Direct way to force plain text when replying / composing mail?

Question

Level 1

10 points

Direct way to force plain text when replying / composing mail?

Is there a direct way to turn all the mail text into unformatted text (plain text) when replying / composing mail in iPhone's mail client?

What I'm doing now is:

1 - WRITE mail text
2 - SELECT ALL
3 - CUT
4 - SWITCH to 'Notes' app
5 - ADD new note
6 - PASTE
7 - SELECT ALL (the now unformatted text)
8 - CUT
9 - SWITCH to mail client
10 - PASTE
11 - SEND mail

It's the only way I found out to have plain text in the mail client...

Wouldn't be easier just to have an option, when composing / replying MESSAGES, to apply plain text immediately?

Something to turn the process to just 3 steps (instead of 11):

1 - WRITE mail text
2 - PUSH "plain text" Button
3 - SEND mail

I have to manage and reply a lot of professional mails from different customers in the iPhone. And when I'm short on time (always) and I have to reply dozens of mails, this just starts to get really annoying

I started to put all text unformatted because what usually happens is that when there are several people in the same discussion, it's normal to have a lot of pictures and different fonts from different mail clients (normally from signatures). When I reply to all (even when I choose NOT to include attachments) they get a lot of attachments like "xxxxxx.DAT" files that would correspond to some logos of some signatures...

And they also receive just the last reply and the rest of the replies go into attachments like "ATT000xx.HTML" files...!

This last time I checked, one of the customers had just my last reply and these attachments:

ATT00010.htm (previous replies)
ATT00013.htm (previous replies)
ATT00016.htm (previous replies)
ATT00019.htm (previous replies)
ATT00022.htm (previous replies)
ATT00025.htm (previous replies)
cid_image001.gif@01CAF6A3 (2).B1FB0280 (signature logos?)
cid_image001.gif@01CAF6A3.B1FB0280 (signature logos?)
logo.dat (signature logos?)
logo (1).dat (signature logos?)
logo (2).dat (signature logos?)
logo (3).dat (signature logos?)

And also when I'm copying some text from a website and paste it into mail client it keeps the original font size... The mail becomes strange because it has different font sizes and there's no way I can put it all the same size unless I take the 11 steps mentioned in the beginning of the post.

Like in any mail client, it would be wonderful to have iPhone's mails client to have a quick button to force PLAIN TEXT when composing / replying and get rid of different formatting, a lot of attachments and 'hidden' replies!

If you think iPhone's mail client is purely plain text, simply write an email with your iPhone mail client and then paste, in the middle of the text, some text copied from a website and watch what it happens! Just try it.

iPhone 3GS, Windows 7, OS4

Posted on Feb 2, 2011 2:23 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 3, 2017 7:17 AM in response to LuisadasTwin

I was able to force plain text by selecting the text from a previous reply and hitting the Reply button.

There were no images in the earlier reply, only a formatted link.

Oddly, if I exited the message and viewed it again and did the same thing, this did not work. I had to view another email, then view the previous one, select the text and then it worked again properly.

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Answer 2

Feb 2, 2011 3:54 AM in response to LuisadasTwin

The iPhone's Mail app supports composing in plain text only.

The iPhone's Mail app renders HTML recieved and supports forwarding HTML recieved with a message including HTML copied from a website and pasted in a message, but supports composing in plain text only.

There is no option to convert all HTML recieved to plain text.

Composing email with HTML is something Microslop wrought upon the internet or was the primary cog with this becoming popular. If only plain text were supported with email, most if not all problems associated with the exchange of email and email attachments would be eliminated, and the exchange of email between Windoze users would be more secure.

Do you change all HTML recieved to plain text with the email client used on your computer?

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Answer 3

LuisadasTwin Author

Level 1

10 points

Feb 2, 2011 5:43 AM in response to Allan Sampson

Hello Alan. Thank you for your reply.

Yes, if I compose an email from scratch, it's all plain text. That is correct.

But if I paste rich text or HTML into it, I would like to have it in the same format as the text I'm writing (or no format at all).

And that's the whole point. That's what I do in my mail client in my computer -> *+paste text matching destination's formatting (or paste unformatted text)+*.

So Yes, I do it in my mail client in my computer (me and anybody else that wants to paste some text from other source into the mail, I think).

If there is no option to convert all HTML received to plain text, I will have to keep doing the 11 steps I referred. That's it. 😟

About the attachments, it is the same thing... If I reply to someone that has a logo in it's signature, the logo will be converted to a attachment in DAT format. If I convert the mail to plain text (with the 11 steps I referred), the logos obviously disappear and no attachments will be sent to the recipients.

I just wanted the 11-step process to become a 3-step process because I waste a lot of time doing it 😟

Thanks again.

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Answer 4

LuisadasTwin Author

Level 1

10 points

Feb 2, 2011 4:42 PM in response to Allan Sampson

I would like to add just one more thing that can be more intuitive or that can clarify even better what I'm trying to say:

In this picture you may see that the solution to force all text mail into PLAIN TEXT is a pretty normal feature in Outlook. I use it a lot of times and it makes my 11-step process just 'one click long':

http://howto.wired.com/mediawiki/images/2007-_onetime.png

Thank you.

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Answer 5

Feb 2, 2011 4:49 PM in response to LuisadasTwin

There was no need to do so, and you cannot compare a full email client on a computer with the iPhone's Mail app.

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Answer 6

LuisadasTwin Author

Level 1

10 points

Feb 3, 2011 12:56 AM in response to Allan Sampson

Hello Alan,

I'm sorry to do that.

But I just was answering your question:

+Do you change all HTML recieved to plain text with the email client used on your computer?+

... and I was showing the way I do it...

I know that iPhone mail client is not compared to a computer's mail client. However, when we are composing an email and we paste other text (RTF/HTML), we don't have any way to put it in plain (or match format)... I think it's very hard to accept this when we manage professional emails... But well, I see that iPhone's not ment for business but more for fun and that Apple does want to keep as minimum settings as possible (KISS method).

It would be great to have this setting though. I hope someday they address this (what I consider a) "issue".

Thank you.

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