hotmail message sent to AOL

[azhat]

When sending email with hotmail, I have 2 choices, with "rich text ON" or "rich text OFF". I can change fonts, colors, size, etc. with "rich text ON". When sending emails with "rich text ON" to one particular AOL friend, the email looks weird...with letters and symbols mixed in with the message. The same email sent to other AOL users looks normal. What settings must the person who received the weird email, change?

 

[azhat]

Forgot to mention, that this AOL user has a Mac. I dont know if this has anything to do with the problem.

 

[azhat]

OOOPS. My mistake. With "rich text OFF", changing of fonts is possible and this is how the emails were sent. The emails in question were NOT sent with "rich text ON".

 

[Gnosisless]

It may be something as simple as, when you are sending with Rich Text ON, the font you are using is not supported on your friend's Mac.

Rich text OFF just uses simple text with no special formatting characters; this setting is best for universal compatibility.

I'm not familiar with what fonts Macs have available, but you might try using something like Arial (which is the AOL default for all users, WIndows and Mac, I think). Or, you could ask your friend what fonts seem to work with other messages (I'm not sure a Mac user would know a term as technical as "font", though ), and then change to that font when you send.

If this doesn't work, let me know, and I'll check with some AOL Mac users to see if they know anything about this problem...

Lowell

 

[Gnosisless]

Oops, just read your last post. That's what I get for being afk for so long.

I don't know what could possibly be the problem if Rich Text OFF is causing reading difficulties.

I will check with some AOL Mac types and get back to you if I find out anything...

 

[Gnosisless]

An AOL Mac user suggested that your friend go to keyword Macsoftware and search for a MIME translator. Apparently, sometimes Macs have problems with some MIME formats, and this *might* help.

Sorry I wasted three replies and this is the best I can do!
)

 

[azhat]

I will forward your response to my friends and let you know the results. Thanks

 

[azhat]

Ok, I've determined its not a Mac problem. I sent a test email to many people in my address book using hotmail with rich text OFF.
The only people who have wierd emails were AOL user's, but some AOL user's had normal looking email. Of the people who had the weird emails, nothing else seemed common between them...some used Mac, some didnt....some used netscape, some IE, some used outlook express, some didnt.
There must be a setting that those people must change, but what and where? Is it an AOL setting? Or maybe in internet options? I'm stumped.

 

[Mosaic1]

The Newer versions of AOL are HTML Friendly, I believe. However if your AOL friends have a version which is not......

Here's a solution. Send your email as an attachment to another email to preserve the Formatting. They can then open it using OE or IE. the extension will be eml.

 

[JewisHeritage]

AOL had a problem with MSIE when Encoding was set to auto-select .... Had to be changed to Western European (Windows)...
This relates to MSIE 5.5 & WIN98SE to the best of my knowledge.
It is worth a try ... if all else fails .... it corrected the problem for me .... but I am not a Mac user nor do I have any friends that are Mac users!

 

[azhat]

I'll investigate the AOL versions and the encoding of all my friends who received the weird emails, and report back to you.
Back to the rich text ON and OFF, hotmail is so confusing. This is what I pulled from their "help" section.
On the Compose page, click the Tools menu above the text box, and then click Rich-Text Editor ON. If this item says Rich-Text Editor OFF, then the Rich-Text Editor is already on.
GEEZ.......when it says OFF, its really ON!!!! Leave it to Microsoft to confuse the average pc user!

 

[azhat]

This email problem isnt such a big deal, but once I started investigating , I have to find the solution and each time I turn the corner I get more mad. This encoding thing confuses me, maybe someone can clarify my many questions. Does encoding affect the way emails are sent, received, or both? If a person with AOL, doesnt use IE or Netscape, are their settings within AOL to change the encoding. On everyone's pc who I have contacted, they cant change the encoding. It defaults back to where the dot originally was. On my pc for instance, it defaults to Unicode UTF8, I read this was used for windows NT or better, and I have win98.
One of the people who receives the weird emails, has IE version 4.72.3110 and she doesnt have an encoding option in view. We found something in "fonts", but western euopean ISO wasnt listed, western alphabet was and that is where the black dot defaulted to.

 

[Gnosisless]

Outlook Express (6): Tools / Options / Read: International Settings and Send : Text Settings or HTML Settings. AOL controls these settings automatically for email, but keep in mind that AOL has many different versions still in use, and in fact has different versions for countries other than the US (differences other than simple menu translations, not that I know any details...).

Mine are set to Western European, and Mime: Encode Text Using None and Quoted Text Printable, respectively. I email people at AOL, in England, in Bulgaria, and around the US, and I haven't had anyone say an email was unreadable.

The encoding settings control how the mail is sent AND how the program attempts to read the messages.

Check this page for (a LOT) more on MIME:

http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/decode.htm