Apple mail font changes with mail encoding

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two sun Author

Level 1

0 points

Apple mail font changes with mail encoding

Apple mail will change the font automatically with the encoding of the message.

This might not be shown on Apple Mail, but it does when recieved in Microsoft Ouotlook / Windows.

When I send in Western Latin 1. font is Calibri

Switch the mail encoding to UTF-8, Font becomes Times new roman.

if mail encoding is DBCS like Big-5, it start to switch the big-5 default font on Windows and it's ugly.

This is serious, the change of fonts is very unprofessional.

And we can't ask everyone in the world ot switch to Apple mail, most of working system are still in Outlook...

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

Posted on Jun 29, 2013 3:37 AM

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Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,088 points

Jun 29, 2013 4:55 AM in response to two sun

For Apple to see your comments, you need to post them at

http://www.apple.com/feedback

To be totally compatible with MS Office users, it is probabaly best for you to use Office for Mac/Outlook. For years now Apple has shown no interest in making Mail into an Outlook clone.

It sounds to me like the font changes you are talking about are perhaps being caused by Windows and not by Mac. To see what font names OS X Mail is sending to your recipients, go to your Sent folder and select an outgoing message and do View > Message > Raw source and examine the html code. Very often Mail sends no font names at all, which means the font is chosen at the other end. To force a font name into your outgoing email with Mail, select your text in the New Message pane, set your font, and do Format > Make Rich Text if necessary.

But many users find it better to just use Outlook for Mac.

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Answer 2

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Jun 29, 2013 5:40 AM in response to two sun

Display fonts are set by the receiving end almost universally, the only way to guarantee that the sender and the receiver see the same thing is to use Plain Text.

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,088 points

Jun 29, 2013 5:45 AM in response to Csound1

Csound1 wrote:

Display fonts are set by the receiving end almost universally, the only way to guarantee that the sender and the receiver see the same thing is to use Plain Text.

You have it backwards. Plain Text guarantees that both the sender and receiver see whatever font they choose in their respective local preferences. Sending Rich Text normally forces the recipient to see the font chosen by the sender, unless the recipient has gone to the trouble to turn off rich text/html display.

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Answer 4

Jul 16, 2013 5:48 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

The problem seems to be that Mail sets the font of only the opening paragraph to the default font. After that no font information is encoded, so the message displays in the default font of the mail browser it is being read in. In the sender's Mail this still looks fine, but if the receiver has a different default font the rest of the message will appear in this.

There is a free plug-in here: http://universalmailer.github.io/UniversalMailer/ that cures this! Trouble is, most people don't even realise, as they only ever see their mail in their own browser. It's pretty shoddy on the part of Apple not to sort this out if it can be overcome by a small free plug-in.

If you download and install Universal Mailer it will appear as a menu from the double arrow in the far-right of the preferences window.

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Answer 5

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,088 points

Jul 16, 2013 6:14 AM in response to basssplayer

basssplayer wrote:

The problem seems to be that Mail sets the font of only the opening paragraph to the default font. After that no font information is encoded

In my experience the normal behavior for Mail is just to send no font info for any of the text.

I'd be interested in seeing an example if you have one of a new message where font info was provided for the first paragraph but not the rest.

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Answer 6

Jul 16, 2013 8:42 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Ok, on further research it doesn't seem to be as simple as I thought. It's hard for me to fully check now, as I've installed Universal Mailer, but it seems as if this might only apply to mail with a pre-formatted signature.

I've pasted the relevant part of the html from an affected email below. For obvious reasons I've replaced most of the text with asterisks, but as you'll see, some of the text (in italics) is in Verdana (in this case the first two lines), and some (in bold) isn't specified, and appears in whatever default font I choose. (I've added line breaks for clarity.)

<html>

<head>

charset=3Dus-ascii">

</head>

<body =

style=3D"word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; =

-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">

<div =

apple-content-edited=3D"true">

<span>

<img height=3D"62" width=3D"297" =

id=3D"dc979ff9-d9ed-4b0f-9ea6-4f6cadf12218" apple-width=3D"yes" =

apple-height=3D"yes" src=3D"cid:3451943488_157568">

</span>

<span =

style=3D"color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; =

font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; =

letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: =

-webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: =

normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; =

-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; ">

<br>

<br>Hi M*****,

</span>

</div>

<div =

apple-content-edited=3D"true">

<span style=3D"color: rgb(0, 0, 0); =

font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: =

normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: =

normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; =

text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; =

-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; =

">

<br>

</span>

</div>

<span =

style=3D"color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; =

font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; =

letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: =

-webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: =

normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; =

-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; ">Thank you for your =

reply.

</span>

</div>

<span =

style=3D"color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; =

font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; =

letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: =

-webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: =

normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; =

-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; ">

<br>

</span>

</div>

<div =

apple-content-edited=3D"true">

<span style=3D"orphans: 2; text-align: =

-webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; widows: 2; ">Just to clarify: *********************************?

<br>

<br>Kind =

regards,

<br>

<br>*****

<br>________________

</span>

<font size=3D"2" =

style=3D"color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana; font-style: normal; =

font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; =

line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: =

0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: =

0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; =

">

<br>

</span>

</font>

<span =

style=3D"color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana; font-style: normal; =

font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; =

line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: =

0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: =

0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; =

font-size: 10px; ">

<h5>***** *****

<br>**********

<br>

</h5>

</font>

</span>

<div apple-content-edited=3D"true" =

style=3D"color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana; font-size: medium; =

font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; =

letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: =

-webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: =

normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; =

-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; ">

<font>

<span style=3D"color: rgb(128, =

128, 128); font-size: small; ">

<a =

**************

</a>

</span>

</f=

ont>

</div>

<div apple-content-edited=3D"true" style=3D"color: rgb(0, 0, =

0); font-family: Verdana; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; =

font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; =

line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: =

0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: =

0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; =

">

<font color=3D"#808080" size=3D"2">Tel: **************

<br>Mob: *************

<br>****************

</font>

</div>

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Answer 7

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Jul 16, 2013 8:51 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Tom Gewecke wrote:

Csound1 wrote:

Display fonts are set by the receiving end almost universally, the only way to guarantee that the sender and the receiver see the same thing is to use Plain Text.

You have it backwards. Plain Text guarantees that both the sender and receiver see whatever font they choose in their respective local preferences. Sending Rich Text normally forces the recipient to see the font chosen by the sender, unless the recipient has gone to the trouble to turn off rich text/html display.

So, back to this.

I setup a copy of MS Outlook 2003 (on XP) and sent emails from Mail to Outlook.

I chose Helvetica as the font in Mail and Times as the font in Outlook. The result is that all the mails I sent to Outlook displayed as Times, even though they were set as Helvetica in Mail.

This contradicts your post but is as I expected. What am I missing?

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Answer 8

Jul 16, 2013 9:09 AM in response to Csound1

Csound1 wrote:

I setup a copy of MS Outlook 2003 (on XP) and sent emails from Mail to Outlook.

I chose Helvetica as the font in Mail and Times as the font in Outlook. The result is that all the mails I sent to Outlook displayed as Times, even though they were set as Helvetica in Mail.

This contradicts your post but is as I expected. What am I missing?

This is exactly the problem! Apple Mail seems to default to sending plain text, so the mail you receive in Outlook appears in the default font you have chosen in Outlook. I think if you try sending from Outlook to Mail in Rich Text the font will remain constant. (I haven't tried it, so I can't be certain, but it should.)

One work around in Mail seems to be to select all the text after you have finished writing and change the font to something else, then change it all back again, before hitting 'send'. Try that with the same email and see if there's a difference.

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Answer 9

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Jul 16, 2013 9:13 AM in response to basssplayer

basssplayer wrote:

Csound1 wrote:

I setup a copy of MS Outlook 2003 (on XP) and sent emails from Mail to Outlook.

I chose Helvetica as the font in Mail and Times as the font in Outlook. The result is that all the mails I sent to Outlook displayed as Times, even though they were set as Helvetica in Mail.

This contradicts your post but is as I expected. What am I missing?

This is exactly the problem! Apple Mail seems to default to sending plain text, so the mail you receive in Outlook appears in the default font you have chosen in Outlook. I think if you try sending from Outlook to Mail in Rich Text the font will remain constant. (I haven't tried it, so I can't be certain, but it should.)

One work around in Mail seems to be to select all the text after you have finished writing and change the font to something else, then change it all back again, before hitting 'send'. Try that with the same email and see if there's a difference.

I chose RTF as the format at the sending end (and included a graphic which appears at the receiving end), so it was not a plain text send.

Other way around (sent from Outlook using Times) I get Helvetica (Outlook in HTML mode)

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Answer 10

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,088 points

Jul 16, 2013 9:54 AM in response to Csound1

Csound1 wrote:

I chose RTF as the format at the sending end (and included a graphic which appears at the receiving end), so it was not a plain text send.

That is where you can mistaken. Chosing RTF as the format, etc does not necessarily mean you are not sending plain text in Mail. That is the whole problem with Mail.

To see what font signals you are actually sending, if any, you MUST go to your Sent folder and do View > Message > Raw Source and examine the actual html code.

In any case, I assume you do agree that when you send Plain Text it is the recipient's font settings that determine what gets seen by him, not the sender's. So for them to see the same thing would be pure chance.

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Answer 11

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Jul 16, 2013 9:58 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Pure chance is possible bearing in mind the limited number of plain text fonts, I'll test that

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Answer 12

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,088 points

Jul 16, 2013 10:00 AM in response to Csound1

Csound1 wrote:

Pure chance is possible bearing in mind the limited number of plain text fonts

Are you confusing "plain text" with something else? It just means "not html". Every font in existence can be used to display plain text.

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Answer 13

Jul 16, 2013 10:01 AM in response to Csound1

It's not technically a plain text email, it's just that for some reason Mail doesn't always include the font information throughout the email, rendering parts of the email as plain text.

The basic difference between plain and rich text is the font information, including size and style, which is included in Rich Text, but not in plain. So any email sent as plain text is entirely dependent on the receivers settings, whereas any email sent as rich text should, in theory, always look the same, since the font, size and style information are included. (Unless you don't have the necessary font installed.)

Why your message from Outlook doesn't behave correctly either is a mystery to me!

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Answer 14

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,088 points

Jul 16, 2013 10:05 AM in response to basssplayer

basssplayer wrote:

as you'll see, some of the text (in italics) is in Verdana (in this case the first two lines), and some (in bold) isn't specified, and appears in whatever default font I choose. (I've added line breaks for clarity.)

Thanks! That is indeed strange and something new for me, I don't know what would cause the Verdana signal to be left out of that one particular span when it is in all the others...

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Answer 15

Jul 16, 2013 10:19 AM in response to Csound1

Csound1 wrote:

Other way around (sent from Outlook using Times) I get Helvetica (Outlook in HTML mode)

I tried this from Outlook to Mail: sending using Times 48 resulted in receiving in Times 48.

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