Email Sytle & Formats

Email Format and Style Enhancements
in
Netscape Communicator 4 and Eudora Pro 3
&
Others

One of the newest and potentially most useful wrinkles in email is the ability to enhance text with tables, columns, and other fancy formatting; with colors; with different fonts; and other nifty things.

Unfortunately, we have to be careful about using these text enhancements because the various email programs don't agree on how to communicate formats and styles. Thus a message that looks really good in one email program may be less than satisfactory when read in another. The problem is more complicated when a message is addressed to several recipients, and it may be best to use no enhancements at all.

The only way to be sure of how your message will look to its recipient is to ask that recipient. Or first send a brief test message that contains the enhancements you want to use and ask the recipient to tell you which of them he or she sees. I keep a test message in my "Sent" folder and just send a copy of it when I need to.

Fortunately, however, it's possible to predict how certain email programs will interact. For example, at this writing, the two popular email programs that have useful formatting and styling abilities are Netscape Communicator 4 and Eudora Pro 3. They can each recognize some of the other's effects, but definitely not all of them. Here's a comparison of their email enhancement capabilities:

Netscape uses standard HTML commands for formatting and styling, so Netscape email looks right when viewed in a web browser or in email programs that can display HTML commands correctly. (Oddly, Eudora recognizes many HTML commands, even though it doesn't use most of them in its own messages.)

Eudora uses a proprietary system for many of its formatting and styling effects, so most other email programs ignore them.

Below are lists of how Netscape's email text enhancements look in Eudora and how Eudora's look in Netscape. Remember that many other email programs will display NO enhancements at all. Blank cells in the right column indicate that Eudora is unable to originate those effects.

Email Formats and Styles
Sent from Netscape Communicator 4 & Viewed in Eudora Pro 3 or Eudora Lite 3	Sent from Eudora Pro 3 & Viewed in Netscape 3 or Communicator 4
Features that Work in Both
tab tab tab. Tabs work in almost every email program, but they may be converted to spaces, so columns formatted with tabs in Netscape may not look as you expect in other programs.	tab tab tab. Tabs work in almost every email program, but they may be converted to spaces, so columns formatted with tabs in Eudora may not look as you expect in other programs.
bold	bold
italic	italic
underline	underline
aligned left centered aligned right	aligned left centered aligned right
Fonts. Fonts specified in Netscape are okay in Eudora.	Fonts. Fonts specified in Eudora are okay in Netscape.
Text Sizes. Netscape's sizes look okay in Eudora, except for the 8 point size, which in Eudora looks the same as 10 point..	Text Sizes. Eudora's sizes boil down to normal, smaller, and larger when viewed in Netscape. All of Eudora's larger sizes look the same as one step larger than the normal (default) size.
*Features that DO NOT* Work in Both**
Text colors colors colors. Netscape's colors display properly in Eudora.	WATCH OUT! Eudora's colored text is black in Netscape. Eudora's colors work only when viewed in Eudora Pro 3 or Eudora Lite 3.
Indentations. Netscape's Increase Indentation and Decrease Indentation don't work in Eudora, but will look right when viewed in a web browser or in an email program that recognizes HTML commands.	NONE of Eudora's indentations work in Netscape or any other email program I've tried (except for Eudora, of course).
Graphic images. Images located within the body of a Netscape message are not displayed by Eudora, but instead are supplied as links to attachments and are placed at the end of the message.
Horizontal line All sizes look fine in Netscape and browsers, but Eudora displays them all this way: ----------
Background and normal font colors. Eudora does not display background colors or normal font colors.
Tables. Netscape's email tables resemble this one, but are reduced to plain text in Eudora, with the contents of each cell on a separate line, and no background colors.
Bullet Lists. These look okay in Eudora, except that the bullets are replaced with asterisks.
Numbered Lists. These look exactly like bullet lists in Eudora.
Headings. Netscape's headings look okay in Eudora, although they are spaced farther apart than in normal HTML viewers.
SMALL CAPS look all right in Eudora.
Hot link to a web page works correctly in Eudora.
~~Strikethrough~~ doesn't work in Eudora.
^Superscript doesn't work in Eudora
_Subscript doesn't work in Eudora.
Blinking doesn't work in Eudora

Notes:

Netscape Communicator provides three ways to send email:

Plain text.	Readable in all email programs (but no enhancements).
Plain text + HTML	Readable in all email programs. BUT: in some email programs the HTML text appears BELOW the plain text , so a recipient might not scroll down far enough to see it.
HTML only	This is the way enhanced text is most effective. *BUT:* in email programs that can't display HTML text, the .HTML codes will probably be visible--and therefore confusing.

Most of Eudora's text enhancements are not recognized by other email programs.

Netscape's Communicator (version 4) displays more of Eudora's enhancements than most other email programs do, but certainly not all of them.

Recipients using MSN and certain other email services, such as compuserve and AOL, and most email programs other than Netscape and Eudora may see few or no text enhancements. I'm not able to test their capabilities directly, however, and will be grateful for any solid info about them.

Please send corrections, suggestions, and comments to

(Sorry--I've been getting a lot of SPAM lately.
Please type it into the "To:" line of an email message.

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