Inline Image vs Attached Image?

Hi,

Is there a difference or a distinction in Apple Mail between an image that is inserted inline within the text, and an image that is simply attached to the message? From what I can tell, there isn't.

Can a Plain Text e-mail really have an inline image?

 iMac 20" 2.66GHz, 4GB RAM, 640GB Hard Drive, Mac OS X (10.5.6),  16GB iPhone 3G  40GB Apple TV

Posted on May 29, 2009 7:04 AM

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9 replies

May 29, 2009 7:39 AM in response to Reuben Feffer

As MIME allows for multipart emails, the term plain-text doesn't necessarily imply the message cannot contain inline attachments. The text parts are plain text (i.e. no font/style formatting). The entire email would be Multipart/mixed with the text parts text/plain.

Regardless of how you design the email, it is still up to the recipient's email client (and server sometimes) to display the email as you intended.

May 29, 2009 7:51 AM in response to Yer_Man

TD,

The Header to an attachment in a message Composed in Plain Text, in Mail, will still have Content-Disposition: Inline. In general this does not impact whether the recipient's email will provide Inline View (what Apple calls View in Place). It does, however, impact Lotus Notes which attempts then to render Inline, but fails miserably. (Interestingly, Lotus can Forward the message in good order to others.)

The Mail plugin, Iconizer, changes this header to no longer have an inline disposition, but this does not prevent email clients such as Mail from rendering to View in Place. It would prevent the error in Lotus.

As others have said, the fact that an image will View in Place as you are composing, or in a received message, does not alter their status as true attachments.

Ernie

Message was edited by: Ernie Stamper

May 30, 2009 4:10 AM in response to Reuben Feffer

No guarantee, and furthermore it may be problematic to those using Outlook and Outlook Express. But most modern email clients will display photos to view in place much like Mail, with either text format, but safest if with Plain Text.

Emails, whether composed in Plain Text or RTF, with images included throughout the message is not the same as a message composed with a HTML editor as the slick commercial messages are, and then emailed.

Ernie

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Inline Image vs Attached Image?

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