What you are seeing is one type of mime, which I think is called
"quoted printable".
When you say that you are "using Microsoft Exchange Server v5.5", I
assume that you are doing this thru a work account where you have a
company lan. I suspect that your only out will be to bypass it
completely by getting an account elsewhere and either dialing up to it
or (if your intranet/filewall will allow) reconfig outlook to go
directly to the ISP's POP3 or IMAP server. A unix shell like the one I
use with a text only mua would be ideal, but they are hard to find these
days.
I don't like either word or wordpad for editing things like this. They
both like to do wordwrap which can destroy the messages if you are not
very careful. My choice for text editing (as opposed to word
processing) is Kedit. www.kedit.com for info & a free demo copy.
As for editing the archives in the first place, true, its a can of
worms. What I would suggest is:
1) Save an un-edited copy on your PC. Zip a bunch together to save
disk space.
2) Add some boiler plate at the top saying: a) You as listowner have
edited this archive for the reasons you told us on such&such date
and 2) on request, you will send a copy of the un-edited archive.
`
On Feb 16, 4:34pm, Darryl Luther wrote:
} Subject: Editing list archives
} I know I'm walking on a virtual mine field here, so I'll try to tread
} lightly. I've read many of the previous discussions on why you should or
} should not edit the archives and I think I understand the various positions.
} I run a list for Visual Basic programming and my main interest in the
} archives is preserving their usability for the list members. There's
} certain messages I'd like to remove that either don't pertain to VB (i.e.
} are grossly off topic), contain a virus attachment, or are flame wars.
} Another common occurrence is for someone to post a message only to receive 5
} replies telling them to check the archives. Imagine the frustration of
} searching the archives only to find 95% of the results say to search the
} archives. Anyway, the problem I'm having is not in the ethics of my actions
} (I can live with myself after editing the archives), but rather the
} logistics.
}
} We use Microsoft Exchange Server v5.5 and my email client is Outlook 98.
} What happens is when I try to retrieve a log by issuing the command "GET
} VISBAS-BEGINNERS LOGXXXXX" I get the file as a .txt attachment with the
} following in the body of the message:
}
} "This message uses a character set that is not supported by the Internet
} Service. To view the original message content, open the attached message.
} If the text doesn't display correctly, save the attachment to disk, and then
} open it using a viewer that can display the original character set."
}
} OK, so I open the .txt attachment (using Notepad or Word) and all the equal
} signs have been converted to "=3D"; some (not all) of the apostrophes have
} been converted to "=92" or "=3D92"; other characters have also been
} converted to various things. I could do a search and replace to restore
} these characters, but being that this is a programming list someone could
} certainly have "if x=92 then" in the body of their message and it would be a
} bad thing to blanket convert this to "if x' then".
}
} I'm sure the Exchange Server is doing this mangling because the messages
} appear fine if I search the archives via the web interface. My question is,
} what can I do about this? How can I get the logs in plain old text without
} this mangling? If it's hopeless I'll resign myself to understanding I just
} can't edit the archives. If there's another way I'd be very happy to hear
} about it. Thanks!
}
} Darryl
}-- End of excerpt from Darryl Luther
--
Rich Greenberg Work: Rich.Greenberg atsign worldspan.com +1 770-563-6656
N6LRT Marietta, GA, USA Play: richgr atsign netcom.com +1 770-321-6507
Eastern time zone. I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67
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