>Say, I'm doing a distribute job for somebody, and the copy they used has
>some indented spaces.
>For example, an indent of 3 spaces when following up a bullet point
>(actually a dash) in plain text.
>
>Also, they built a wacky text-graphic header with a line indented by a
>couple dozen spaces.
>
>An example just like it is below.
>
>When I run the distribute job the spaces get removed, so that the
>indented lines are no longer intended.
>
>Other than "don't do that," what I can I do to make sure purposely
>indented lines stay indented? Any ideas?

The following should tell you where the formatting change is
occurring.  (I seriously doubt that LISTSERV is doing it, but if it
is, this will tell you that.)

If this is an NT installation:

1) Stop LISTSERV, but leave the SMTP listener (or LSMTP if that's
installed) running.

2) Send the job.

3) Before long a .job file should appear in LISTSERV's spool
directory.  View it using the jobview executable that should also be
in the spool directory.  See if the formatting is as you want it to
be.

4) Stop LSMTP (or whatever's handling LISTSERV's outgoing mail).

5) Restart LISTSERV.

6) LISTSERV should now read the .job file and act on it.  Any mail
generated by the job will be written to one or more .mail files in
LISTSERV's spool directory.

7) Open the .mail files (they're plaintext) and see if the formatting
is as you want it to be.

8) Restart LSMTP (or whatever is handling LISTSERV's outgoing mail).

If the formatting's OK in steps 3 and 7 then it's getting screwed up
after it leaves LISTSERV.  If it's already incorrect at step 3 then
the problem is occuring before it's getting to LISTSERV.  If it's OK
in step 3 and not in step 7 then LISTSERV is at fault (you shouldn't
see this, but if you do, that's what it means).

Thanks,

--
Jacob Haller, Technical Support
L-Soft international, Inc
http://www.lsoft.com/