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At 1:11 AM -0400 9/24/98, Robert W Cummings wrote:
>When I sent this e mail its was all nice and lined up no spaces. What
>causes these big gaps and irregular paragraphs after sending it here.
This happens to be a hot button of mine so I will tell you more than you
ever wanted to know about this subject.
It depends upon the settings of your email application.
The best settings are to set it up for "Word Wrap". (There should be a
setting for this somewhere.)
Then, type all messages with no indents, no returns at the end of each
line, and two returns at the end of each paragraph.
Your email application will then insert soft returns at the end of each
line at about 72 or fewer characters. These soft returns can then be easily
removed, if desired, by the receiver of the message by using the "Unwrap
Selection" command, while still retaining the paragraphs.
This "Unwrap Selection" command also removes the ">" character at the
beginning of quoted lines, leaving only a single ">" character at the start
of each quoted paragraph. Then, when the quoted material is resent by you,
the quoted line is newly word wrapped again with the ">" character inserted
at the beginning of the new, cleaned up line.
This "Unwrap Selection" command is also very handy for cleaning up text
copied from a web page. Such text typically has lots of weird formatting,
uses proportional fonts, and is almost impossible to read if simply pasted
into an email message. This command will convert it to text, removing extra
spaces and removing returns at the end of each line.
Also, it is important to compose and read all email messages using a fixed
width font such as Courier or Monaco (NOT using a proportional width font
such as Times or Helvetica.) Proportional width fonts have all kinds of
different spacing and normal text massages are sent as only text, with no
information on which font was used to compose it. Fixed width fonts (like
an old typewriter[Courier]) are the standard for text email messages.
(There is a way to send messages with font information but this creates
other problems.)
Also, never use tabs in email messages. Different email applications
interpret them differently. To space things, ALWAYS just use spaces.
Do not indent paragraphs. Use two returns at the end of each paragraph
instead as this is much easier to read and is easier for the application to
parse when using the "Unwrap Selection" command.
If you need to create a message with complex formatting such as a table of
figures, try composing it in Microsoft Word using tabs (in the Courier
font). Then save it using the "Text With Layout" option. This option will
create a text file, automatically replacing the blank space between tabs
with the proper number of spaces so it will look good in an email message.
This all takes far longer to describe than it does to actually do. Once you
understand it, you can do all of this with a few keystrokes.
Is it worth the extra effort? I figure that if I am taking the time to
compose a message that is being sent to over a thousand people, it is worth
taking the time to make sure it is easy to read. And if it is easy to read,
more people are likely to read it, which is, of course why you bother to
write it in the first place!
I bet you are sorry you asked...
Bob Fulks
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