Greetings, For your information the following mail is from another list but it could be useful to many on Gambia-l who are fund of sending mails to the list in other formats than Plain ASCII Text. Have a great week, Momodou Camara ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Make Your E-Mails to the List Accessible to ALL PWD's - How 2 Dear Listfamilies, Please forgive if you get more than one of these and delete extras. This topic has come up on several lists and I hope you all take the time to read this valuable information so emails we write may be "seen" and "heard" by all those we send them to. It is important, IMHO, that we, ourselves, remain accessible to our fellow ListMates. Our communications with each other, through a list (aka Listserv, Majordomo, eGroup, etc.) should be readable by all PWD's. In striving toward that end, I found a resource for us all. It not only points out the importance, but clearly explains just how to make our communications, via email, accessible to all those wishing to read them, no matter what list they are sent to. The web site is called: "Configuring Mail Clients to Send Plain ASCII Text" and can be found at: ============ http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1236/nomime.html ============ Quote from this source of Information: ============ "What is wrong with sending HTML and MIME messages? There are a three main reasons for NOT doing this: 1 - Many Email and Usenet News reader programs, usually the mail and news reader programs that come with browser packages, allow users to include binary attachments or formatted text within their Email messages. They even allow HTML that is normally used in web pages. This makes URLs into clickable links and it means that graphics can also be included in Email messages. While this makes your Email pretty and interesting to look at, it can cause many problems for other people who receive your Email because they may use different Email programs, different computer systems, and different word processing programs, whose files are often not fully compatible with each other. Any of these can cause trouble with attachments. Most of the time all they see is the actual HTML code behind the message. In some cases, the message is nothing but garbled text. However, when you send an attached word processor file, it will appear on the other end as the exact same type of file. The recipient must have hardware and software that can read that file. For example, if you attach an MS Word file, and the recipient of your message is using a word processor that can't open MS Word files, that person isn't going to be able to open your attachment. 2 - HTML or MIME messages are larger and more wasteful than simple text messages. Using HTML or MIME in Email messages makes the messages larger in size by some two thirds. These will take longer to download and they take up more storage space than standard Email messages. Email storage is important because many people retain copies of messages they receive and in the case of mailing list digests, the individual messages are combined in one large message and sent to the user at the end of the day. In addition, the mailings lists archive the messages for periods of up to 6 months to enable users to search for particular postings at a later time. 3 - HTML or MIME messages leave or include unwanted files (attachments) on the machines of the recipients of these messages. Plain text is how your messages should be formatted when sending Email to mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups or to any other recipient. Though this rule is not yet cast in "Netiquette" stone, it is a good policy to follow if you want quick and informative responses to your questions and wish to avoid being "flamed" as a clueless newbie. HTML is meant for the WWW; not for mailing lists, Usenet newsgroups postings, proper business Email correspondence and preferably not for personal Email unless the recipient is expecting it. MIME encoded mail is used to send attachments that consist of pictures, sound files, spreadsheets, word-processing documents, zip files, or other binary files to recipients that have use the same operating system, the same word processing program and a common Email program such as Eudora, Pegasus, Netscape, or Outlook. These types of files are not wanted on mailing lists, Usenet newsgroups postings, business Email correspondence, and preferably not for personal Email unless the recipient is expecting it. [horizontal line] [Step-by-Step Instructions for] Turning Off HTML or MIME There are now a variety of HTML/MIME programs, including but not limited to: [These are all links to the instructions for your email program further down in this large web page] Agent/Free Agent AOL 5.0 and earlier AOL 6.0 Eudora Light v3.0.5 and earlier Eudora Light v3.0.6 Eudora Pro v4.0.2 and earlier Eudora Pro v4.2 and later Eudora v5.0 MS Internet Explorer 4.0, 5.0 and 5.50 MS Exchange and other WINMAIL.DAT attachments Equal signs at end of lines ISO 8859-1 or other character sets Lotus Notes R5 Novell Groupwise Netscape Communicator 6 COMING Netscape Communicator 4.5, 4.6, 4.7 Netscape Communicator 4.0x - 4.4x Netscape Communicator 3.xx Outlook 2000 Outlook Express 4.0 Outlook Express 5.0 and 5.50 Outlook 97 (without Service Release 1 SR1) Outlook 97 (with Service Release 1 SR1) Outlook 98 (Work group version) Outlook 98 (Internet version) Pegasus Mail 3.x Pegasus Mail 4.x Pine (Unix) TheBat! v1.xx <SNIP> [This is a sample set of the Step-by-Step instructions for a common email program further down in this large web page] MS Internet Explorer 4.0, 5.0 and 5.50 Unfortunately Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and 5 come packaged with mail programs whose default configuration is to send HTML formatted mail. MSIE comes with the program Outlook Express as its mail client. To configure Outlook Express to send text only messages: <SNIP> Outlook Express 5.0 and 5.50 Select "Tools" then click on "Options..." Click on "Send" tab In the "Mail Sending Format" and "News Sending Format" sections, click on "Plain Text" bullet in both places In the "Mail Sending Format" section, click on "Plain Text Settings..." button. In the "Plain Text Settings" window and the Message format section Click MIME bullet Set "Encode text using:" to None. Uncheck the "Allow 8-bit characters in headers" Set Automatically wrap text at 72 Check the box in front of "Indent the original text with > when replying or forwarding" Click OK In the "News Sending Format" section, click on "Plain Text Settings..." button. In the "Plain Text Settings" window and the Message format section Click MIME bullet Set "Encode text using:" to None. Uncheck the "Allow 8-bit characters in headers" Set Automatically wrap text at 72 Check the box in front of "Indent the original text with > when replying or forwarding" Click OK While still in the "Send" tab, Uncheck "Reply to messages using the format in which they were sent" Click on "Apply" and then on "OK". All of your messages will now be sent as plain text. Outlook Express 5.x can also be configured to send Business Cards (also referred to as vCards) with your email. These are attachments, which show up as strings of unreadable code on most mailing lists. To turn these off: Select "Tools" then click on "Options..." Click on "Compose" tab In the "Business Card" area, uncheck the check boxes in front of Mail and News for "Include my business card when creating new messages." Click on "Apply" and then on "OK". <SNIP> [END]" ============ Hope this helps. :)) smiles Sincerely Yours, Pat S - [log in to unmask] ------- End of forwarded message ------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------