On 3/20/2008 2:51 PM, Ron Wood wrote:
>
> Has anyone formulated simple instructions for this class of users on how to
> create (and subsequently distribute and archive via LISTSERV) attractively
> formatted documents with images using applications commonly found on their
> desktop?
>

Email is not the web, and vice-versa. In a perfect world, email users would
not expect full web functionality in email messages, and individuals who
view web-based archives of email messages would not expect the web servers
to parse MIME headers and decode encoded MIME content. Unfortunately, those
horses are already out of the barn.

This is not what you asked for, but you might find one or two useful ideas
in it. This is the sermonette that I used to post on internal lists from
time to time, back in the day when Eudora 3 was widely-used and its default
mode was to send HTML-only, but without MIME headers. Users of non-HTML-aware
email clients got to view the ugly HTML in all its gory glory.

--- begin sermonette ---
When you send email, particularly to a list, please remember that email
is a text-based medium and that a significant number of people on the
'Net, including some at Notre Dame, still use text-only email clients.

Some people use text-only email clients by choice, others because they
are visually impaired. You can make life easier for the GUI-challenged
or visually-impaired by following these guidelines:

* Don't use styled text. Fancy fonts and cutesy colors may look great
   in your email or browser window, but in a text-only email client,
   your message will be littered with html-ish tags that will make it
   difficult, if not impossible to read. Screen readers and other aids
   used by the visually-impaired may not be capable of separating the
   HTML code from the message text.

   Most GUI email clients can be configured to strip style codes from
   outbound messages, so you can cut-and-paste styled text without
   having to edit out the styling.

* Hit the ENTER/RETURN key from time to time, not just at the end of a
   paragraph. Some text-only email clients don't have word-wrap, so your
   unbroken paragraph becomes one very long line which may or may not be
   displayed in its entirety, depending on the capabilities of the
   client.

* Don't include attachments. Attached files are encoded to ensure they
   will not be corrupted by conversion errors as they traverse the 'Net
   to their final destination. Some text-only email clients can't handle
   encoded attachments, so the attached file will either be discarded by
   the client or embedded in the body of the message as a bunch of
   gibberish. Some people know how to extract and decode the gibberish;
   most don't. Perhaps more importantly, large attachments can create
   problems for the mail servers which must handle them, particularly
   if multiple copies are sent to the same server. If your document is
   relatively short and contains nothing but text, copy-and-paste it
   into the body of your message. If it is long or contains anything
   other than text, make it available on the Web or via FTP, then send a
   message with a brief description of the document and instructions for
   retrieving it.

Bottom line: If you want people to get your message, don't make it
difficult for them to find your message.
--- end sermonette ---

--
Paul Russell, Senior Systems Administrator
OIT Messaging Services Team
University of Notre Dame
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