Rich text not working...

Under preferences in Mail, I have the message format set to Rich Text and under fonts and colours; I have the message font set to Verdana from the 'windows office compatible' fonts. However, not a single email client that I am sending messages to is interpreting this font. Outlook is simply displaying the text in Times New Roman, which looks awful. Why is this not working?

Also, when I send a message with a 'windows compatible' attachment, outlook cuts off all of the text after the attachment and shows it as a HTML attachment???