> Does LISTSERV have a system for automatically converting items with
>   Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
> into legible text without the "=/=20" garbage"?  And fix the urls for
> websites when extraneous charcters are inroduced by "quoted-printable"?

Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for this, your most immediate and
important question. I hope someone does.

Generally, there seems to be an explanation that a receiving email client
should recognize quoted-printable format and reconvert. That depends on the
client's ability to recognize the format, and I'm not sure the MIME headers
indicating its presence are being written consistently. In other words, any
given recipient might see some quoted-printable text correctly interpreted,
and some not.

I have a suspicion the answer to this question is "No" because a converter
would be a bit ugly to write. The best approach I can think of involves
converting back to text, and (if any characters are present requiring
encoding) converting THAT to base64.

> On my lists I just edit.  But for lists where the listowner doesn't/won't
> do that, is there some LISTSERV list header keyword which will subdue the
> "quoted-printable" nasties?
>
> And, by the way, what earthly use does "quoted-printable" serve, anyway?
> Didn't it originate with Novell GroupWise, the intranet system which has
> tried to make internet email work like Novell GW intranet email?

I am unable to find a statement of its history. Wikipedia doesn't delve into
that, although it does offer a GroupWise history that suggests it's old
enough, and originally written by the sort of people who might have come up
with it.

Quoted-printable addresses two issues:
(1) line length (because it forces line breaks, flagged with = signs, to
keep lines under the most primitive limits ever used); and
(2) out-of-range characters.

I suspect a good number of the email clients that generate the format do so
unnecessarily, just because someone inherited a configuration set up that
way, or because the sender insists on using the "directional" forms of quote
characters.

I heartily concur that it is annoying.

Hal Keen