email attachments

[markdeppe]

Why is that certain emails from certain people always arrive with an attechment called "attachment" which is a copy of the email body of the text usally with HTML code which if I save it as .html opens well in opera. And what is curious is if I receive the same email on my mac using MS outlook express it will not have an attachment. I would like to be able to tell these people how to switch off this feature - I think I heard somewhere that it was a setting in MS outlook - as it would save me space and time.


Sorry if this is a repeat I am sure I saw an explanation once but can not find it again.

[MikeMcC]

HTML mail is normally sent as either HTML only or as HTML and plain text. If it is HTML only, you will get all of the tags and other garbage in your message. If the message is both HTML and plain text, you see the plain text in the mail application with the HTML in an attachment called, yes, "Attachment"! This is actually quite useful because you can do a search for all files called "Attachment" and delete them as they are of no use and just take up memory.

Personally, I think that the use of HTML mail should be made a capital offence, but I suspect I am in the minority :)

All email programs, as far as I know, have the option to send mail as plain text only. I have only ever used HTML once and that was with a very complex discusion where I needed to use two colours to differentiate different aspects. Normally, I never use HTML. To disable HTML:

In Outlook - "Tools > Options > Mail Format" and select Plain Text.

In Outlook Express - "Tools > Options > Send" and set Mail Sending Format to Plain Text. (You can also set News Sending Format to plain text for newsgroups).

The reason that you don't get an attachment in Outlook Express with your Mac is that Outlook Express supports HTML mail and displays it as per the HTML tags.

[diem]

Originally posted by MikeMcC
Personally, I think that the use of HTML mail should be made a capital offence, but I suspect I am in the minority :)

I'm with you Mike!

[MikeMcC]

Originally posted by diem
I'm with you Mike! Great! So how many others does that leave us to convert? :)

[markdeppe]

Excellent help thanks Mike, I will pass it on to all who send me such attachments. As I use mac version of outlook express it took a little while to sort out as it is different process, FWIW on a mac to set to text option sending you need to go to menu - Edit - Preferences - Compose Tab - selct plain text under messages section.

Sorry this next bit is a bit off topic but I have read the manual and looked through help to no avail. Is there a way to switch of the feature in email outlook express where certain emails when I open them automatically cause my computer to dail in to my ISP if I am not already on-line. Can I disable this - it seems to happen on emails from a yahoo group I am a member of and a few emails I subscribe to like Macuser which come with loads of Ads and pictures. Any help appreciated.

[diem]

unfortunately, Microsoft in their infinite (lack of) wisdom, decided to make it impossible to turn off the display of HTML emails. Thus if such a mail contains references to graphics etc that are located on a remote server, your internet connection gaily behaves just as if you were using a web browser and had tried to view a page that isn't in you cache, and dials up.

The only way to stop this happening would be to modify you internet connection settings so as not to dial up automatically. I don't know how to do this on a Mac tho'.

[markdeppe]

That is irritating. I tend to use my psion for most email so will get round it that way though often collect mail to the mac to save them for back up and searching reasons which the psion does not do without using mailarc or similar. I can not see an option to switch of automatic dialling in the help file so maybe if I can face it will trawl the mac site or forum and try a post there. Thanks for all your help