HârnList & HârnForum
The information site for the e-mail discussion list and web-based forum.
ost modern email clients, and most web-based email systems like Hotmail and Yahoo, etc. allow the user to select whether they want to send their email messages in plain text or in HTML format. It's usually somewhere under a menu item called Options or maybe Preferences.
The big...indeed huge...advantage of HTML format emails is that you can make them look really nice. The particular font can be specified, the layout is very controllable, textures, pictures and backgrounds can be added; all this makes for a visually appealing message when it gets to the recipient.
On the other hand, plain text is just that — p-l-a-i-n, PLAIN. The font is stodgy, the layout options are non-existent except for spaces (not even any tabs!). You can't underline or bold...or do anything to individual words. <cups hands to mouth> BOOORRRIIINNNGGG!
However...
In order for the recipient's email client to know just how you want the message to look, it has to have all that formatting-type information readily available, and the only way for that to happen is if the formatting information is sent along with the text of the message itself. In other words, to allow the message to recreate itself, a lot of extra information is sent along that the receipient can't see. Plain text messages don't have that problem.
Now, let's digress for a moment and think about what it is we're trying to do with our email. In fact, the only purpose of email is to exchange information, whether it be programming code, weather data, news of the latest tragedy on our roads, birthday greetings or ideas on how to run games or play characters on Hârn. Sure, for things like birthday greetings, an electronic card with lots of bright colours and images of balloons works a treat. But for an email list which is primarily used for the exchange of ideas and views on things Hârnic, all these do might be to add a very little to the readers' actual reading experience, but not to the ideas in the text of the message itself.
Another worry is that some very clever cracker might be able to slip some script code into the HTML of an email, and gain unauthorised access to your machine, or do some other malicious damage. Although, as far as I know, this has yet to happen (or to be proved to have happened), it is a possibility than cannot be ignored.
Some email clients also do not render the message as it was intended. For example, there are many people who use text-based email clients, especially on Linux systems. Not because there aren't lots of nice email clients available, but because text-based email clients are lightning fast (and may have been constructed by the user himself as a university project). There are other people who are visually impaired, and use special software and additional hardware to allow them to use the 'Net. If the blind lady's Braille reader is expecting plain text from a message, how much more time consuming would it be to get the message below? (This is a real HTML email message.)
------=_NextPart_000_000D_01C0CDCD.3FAD84E0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; = charset=3Dwindows-1252"> <META content=3D"MSHTML 5.50.4134.600" name=3DGENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff> <DIV><FONT size=3D2><A=20 href=3D"http://www.harnlist.com/plaintext.php">http://www.harnlist.c= om/plaintext.php</A></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>What's this piece of drek?</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=3D2>Leitchy</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML> ------=_NextPart_000_000D_01C0CDCD.3FAD84E0--
In fact, all the message says, in plain text, is:
http://www.harnlist.com/plaintext.php What's this piece of drek? Leitchy
So please, bear in mind that the majority of people on the HârnList would like to get their emails as plain text. See what you can do to set your email client to send plain text message only. If you're unsure how to find or change the settings, ask your partner, dad, mom, sister, friend, the geek down the street, someone, anyone...how to do it. It'll teach you a little bit more about your/the computer and how it all fits together, and would make all of us on the HârnList much happier.
Besides, HTML messages mess up the digests.
For more information on how to send plain text emails for a wide variety of mail clients, go to the Expita.com web site.