Format Tips for Broadcast Lists

We have received some complaints from subscribers of these lists regarding the format of the messages. The problem stems from the original message being composed at a wider line wrap length than what the subscriber is viewing. This causes the lines to break at inconvenient places resulting a message that is difficult to read.

To avoid this problem, we recommend you set your email client to wrap outgoing messages at 60 characters. This produces a narrower message that should display correctly in most subscribers' email readers. And always use plain text, not HTML or RTF (rich text).

To set the outgoing message line wrap in Outlook Express:

• Pull down the Tools menu and click the Options command.
• In the Options dialog box, click the Send tab.
• In the Mail Sending Format panel of the Options dialog box, enable the Plain text radio button. Then click the Plain Text Settings button on the right.
• In the Plain text Settings dialog box, find for the line, "Automatically wrap text at" and change it to "60."

If you use Netscape Messenger:

• Pull down the Edit menu and click the Preferences command.
• In the preferences dialog box, in the Category panel on the left, expand the Mail & Newsgroup category.
• Select Messages under the Mail & Newsgroup category.
• On the right, look for the Message Wrapping panel. Find the line, "Wrap outgoing, plain text messages at" and set it to "60."
• Select Formatting on the left under the Mail & Newsgroup category.
• On the right, enable the "Use plain text editor..." radio button.

Last updated: 12/29/2006 (BH)