HTML vs Plain Text email

[gopunk]

what do you like best?

i think html email should be punishable by death or something, but that's just because the list processor i provide support for only takes commands in plain text, so i always get a bunch of hotmail users complaining that their commands don't go through.

 

[bootymac]

plain text. nice and simple
html is suck

 

[perry]

<< so i always get a bunch of hotmail users complaining that their commands don't go through. >>



I just delete emails like that. It's not my job to explain to them how their email client of choice works.

 

[minendo]

nothing but plain text for me

 

[VirusDub]

HTML mail is annoying as hell. Whoever had the idea of sending web pages instead of simple messages needs to burn.

 

[kranky]

HTML email is an abomination. Plain text only, please.

 

[gopunk]

<<

<< so i always get a bunch of hotmail users complaining that their commands don't go through. >>



I just delete emails like that. It's not my job to explain to them how their email client of choice works. >>



i work for a university, and a lot of our clients are professors who need to get class lists up and running, so i need to answer them. i'm thinking about writing a faq for it though. but we're switching from listproc to mailman in the near future, so i'm holding off on writing any documentation for listproc, since it'd be useless anyways. listproc apparently has trouble keeping up with the volume of lists we currently have.

 

[bandXtrb]

Is it possible to receive messages as plain text only within Outlook, even if it means opening up messages as a page full of html tags?

 

[gopunk]

<< Is it possible to receive messages as plain text only within Outlook, even if it means opening up messages as a page full of html tags? >>



i don't think so, though i might be wrong.

on another note, does anybody know how to send plain text using hotmail's webbased service?

 

[Johnlee]

<< HTML email is an abomination. Plain text only, please. >>



Haha, that's some of what I do at work. Good to know I'm annoying a crapload of people.

 

[swayinOtis]

i have a couple of friends who use AOL. one is my best friend's mother. she is so obsessed with her "fonts." she's always changing them, then asking me "do you like my font? isn't it the coolest?"

i can't yell at her so I just say "yeah, great."

btw, if you don't like Outlook Express, you can always download the FREE Eudora. It will read/write plain and styled text just fine.

You gotta be crazy to use Outlook. Too vulnerable, and I just hate the interface. Lame, but that's just me.

 

[jjones]

plain text for me.

 

[eplebnista]

Definitely plain text for me.

eplebnista

 

[mithrandir2001]

I reengineered an email process at work where we send out automated emails to about 700 recipients a day. I changed the format of the email from plain text to HTML and it looks a lot better because the email contains tabular data. Plain text just doesn't allow much in the ways of formatting.

Out of the 700 recipients, about 5 complained about the change. That's a good user acceptance rate and so we stuck with the new HTML-formatted emails.

 

[rewap]

Please refer to RFC 2822. Email is for text, and text only. If you want formatted data, add an attachment, but do not send the body of the email in anyting other than plan text.

 

[mithrandir2001]

Commercial and academic interests often clash. We send out HTML emails because that's what our customers like to see - prettiness. Furthermore, I do not write fully HTML 4.0 FINAL compliant webpages because my time is better spent on other initiatives than worrying about perfect academic standards compliance. I recall running some of my pages through the W3C validator and getting over 100 errors...truly little stupid things, too. Forget it. We pull up our websites with Netscape 3.x+ and IE 3.x+ and if everything looks good, then it's a wrap. That's how the business world generally works.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

I have my filters set up to delete (and mark as SPAM) any messages using HTML. I've only ever had one friend send me html email, and I just set her up as an exception to the rule.

 

[Keego]

I don't mind receiving it, but I sure as hell will NEVER send it out.

 

[khtm]

plain text rulz

 

[FriedToast]

Like Kguy, I send out plain, but don't mind receiving HTML (unless it's obnoxious).

And I 2nd the vote on Eudora. No MS mail crap progs installed on my computers.