Apple Mail - text wrap

Question

Level 1

10 points

Apple Mail - text wrap

In Apple Mail, I get messages which extend way beyond the screen. Other times I get messages which have a "clunky" format.

Is there a way to re-format received messages?

This re-wrap feature was very useful - along with an easy way to change text size - in Outlook Express for Mac

iMac PowerPC G4 (2.1), Mac OS X (10.4.9), None worth knowing-about

Posted on May 30, 2007 7:10 AM

Answer 1

May 30, 2007 7:56 AM in response to Andrew Homzy

With such a message open, at the menu bar go to View > Message.

If Plain Text Alternative is an available selection, this indicates the message was composed or sent with HTML format and/or RTF. Selecting this for such a received message should help but I'm not aware of a re-wrap feature which doesn't work on an HTML formatted message anyway. When a sender uses HTML for message composition, the sender controls the formatting.

Answer 2

Andrew Homzy Author

Level 1

10 points

May 30, 2007 9:57 AM in response to Allan Sampson

"When a sender uses HTML for message composition, the sender controls the formatting."

This is precisely my biggest problem with Apple Mail.

With my previous brwsers, I was able to easily change the sent formatting - and spend more time enjoying reading my mail.

Is there a way to request a "fix"?

Answer 3

May 30, 2007 12:32 PM in response to Andrew Homzy

When a sender uses HTML for message composition, the sender controls the formatting regardless which email client is used by the recipient.

HTML formatting was wrought upon the internet by Microsoft which came back to haunt and continues to haunt most Windoze users but mostly an inconvenience at times for Mac users. If HTML composition with email was banned tomorrow, the majority if not all problems experienced with the exchange of email would be eliminated.

Some email clients have a setting to automatically convert ALL HTML formatting to Plain Text for ALL received messages. Mail includes no such option since Microslop helped to enable the popularity of using HTML formatting.

There is a Terminal command which will do the same for Mail but ALL HTML received with any message will be converted to Plain Text.