[Helpdesk] question: creating html email messages

[Andrew Main]

I've never done HTML mail myself; it's generally advised against  
because there's really no way to be certain the recipient will see  
what you sent -- for one thing, they have to have the same fonts on  
their computer that you have on yours, and if you use any trans-ASCII  
characters (such as "curly" printer's quote marks) they're likely to  
appear as something quite different on a Windoze computer, which  
encodes such characters differently. For these and other reasons,  
I've always strictly used plain text for email, and stayed within the  
ASCII character set.

See some comments on email:
<http://www.google.com/search?q=html%20in%20email>
<http://www.google.com/search?q=email%20etiquette>.

(Oh, and BTW, it's a good idea, when including URLs in email, to  
always enclose them in angle brackets < >, so they won't get broken  
when email systems add line breaks.)

But if you want to do it, go to Mail's Preferences: Composing:  
Message Format: and select Rich Text; then you can use different  
fonts via the Font palette (cmd-T in the Format menu, or use the View  
menu to customize the Toolbar and add a Fonts button) and do other  
formatting using commands in the Format menu.

I expect you can also compose a message in another application, such  
as Word or TextEdit, and copy and paste the text into Mail.

And as Vint suggests, if you really want to send a fancy message with  
type formatting, etc., and make sure the recipient sees exactly what  
you created, you can compose it in another app and make a PDF, which  
will include everything you've put in it, including subsets of any  
fonts you've used. Be aware, however, that a PDF can get pretty big;  
one rule of email etiquette is not to send a large file to someone  
unless you know it won't be a hassle for them (e.g. if they're on  
dialup).

Mail Help has some information, and for a thorough exploration of  
Mail's capabilities you can look into "Take Control of Apple Mail in  
Tiger" <http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-apple-mail.html>. You  
can use SFMUG's discount code for a 10% discount: CPN31208MUG.

 From "Take Control of Apple Mail in Tiger":

NETIQUETTE: USE PLAIN TEXT WHENEVER POSSIBLE
Tempted to use HTML? In most cases, you can convey your message just  
as well using plain text. Consider whether your aesthetic desires  
outweigh the simplicity and universality of plain text. To this day,  
every time I get a message written entirely in, say, green, 10-point  
Copperplate Oblique—and believe me, it happens—I just cringe. However  
nice the sender may have felt the text looked, it takes so much  
effort to read it that I wonder if I should bother. I know what  
fonts, styles, and sizes are easiest to read on my computer, and I  
dislike receiving messages that override those choices. As you might  
have guessed, I strongly believe that plain text is the path to world  
peace!

Rich Text: In contrast to plain text, which stores just the  
characters you type but no formatting, rich text also stores  
formatting such as type style, colors, and paragraph alignment.  
Behind the scenes, formatting tags are inserted into the text and  
decoded automatically by the recipient’s email client. A properly  
composed rich-text message includes a plain-text version, so that it  
also appears correctly on clients without rich-text support. If you  
view the source of a rich text message by choosing View: Message: Raw  
Source, you will see a MIME Content-Type of "text/enriched".

Despite the similar name, rich text in email is not the same as Rich  
Text Format (RTF), a file format invented by Microsoft and used by  
applications such as TextEdit. However, some email clients, including  
Microsoft Outlook, use RTF for outgoing email (Content-Type: "text/ 
rtf") and call it “Rich Text.”

In Panther (Mac OS X 10.3) and earlier versions of Mac OS X, Apple  
Mail offered a choice between Rich Text and Plain Text for outgoing  
messages. The Tiger version of Mail still uses the term “Rich Text”  
to refer to styled messages—the default setting for outgoing mail—but  
this is now a misnomer; Mail 2 uses HTML (Content-Type: "text/html"),  
rather than rich text, to encode the styles.

HTML: HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language, is a tag-based system of  
formatting text for display in a Web browser. For example, the HTML  
code bMail/b would cause “Mail” to appear in bold on a Web page. Most  
ads—and a lot of spam messages—use HTML, but HTML is also the default  
format for several email clients, includ- ing the Tiger version of  
Mail. You do not see the HTML code when you compose mail, but Mail  
converts font, size, style, and color settings (among other things)  
to HTML when it sends the message.

Andrew Main

On Apr 3, 2006, at 9:15 PM, Sherri Silverman wrote:

> Does anyone know an easy way to create and send html email  
> messages? I want to send an email but maintain the colors, fonts,  
> and formatting in a Word document. I receive emails like this all  
> the time but can't figure out how to send them. Thanks!
> Sherri