Greek font encoding problem (Mail app)

Level 10

122,118 points

Jan 6, 2015 10:51 AM in response to Greg_Ang

Thanks for the source code!

It looks like it may not be font problem.

Do you use gmail? If so, do you have the same probem when you use Webmail instead of the Mail app?

Or you might be able to fix things by using a different email app yourself, where you can set the encoding to iso-8859-7. Apple's Mail lost this feature starting with OS X 10.9 I think.

It appears that even though the email has a correct encoding stated (iso-8859-7), it is being read as if it were iso-8859-6, which is Arabic instead of Greek. Somewhere the email system the base64 decoder may be broken.

Would it be possible to get the sender to send you messages in Unicode utf-8 instead of iso-8859-7? Unicode is the most modern standard and should work better. It might require them to change a setting on their email app or add a dingbat to every message.

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Jan 7, 2015 3:20 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Good Morning and happy new year!

since I updated to Yosemite, I have a similar problem with the encoding of Greek characters. The difference with the above case, is that I have encoding problems only in the subject filed. In fact, i can read the e-mail text except the subject that appear all or part of it in Arab characters.

There is something can I do???

Thank you in advance!

Mirko

MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2012)

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Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,118 points

Jan 7, 2015 4:57 AM in response to mirkommemme

mirkommemme wrote:

I have encoding problems only in the subject filed. In fact, i can read the e-mail text except the subject that appear all or part of it in Arab characters.

There is something can I do???

Are you using gmail? If not, what kind of mail service? Do you have the same problem with webmail?

Do you have this problem with email from lots of different places, or just one?

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Jan 7, 2015 1:05 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

I'm not using gmail. The problem is on my work mail box that is by a greek provider "otenet.gr".

With webmail everything is fine, all the e-mail subjects are correctly wrote with greek characters.

The problem is not from everyone. Just from some senders.

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Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,118 points

Jan 7, 2015 1:16 PM in response to mirkommemme

mirkommemme wrote:

Just from some senders.

I don't think there is anything you can do at your end, other than use webmail or another email app. It might help if you could get the senders to use Unicode UTF-8 when they send mail to you, but that's probably too technical.

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terzisk

Level 1

0 points

Feb 18, 2015 5:21 AM in response to Greg_Ang

Hi. Did you manage to find a solution to your problem?

I have the same problem, I tried the solution of searching an arabic font within the latin gallery but there was none!

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Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,118 points

Feb 18, 2015 8:31 AM in response to terzisk

terzisk wrote:

I have the same problem, I tried the solution of searching an arabic font within the latin gallery but there was none!

It may well not be a font problem. Would you do View > Message > Raw Source on a message where this is happening and copy/paste the result in an email to me (tom at bluesky dot org)?

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Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,118 points

Feb 18, 2015 2:48 PM in response to terzisk

Thanks for the raw source. The subject uses Base64 content transfer encoding with the correct charset, iso-8859-7 (greek). For some reason it is being misread or misdecoded as iso-8859-6 (arabic). The only fix I can think of is to ask the sender to use Unicode UTF-8 when he sends emails to you (instead of the old iso-8859-7 encoding).

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terzisk

Level 1

0 points

Feb 19, 2015 3:32 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Dear Tom,

Thank you for your help.

I tried the UTF-8 solution and it worked.

One peculiar thing is that the problem seems to happen mainly with capital Greek characters.

But I have to find a more permanent solution because most Microsoft Outlook Apps are by default encoding their outgoing messages with Greek (Windows) or Greek (ISO).

Do you think that if I change my e-mail client the problem will be solved?

Does the sender have any problems with other recipients if he or she uses the UTF-8 encoding?

Kind regards,

Konstantinos Terzis

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Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,118 points

Feb 19, 2015 4:39 AM in response to terzisk

terzisk wrote:

Do you think that if I change my e-mail client the problem will be solved?

I don't know. It would be very interesting to find out. Also if using webmail solves it.

I don't think using UTF-8 should cause any problems with other recipients unless they are using software which is reallly, really old.

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terzisk

Level 1

0 points

Feb 19, 2015 5:08 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Well, using webmail solves it, meaning that when I log to my webmail account there is no problem.

More interesting, if I forward the same e-mail from my webmail to myself and I open it on my computer, there is no problem.

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terzisk

Level 1

0 points

Feb 19, 2015 6:54 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

I have tried with Outlook for Mac 365, no problem whatsoever!

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Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,118 points

Feb 19, 2015 8:41 AM in response to terzisk

terzisk wrote:

I have tried with Outlook for Mac 365, no problem whatsoever!

Sounds like a bug in Mail then.

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May 21, 2015 7:42 AM in response to mirkommemme

Hello,

I have the exact same problem. At some incoming mails the GREEK fonts in the SUBJECT are changed to ARAB or THAI fonts.

It is happening only with MAC MAIL. The same mails are OK when received though pc, outlook, thunderbid, webmail, etc.

Is there a way to have official Apple support for this bug?

Bellow is an example:

The correct subject was: ΥΠΟΘΕΣΗ ΚΡΕΜΑΣΤΙΩΤΗ

What I received through MAC MAIL was: صذدبإسا ترإجءسشةظشا

And the raw source of the mail:

Return-Path: <******.com

Delivered-To:

Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1])

by mx.kokkorogiannis.gr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5EA1C6164E

for <******.com; Thu, 30 Apr 2015 13:37:30 +0300 (EEST)

Received: from mx.kokkorogiannis.gr ([127.0.0.1])

by localhost (THZS003.cs1local [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024)

with ESMTP id 1blyluNQy4T2 for <******.com;

Thu, 30 Apr 2015 13:37:30 +0300 (EEST)

Received: from GIANNIS (andriang.static.otenet.gr [83.235.179.89])

(Authenticated sender: ******.com)

by mx.kokkorogiannis.gr (Postfix) with ESMTPA id 8493F61640

for <******.com>; Thu, 30 Apr 2015 13:37:29 +0300 (EEST)

From: "Account Andrianos" <******.com>

To: =?iso-8859-7?B?J8zn9+Ht7+vv4+/yIMPl/vHj6e/yINTm4e3l9O/w7/Xr7/In?= <******.com>

Subject: =?iso-8859-7?B?1dDPyMXTxyDK0cXMwdPUydnUxw==?=

Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2015 13:37:32 +0300

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Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,118 points

May 19, 2015 7:02 AM in response to Greg_Ang

To report the bug to Apple use

http://www.apple.com/feedback

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