Font size in incoming mail

Hello John.

This is due to the message being composed in HTML by the sender and since HTML formatted messages are rendered by the email client when received, I'm not aware of a method for automatically changing the size of the font with HTML formatted messages.

Using Mail and with the message open, at the menu bar go to View > Message and select Plain Text Alternative or you can add the Bigger/Smaller buttons to the message toolbar selecting Bigger to increase the size of the font.

Do you know if there's anyway to permenantely make all the incoming mail items bigger... instead of having to individually Apple-+ each message to read it properly. It's extremely annoying. Apple really really should have thoroughly tested their newest MAIL program out properly. I just switched over to a PowerBook G4 and am quite disturbed at all the extra steps I have to do that my 4- year old Dell did automatically. I still like Apple... but I feel that I definitely should not have paid as much as I did for the extra problems! Thanks again.

Hi Allan & All --

I've been dealing with what I think is the same problem described herein, i.e., certain (not all) of the e-mail I receive in Mac Mail is received in an illegibly small size, so small that I can't read it unless I go View > Message > Plain Text Alternative, which fixes the situation.

Thanks to this thread, I now understand that this problem is caused by the senders of those e-mail composing his/her messages in HTML.

My questions are:

1. Am I correct in my understanding of the problem? Is it likely to be addressed in an update at some point, or is this a problem not susceptible to that kind of fix?

2. Apart from proceeding as described above and manually selecting plain text alternative for each of these (many) e-mails, is there any way for me to tell Mail to do this automatically?

3. If I were to ask the senders of these e-mails to compose in plaint text rather than in HTML, would this correct the situation and would they be losing out on some benefit of composing in HTML or otherwise sacrificing something just for the sake of making their e-mails easier on my eyes?

Thank you all in advance for your help. This really is an annoying quirk in an otherwise very useful and easy to use program (Mac Mail). I'd love to learn of some way to make all e-mails easy to read regardless of whether they were composed in HTML.

Jello JDee and you're welcome.

I'll answer your questions by number.

1. You are correct and there is nothing for Apple to update or fix.

2. No

3. Yes this will correct the situation and the only thing you will be missing out on is fancy message formatting such as colored backgrounds, embedded smileys and/or moving gif objects, etc., etc. which IMO don't belong in email messages.

Copied from Why HTML in E-Mail is a Bad Idea.

Because it introduces accessibility problems. When you write in plain text, the receiving mail client renders the text in whatever font the reader chooses.

b When you format email with HTML, the sender controls the formatting.
But this is a trap: You only think your message will render the same way to the viewer as it appears to the sender. In reality, the receiver can end up squinting because the font looks so tiny, or vice versa.
b HTML is not rendered the same way from one viewing client to the next - all guarantee of accessiblity goes out the window.
This is especially problematic for visually impaired persons.

As the link also includes:

I believe that HTML e-mail is one of the uglier things Microsoft has wrought upon the Internet.

And I couldn't agree more and this also ended up causing all sorts of security issues for Windows users which continue to plague them today.

When using a Mac, rendering any HTML automatically when opening a spam message can reveal to the sender your email address is valid causing even more spam to be received.

Thanks, Allan, for the super informative (and timely) response.

Somehow, I knew that when I got to the bottom of this issue, all roads would lead back to the Evil Empire. ;-]

Oh well, I'm going to go make a pitch to my most frequent windows-based e-mailers (bless their Micro$oft-muddled minds) that they should change their e-mail from HTML to plain text. If I understand your response and the links included therein, it's a win-win situation for all concerned. (And to my knowledge, none of my e-mailers are frequent smily face users, so they really shouldn't miss it.) Plus, that last point you make, about revealing a valid e-mail address to spammers is a powerful one in and of itself.

Thanks again for the info. And -- though it pains me to say this as a long time Met/Yankee fan (one national league team, one american league team; that's how we do it here in the Big Apple) -- Go 'Stros! I'd like to see a Chicago v. Houston World Series. Both of whom surely have a series ring a long time comin' now.

You're welcome.

Regarding automatically rendering HTML received, you can turn this off via Mail.app preferences. When opening a valid message that includes HTML that must be rendered from a remote location, you can select Load Images which will be available just below the message header to the right.

I'd like to see Houston in the World Series also and Chicago is looking good right now so it may come to pass.

I've been a long time Rangers fan which is worse than being a Red Sox fan before last year anyway. At least the Red Sox have made it to the World Series.

The problem isn't just HTML emails. Writing messages in Mail using Rich Text (default) causes font issues as well. The default font size is 12 pts in Mail, and in Outlook on a PC the font comes in as 12pt. But that's too big for me. So I try to go down to 11pt or 10pt type (10pt preferred) and the font comes in to Outlook as 8.5pt or smaller.

It's really annoying. Plain Text is annoying, too. But it's not exclusive to Mail as far as font size goes. In IE6 on the PC the fonts are consistent and come in at the size that they are supposed to. But on any browser on my Mac I have to set the default font size to 13 or higher to look good (ie legible height).

Is the way that Apple and Microsoft develop their web apps (browsers and email clients) so different that font sizes are inconsistent in all of them?

Hello Tyler.

RTF with Tiger Mail is HTML but you cannot compose complex HTML within the body of the message.

The HTML rendering used by each email client is different.

Plain Text has never been annoying to me but HTML certainly has. If HTML was not supported and used for email composition, these problems would cease to exist.

Allan --

If you don't mind and are able, I'd like to impose upon you one more time with a final question reagrding this issue.

One of my e-mail correspondents who apparently uses HTML e-mail (using Windows, most likely Outlook and IE, bless his poor soul) is not the most tech-aware computer user. I would like to be able to direct him, with some specificity, as to what steps he needs to take to send e-mail in plain text rather than HTML.

Assuming I'm right about his using Outlook and IE (I'm also pretty sure he's using AOL as his ISP, if that matters), do you what I should tell him to do?

Once again, thanks very much for all your help with this. It is very much appreciated. (A sentiment and an assessment, by the way, that will not change even if you are unable to help with this last inquiry. ;-] )

JDee -

I use Windows Outlook at work but off-hand, I don't recall the steps for changing message composition from HTML to Plain Text.

Give me until Monday morning (10/17) and I'll provide the specific steps.

Allan --

That's awesome. Really. Thank you so much.

Till Monday then -- and then I'll make the pitch to my friend in Massachusetts to dispense with the HTML stuff.

Your help's been invaluable.

Hello JDee.

Here goes.

At the Outlook menu bar, go to Tools > Options and under the Mail Format tab at Message Format - "Send in this message format:", the choices via the pop-up menu are as follows:

HTML
Microsoft Outlook RTF
Plain Text

Select Plain Text and then select Apply at the lower right of the Options Window to save the changed setting.

Allan, you're true to your word. And these days especially, that's something to highly valued. Thanks for helping with this.

I'm going to cut & paste your response into an e-mail to my friend in Mass. and make my pitch for an end to all this unnecessary HTML nonsense. We'll see how it goes, but I think I can be fairly persuasive when need be.....

Looks like we may get a Houston v. ChiSox series after all, huh? A team that's never been there before versus one that last won in 1917. Should be entertaining to say the least -- hope the umpiring crew is up to the task. 😉

Once again, many thanks.

You should be able to force Mail to always use plain text by opening Terminal and running the following command (just type it at the prompt):

defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool TRUE

- jim

John,

check out the following post which gives a way to increase the minimum font size for HTML messages - this probably solves your issue:

Andreas Amann, "Preventing small type in received emails?" #5, 03:18pm Oct 29, 2005 CDT

i Andreas