Just to save you the embarrassment I thought I would warn Thunderbird users about a little something I discovered today if you use HTML formatting with Thunderbird while interacting with users of Outlook 2007.
Attached are two views of the same email created in Thunderbird and sent out. One view is from Thunderbird, the other from Outlook. First as Thunderbird sees it:
Now as Outlook sees it:
As you see, Outlook has essentially stripped all the formatting. This is actually for two reasons:
- It expects, wrongly I think, for the sending email client to change the color of the quoted text. So instead of showing “>” or a blue “|” in front of the text, it throws that part away and uses the HTML color specified in the email, which defaults to black – the same color as non-quoted text. Outlook always sets the color, so it doesn’t care.
- For indents it ignores, wrongly again, the absolutely standard HTML construct of “<blockquote>” and instead expects a CSS DIV offset margin, which Outlook uses.
If you’re a person who sometimes has to send replies to C-level executives like myself, and aren’t aware of the issues, this can yield some embarrassment – you’ve essentially sent them unintelligible gobbly-gook where your reply text is indistinguishable from the text you’re quoting.
It appears that it is possible to fix this through something like this:
http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/tips#app_quotelevels
Though it’s not clear if it really works and I’m not sure if it’s worth the effort.
Interestingly, if you use “text only” email with Thunderbird, Outlook correctly shows the “>”.
Anyway – just an FYI.
Attached are two views of the same sent email, one from Thunderbird, one from Outlook. First Thunderbird:
Now Outlook:
As you see, Outlook has essentially stripped all the formatting. This is actually for two reasons:
- It expects, wrongly I think, for the sending email client to change the color of the quoted text. So instead of showing “>” or a blue “|” in front of the text, it throws that part away and uses the HTML color specified in the email, which defaults to black – the same color as non-quoted text. Outlook always sets the color, so it doesn’t care.
- For indents it ignores, wrongly again, the absolutely standard HTML construct of “<blockquote>” and instead expects a CSS DIV offset margin, which Outlook uses.
The reason this is embarrassing to me (though I actually already knew #2) is because I sometimes have to send quoted text to executives and what they’ve been seeing is probably next to unintelligible when I quote stuff.
It appears that it is possible to fix this through something like this:
http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/tips#app_quotelevels
Though I’m not sure if it’s worth the effort.
Interestingly, if you use “text only” email with Thunderbird, Outlook correctly shows the “>”.
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