Mail and changing default font (MessageFont, Universal Mailer, etc)

2pacy wrote:

It's supposed that Mail should stick to the font I tell in its preferences

Mail has never worked that way. The preferences only affect how you see it, not how it is seen at the other end. That is why people make apps like messagefont, universal mailer referred to in the subject of this thread. Or why they switch to Outlook or Thunderbird instead.

Well, that makes no sense. Why someone would make something that looks good on your end without caring about how it looks in the other end?

Thanks Tom, I'll have a look to messagefont abd universal mailer to see what that is and let you know if I have any luck.

2pacy wrote:

Why someone would make something that looks good on your end without caring about how it looks in the other end?

Perhaps because they think the person reading the message (along with perhaps hundreds of others) should be able to determine what font and size they are forced to look at all day? Rather than whatever possibly crazy thing the sender thought would be cute? Of course opinions on this differ...

You can also send your wishes to Apple via

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

After 7 years of requests they may be considering a change, you never know.

Since I found that MessageFont didn't work for me, I came up with my own solution.

Thanks for that helpful suggestion.

I'm a little surprised you chose the font Myriad Pro, however, since this does not come with OS X and it will only display for your recipients who have wound up adding it for some reason, e.g. installling Adobe InDesign.

That was just an example. I probably ought to update the post, though, with a link to fonts that are standard on OS X and Windows so users will choose one that's likely on their recipient's machine -- otherwise the recipient will still see the default viewing font.

exigence wrote:

Unfortunately, no, it's not. That setting changes the font for messages as YOU see them, but it does not modify the actual outgoing mail.

I've just changed the size and it appears that it does effect the outgoing email font as well. Closed mail and reopened and it still held the size I put in.

Graham Parker wrote:

I've just changed the size and it appears that it does effect the outgoing email font as well. Closed mail and reopened and it still held the size I put in.

I think you missed the point. It may look the same to you, but another person receiving your email does not see your font choice.

Graham Parker wrote:

I've just changed the size and it appears that it does effect the outgoing email font as well. Closed mail and reopened and it still held the size I put in.

I think you missed the point. It may look the same to you, but another person receiving your email does not see your font choice.

Ah I may well have done should have read the whole feed.

But

I have changed it because of my own personal preference and my bad eyes!!! and incoming mail and my composing I can now read perfectly as I have now changed from 12 to 14.

How it apears to the recipient is upto them what size they chose to read and how good their eyes are

Just my thoughts

Graham Parker wrote:

How it apears to the recipient is upto them what size they chose to read and how good their eyes are

That is Apple's approach as well, I think. However there is a large number of users for whom it is vital to have the option, because of their business policy, to have all their email appear to readers in a particular font, size, color, etc. Mail lacks that possibility, despite the appearance of having preference settings that look like they should do it, hence threads like this one....

I think for Apple to blame it on others is ridiculous, especially since it is obviously technically possible to fix this problem. I have wrestled with this problem for years and have tried Message Font and UM (UM is better but doesnt always work). Sadly the only real solution is to use MS Outlook for MAC - then it is always right. In other words EVERY recipient sees your email the way you wrote is WYSIWYG (thought that was a MAC idea...).

Sadly this means for every new employee we have to buy MS Office and then we end up using all the other MS Office programs instead of Pages, Keynote and Numbers. Not sure how this helps Apple.

At first I thought this was such a silly problem that it couldn't possibly be Apple's fault - that I was doing something wrong - but in this case they refuse to fix a well known problem for some reason.

plinke wrote:

I think for Apple to blame it on others is ridiculous, especially since it is obviously technically possible to fix this problem. I have wrestled with this problem for years and have tried Message Font and UM (UM is better but doesnt always work). Sadly the only real solution is to use MS Outlook for MAC - then it is always right. In other words EVERY recipient sees your email the way you wrote is WYSIWYG (thought that was a MAC idea...).

Sadly this means for every new employee we have to buy MS Office and then we end up using all the other MS Office programs instead of Pages, Keynote and Numbers. Not sure how this helps Apple.

At first I thought this was such a silly problem that it couldn't possibly be Apple's fault - that I was doing something wrong - but in this case they refuse to fix a well known problem for some reason.

Did you actually read this thread?

If you don't believe then continue with Outlook, it doesn't guarantee that WYSIWYG but you are welcome to think that it does.

plinke wrote:

In other words EVERY recipient sees your email the way you wrote is WYSIWYG (thought that was a MAC idea...).

Actually I think Apple has the opposite idea, namely that by default the person reading an email should see the font face and size which he prefers, and not whatever some email sender thinks is cute. Are you able to see that point of view?

I'm mystified by your reference to "Apple blaming it on others". As far as I know they take full responsibility for the way Mail works in this area and don't seem interested in changing it despite many requests.

Im on the same boat, if we change the font in prefrerence>font&colors, it only changes the look of the messages you receive in your desired font, but there isnt any option in Mail.app to assign any default font to new messages you compose, this is very very basic function and i dont understand why apple never focused on it. 😠