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E-mail Software & Issues

Stand-alone E-mail Clients - Web-based E-mail
E-mail How-tos and Tips - E-mail Newsletters

E-mail with Your Browser

See Web Browser Downloads for listings of the various current browsers available and recommendations.

Most people are aware of the Outlook Express e-mail program that comes with Windows along with the Internet Explorer Web browser, but there are standalone e-mail clients in both free and shareware (try before you buy) varieties as well as browser suites that have built-in e-mail programs.

Whatever you choose to use, read about possible security issues with e-mail clients. This is particularly important for users of Outlook and Outlook Express since their vulnerabilities are so widespread and known by those likely to try to exploit these weaknesses.

Stand-alone E-mail Clients

Sometimes the cost of a shareware program is well worth the investment in the extra tools and abilities incorporated into the software.

Purchase PocoMail!

Web-based E-mail

There are also various Web-based e-mail solutions that work for people that don't own an Internet-connected computer or must use various computers:

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E-mail How-tos & Tips

Outlook Express is the default e-mail program for Windows, so there are a large number of folks using this program. However, those doing so should remember there are some catches to doing so, particularly when communicating with others using different e-mail programs. This section deals with those issues.

Importing/Exporting From Outlook Express - Winmail.dat Attachments - E-mail Headers
E-mail Newsletters - E-mail Security Issues

Importing/Exporting From Outlook/Outlook Express

Outlook Express has a proprietary binary format that makes it difficult to extract e-mail addresses either for archival purposes or to move your mail to a new program. Here are a number of suggestions that can help you with this process.

Dealing with "winmail.dat" Attachments

A Microsoft Format Issue

If you receive a message with an attached file called winmail.dat you probably will be unable to open it. Microsoft e-mail clients (particularly Outlook), use the proprietary Transport Neutral Encapsulation Format (TNEF) which creates an issue for non-Microsoft e-mail programs.

Invisible to Outlook/Outlook Express Users

This is invisible to users of Outlook and Outlook Express, so such users may not know what you are referring to when you mention it to them. Send them to this page for an explanation.

Other e-mail clients, like Thunderbird, Pocomail, or Eudora can all send HTML-based e-mail without any problems for the recipient. This problem is specific to Microsoft e-mail clients.

A Plain-Text-Only Solution

The easiest solution depends upon the person re-sending the message as a plain-text message. Any other formatting (including Rich Text Format, enhanced (HTML) or messages composed in MS Word) will create this problem for non-Outlook users unless you disable TNEF.

Disabling TNEF

Users of Outlook XP (2002) and later should disable TNEF. Users of earlier versions of Outlook (97/2000) should simply send the message as plain text as any other formatting (including Rich Text or HTML format as well as messages composed in MS Word) will create this problem for non-Outlook users.

To disable TNEF in Outlook, go to the Tools menu and select Options. Click on the Mail Format tab then set the Send Format to either Plain Text or HTML. Do not select Rich Text format and be sure that you uncheck the "Use Microsoft Word to Edit Email Messages" box.

Disable MS Word as E-mail Editor

Unless you are exclusively sending messages within an internal department, you will want to disable Microsoft Word as your default email editor because anyone not using Outlook or Outlook Express may be unable to read your message (or not as you intended).

To disable Microsoft Word as your default email editor in Microsoft Outlook, go to Tools then Options. Click on the Mail Format tab and uncheck the "Use Microsoft Word to edit e-mail messages" box.

Microsoft Documentation

Other Explanations

Third Party Solutions

Why it Matters

As you can imagine, most people will simply ignore your message or fret over their inability to view the winmail.dat attachment. Take a look at the suggestions in the E-mail Newsletters section for some ideas if you are sending out regular updates of any kind to a variety of people.

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E-mail Headers

If you are having issues with either getting an e-mail or getting e-mails you'd rather not have (spam), you'll probably get asked to forward the messages with the full headers intact.

What are Headers?

Headers include the information at the top of the message like the subject, who its from, who its addressed to (To: and Cc:), the date it was sent. The information displayed and the order it is displayed in varies by e-mail program.

Full Headers

Full headers have a lot more information including the path taken by the message from the sender to you. It is this second information that allows the person you ask for help to determine how the message arrived in your mailbox and who forged it (most spam is sent using someone else's e-mail address, perhaps your own).

Information Varies by Program and ISP

The sort of information captured by your e-mail program depends upon what the designers of that program considered important (some can be configured to show more or less) as well as information that may be added by your ISP (Shaw, Telus, Rogers, etc.) Islandnet.com provides a great deal more about how mail is filtered through their powerful PEP (Personal E-mail Processing) system, including tools to help you avoid spam.

Viewing the Full Headers

To view the full headers depends upon the program you're using:

Other programs should have similar methods.

Forwarding Messages with Full Headers

To forward the message with full headers usually requires that you forward the message as an attachment. By queueing the message you can go to the Out box and check that the attached message has full headers before sending the message.

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E-mail Newsletters

As e-mail has become widespread, many businesses and organizations have moved to sending out their formerly-printed documents by e-mail. Among these documents are their newsletters and other notices. This works very well, but you must be aware of some issues when you send these documents.

Keep it Private

Opt-in Addresses Only

If you don't want to generate resentment, you'll use an opt-in list where everyone specifically asks for your newsletter. You can invite people to sign up for your newsletter on your Website and in print copies of your newsletter or other documents. Simply offering a way off your list does not in itself make your list opt-in (that's an opt-out list).

One exception to the opt-in might be a club newsletter where it is made clear to the members that they will be receiving an e-mail-based newsletter when they sign up.

Bcc: Your Address List

Don't upset your readers by disclosing their e-mail address to everyone else. Use Bcc: to add all the addresses. If your e-mail program insists on an address in the To: slot, use your own. Learn more about proper e-mail address etiquette.

Make it Accessible

HTML or Plain Text?

Not everybody can view enhanced (HTML) e-mail messages or properly view encoded images. Be sure to either offer a plain-text newsletter or to design yours so that it can be read without the extra coding and images. Always test your messages on a variety of e-mail clients and platforms (operating systems) if you can to catch these bugs before they come back to bite you.

Colour and Backgrounds

Be careful when using backgrounds and colour schemes while developing your e-newsletter. Some colours may have unexpected emotional or cultural impacts as well as creating issues for those that have various forms of colour-blindness.

The following pages cover this in greater detail:

Backgrounds can also be rendered as page-after-page of nonsense text if the e-mail program doesn't interpret it correctly or if the message or background information becomes corrupt during transmission or download. It is safest to use no background or to specify a neutral colour.

Problems with Outlook/Outlook Express

If you are sending out an e-mail-based newsletter, it is very important that you either do not use a Microsoft e-mail program, or that you send your message in plain text (see about winmail.dat above). Using MS Word to compose the e-mail or any sort of an enhanced Outlook/Outlook Express message will be a problem for users of other e-mail programs.

Avoid Bandwidth Hogs & Incompatibilities

Downloaded Images

You may have noted that some newsletters use images that are downloaded from the server when the message is viewed. This saves bandwidth when sending the message, but can create a strain on your ISP's server (and your account bandwidth) if you aren't careful. Remember, every time someone opens the message, they'll be downloading these images (not just the first time) as will everyone they forward it to.

These downloaded images are also used by spammers to track messages they send for verifying e-mail addresses and logging when the message is opened. Some programs, like Pocomail, deal with this by disabling the downloading of images until the viewer asks for them.

Attachment Issues

An alternative to self-contained messages is to attach a newsletter to the message. Be careful about your choice in the attachment format as you will want your viewers to be able to open the message.

You should make your decisions based upon your intended audience. In some cases MS Word may be more attractive to your viewers, and if layout is not extremely tight, the printer configuration issue may not matter. Be sure to test your message on other computers with different printers first.

Document Size Issues

If you are composing a newsletter in MS Word, be sure to resize images to fit before inserting them into the document. Resizing them in the document doesn't reduce the actual file size, an important issue when documents are intended for sending as attachments or posted on the Web. This is also true for documents that will later be translated into Adobe PDF.

Other References

There is a lot at stake when you start developing an electronic newsletter and there are people that specialize in their creation. Here are just a couple of places where you can go for more information:

E-mail Security Issues

E-mail programs have a number of recognized vulnerabilities which will depend upon the program and the platform (operating system) you are running it on. Those that wish to avoid spam (unsolicited junk e-mail) should avoid software with these challenges.

There is additional security information in the Preventing Unauthorized Access and Internet Security Vulnerabilities pages. You'll want to ensure that you are running current Anti-Virus Protection as well.

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www.RussHarvey.bc.ca/resources/mail.html
Updated: August 24, 2009