[P1] Strange formatting in message

[George Slusher]

>> I have listened to all the discussion on this list about these two=20
>
>I typed this message the same way I have all my other email and 
>messages but all of a sudden I see these extra characters in this 
>message. Does anybody have any ideas on what caused the extra 
>characters to show up? TIA

Sure. You probably used some "special" characters, like "curly quotes," 
non-US currency symbols, accented characters, etc, those we have to use 
the option key to get. Those cannot be sent by normal email, which allows 
only 7-bit characters. That's 128 characters, enough for the keyboard 
characters and some "control" characters. (This dates back to the days of 
teletype.) To send the special or "high ASCII" characters, your email 
program will use the "Quoted/Printable" scheme, which converts the 
special characters (and some others, including the line ending) into a 
code. It's like the "%##" bits you'll see in some URLs, though that is a 
different code.

If you get the messages one at a time, there shouldn't be any trouble. 
It's the digest where you'll see the strange formatting. Digest software 
strips off the "headers" which tell your email program that there is some 
sort of coding, an attachment, etc. Without these "MIME" headers, the 
email program will just display what it gets, without decoding it. 

To avoid this, don't use any special characters if you can avoid them. 
Turn OFF options for "curly quotes," for example. Instead of using the 
symbol for pounds sterling, use "GBP." Also, be sure to turn off any 
"rich text" or HTML options if you're sending to a list. In fact, it's a 
good idea to turn off HTML or rich text in all your email unless (1) you 
really need to use it and (2) it's OK with the recipient. If anyone is 
interested, I have several links to pages that you can read about why one 
shouldn't use HTML email. It's an even BETTER idea to turn off your email 
program's READING (parsing, decoding, viewing, displaying--whatever they 
call it) of HTML. If you read an HTML email online, it's possible that 
you will send a notice to a spammer that the message was read. You might 
also display images you don't want or which will take a long time to 
load. Some programs, like PowerMail, have an option to display HTML email 
but NOT go outside your local disk--it doesn't download images or send 
notices, set cookies, etc. About the worst thing you can do is to view 
HTML email in your browser, UNLESS you do it OFFLINE. 

George Slusher/Eugene, OR
gslusher at rio.com