further random questions from the newly-unemployed

[David Kramer]

On Sunday 17 November 2002 08:55 am, Bill Horne wrote:
> The biggest problem with text-formatted emails is that you can't predict
> what font the recipient will use to read them. Since it's common for both
> OE and Messenger to use Proportional fonts for text emails, the work of
> lining things up is often lost at the receiving end. HTML, although a
> bandwidth hog and inappropriate for posts to a reflector, is nonetheless
> useful for assuring that a message is seen as the sender intended, and I
> use it for all my email résumé submissions.
>
> HTH. YMMV.

My M does V quite a bit from this.  As others have said, different email 
readers, even ones that support HTML, are going to render the message in 
different ways.  And email programs that don't process the HTML tags will 
produce and almost unreadable mess.  

For a long time, I used pine for all my email.  It tries to render HTML, but 
it's text mode, so it can only do so much.  I would often turn it off and 
read the source, since I can parse the HTML in my head.  Now I use KMail 
(park of KDE).  While it renders HTML messages, sometimes things clearly 
don't come out as the author intended.  For instance, sometimes the text 
looks like it's about 8 point, because the MUA used to send it chose some 
wierd font I don't have.  I've seen the same things happen in Outlook though.

The other point about the mail scanners not being able to process them as well 
is important, too.  Even cutting and pasting from HTML emails in your MUA can 
produce strange results.

The correct way to handle this problem with something as important as a cover 
letter is to simply write your email in a format that does not depend on 
things lining up, and use spaces instead of tabs.  That is why I transformed 
the "T" style cover letter to a two-level bullet list.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
DDDD   David Kramer         david at thekramers.net       http://thekramers.net
DK KD  
DKK D  "I still say a church steeple with a lightening rod on
DK KD  top shows a lack of confidence." 
DDDD                                                           - Doug McLeod