Change Mail default text encoding to UTF-8?

Question

Change Mail default text encoding to UTF-8?

I'm preparing html email messages in several languages for an email campaign my company will be doing. The French version is not transmitting properly unless I change the text encoding in Mail from Automatic to Unicode (UTF-8).

I have two questions: What problems might arise from making Unicode the default text encoding? And, how do I make it the default?

I found this Apple knowledge base article but it only addresses making Japanese the default text encoding.

Power Mac G5 "Leviathan": 2.7 GHz DP/4.5 GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.4.7), Four 1-TB HDs, 30 GB iPod touch "Slick"

Posted on Jul 14, 2009 10:24 AM

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Answer 1

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Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,876 points

Jul 14, 2009 11:00 AM in response to TopTechWriter.US

I have two questions: What problems might arise from making Unicode the default text encoding?

Very hard to tell unless you try it and see if any of your recipients have problems.

And, how do I make it the default?

I found this Apple knowledge base article but it only addresses making Japanese the default text encoding.

Just put UTF-8 in the location where it says ISO-2022-JP.

Another way to do it is option C in this note:

http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/woutlook.html

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Answer 2

Oct 12, 2009 12:46 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

That article is apparently outdated. I have tried setting the NSPreferredMailCharset property in Snow Leopard, it just doesn't seem to have an effect on Apple Mail's choice of encoding: it still uses whatever it guesses to be suitable.

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,876 points

Oct 12, 2009 6:25 AM in response to SwordAngel

That article is apparently outdated.

Not for someone using Leopard, which is what this forum is for.

I have tried setting the NSPreferredMailCharset property in Snow Leopard, it just doesn't seem to have an effect on Apple Mail's choice of encoding: it still uses whatever it guesses to be suitable.

Correct, I don't know the fix for Snow Leopard, except including a dingbat in the text to force UTF-8.

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Answer 4

mandr

Level 1

0 points

Dec 21, 2009 1:53 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

After 5 months of frustration, I finally found the solution in Snow Leopard!

System Preferences -> Language & Text
Language tab
remove all the languages except for the ones you really need (For me, English and Trad. Chinese)
Logout & login again

Thanks to this page for the clue: http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/mlingos9.html#email

Hope it works for you too.

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Answer 5

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,876 points

Dec 21, 2009 5:40 AM in response to mandr

After 5 months of frustration, I finally found the solution in Snow Leopard!

System Preferences -> Language & Text
Language tab
remove all the languages except for the ones you really need (For me, English and Trad. Chinese)
Logout & login again

Thanks for the info, but this is the forum for Leopard, so it's not really in the right place for anyone who might need it.

But I don't understand the problem: In Snow Leopard, with my OS set to English, if I send an email in Traditional Chinese, it is always UTF-8. Did your emails go out as something else? Was your OS set to Traditional Chinese perhaps? Are you talking about emails in French or German?

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