Date:         Fri, 28 May 1999 14:46:18 EDT
Reply-To:     Ssittservl@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         S Sittservl <Ssittservl@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: -&nbsp- in e-mails
Comments: To: mgajewski@manvillerubber.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>  Date:        5/28/99 8:36:48 AM CDT
>  From:        mgajewski@MANVILLERUBBER.COM (Mark Gajewski)
>
>  ><&nbsp> is an HTML code for a "non-breaking space" character. HTML
>  >(HyperText Markup Language) is the language used to author web pages. Some
>  >email programs, including Microsoft Outlook, encode email messages in
>  >HTML--that's how you get all those stupid codes in email.
>
>  Dumb question, but given that both Netscape and Microsoft give away HTML
>  capable email programs for free over the web, why not just download an up
to
>  date email program?

I use AOL, so (as far as I know) I must use AOL's mail program.
Other on-line services similarly provide their own mailers.
(There may actually be a way to use a different mailer with AOL,
but if so, they don't advertise it, and I don't know what it is.)

I think the problem is at the sending end - the sending program more
than the sending human, though.  In typical Microsoft fashion, Outlook
says "Hey, I'm Microsoft Outlook, and surely anyone my user would want
to send mail to is using Microsoft Outlook too!  Why would anyone use
anything else?  So, I'll format the message specifically for Outlook."
You can tell it NOT to do that, but you have to go searching for the option,
and of course most people don't know they need to, since Outlook's
documentation is so poor.

Generally, if you're sending mail to people whose mailers you know
nothing about (always the case with a mailing list), it's best to use plain
text with no special formatting, and keep lines to less than 80 characters
long.  It may take some work to figure out how to tell you mailer to do that.

Obligatory Vanagon content: all signs and labels in my Vanagon are in
plain text, with no HTML codes.  (Some are in German, however, which
is even harder to read.)