click on "OK"
Pine (Unix)
- Select "M" (main menu)
- Select "S" (setup menu)
- Select "C" (configure)
- Select "w" (Find word:) enter "character" for
Character-Set and leave this blank (it defaults to US-ASCII) or set it
explicity to "US-ASCII"
- While in Configure - feature list, ensure that Include-attachments-in-reply
is disabled
- Save, return and "Q" (quit) Pine
TheBat! v1.xx
- Select "Account" from the main menu
- Click on the "Transport" icon
- In the section "8-bit characters are treated", click on
"Without changes"
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.
- Click on the "Options" icon
- Uncheck the check box in front of "Allow 8-bit characters in message
header"
- Click OK
- Select "View" from the main menu
- Click on "Encoding" then select "None"
- Select "Options" from the main menu
- Select on "Language" then click on "English"
References:
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