Word spaces missing on formatted sent mail

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Jonas Smithson - 27 Jul 2007 19:42 GMT

I rarely send mail with formatting, but occasionally I put a word in
italic and send the mail that way. Unfortunately, I've discovered that
when I send mail with formatting (even just a single italicized word),
Eudora randomly removes a few of the word spaces (single space between
words) from within the message, so that when the recipient gets it,
someof the words look likethis. It doesn't specifically happen in the
words adjacent to the formatted word(s); the spaces could be dropped
anywhere in the message. Apparently this happens sometime during the
sending process, because I don't see it in my original version; and I
don't see it in email sent to me by people using Outlook.

Naturally, this makes me look very sloppy to the recipient, which I'm
not. So essentially I can't send formatted mail at all with Eudora,
which might be the straw that breaks the camel's back and causes me to
abandon the program (which I don't want to do).

Do other people have this problem? (You can check by sending or BCC-ing
a formatted email to yourself.) Any idea what's causing it, or how to
stop this from happening?

Thanks much.

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David Morrison - 04 Aug 2007 05:24 GMT

> I rarely send mail with formatting, but occasionally I put a word in
> italic and send the mail that way. Unfortunately, I've discovered that
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
> a formatted email to yourself.) Any idea what's causing it, or how to
> stop this from happening?

I don't see this problem in a test message to myself, but that is hardly
conclusive.

A few questions that may help to identify the problem:

Does this happen when you create a new message, or when you reply to a message
from someone else, or for both?

When you click on the Blah Blah Blah button, do you get HTML tags scattered
through the body of the message?

If you copy the body of the message and paste it into a word processor, then
set the font to Monaco or Courier (ie, a fixed pitch font), are the spaces
still missing?

In the Styled Text setting, do you have it set to send plain and styled,
styled only or plain only? In the same settings panel, do you have Size or
Small Sizes checked?

Cheers

David

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Jonas Smithson - 05 Aug 2007 18:27 GMT

> I don't see this problem in a test message to myself, but that is hardly
> conclusive.
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> Does this happen when you create a new message, or when you reply to a
> message from someone else, or for both?

It's been happening when I create a new message, if I use even a little
formatted text. I'm not sure whether it happens if, for example, I reply
to a message someone sent me using Outlook that's already formatted, and
I use formatting in my reply too -- I don't know if it happens then
because I can't recall that situation occurring recently. BTW, I think I
may have been wrong when I said "I don't see it in my original", because
when I go back now and look at the originals (I have Eudora save a copy
of everything I send), there are some word spaces missing. I'm a good
typist, and a careful proofreader of my own work, and I'm sure I didn't
drop all those spaces myself.

> When you click on the Blah Blah Blah button, do you get HTML tags scattered
> through the body of the message?

Yes.

> If you copy the body of the message and paste it into a word processor, then
> set the font to Monaco or Courier (ie, a fixed pitch font), are the spaces
> still missing?

Yes.

> In the Styled Text setting, do you have it set to send plain and styled,
> styled only or plain only?

The "Send plain text mail only" radio button is checked, but the "Ask
each time" checkbox below that is also checked. And when it asks, I
usually tell it to send both. I never noticed the discrepancy before; I
guess I'll change the radio button to "Send plain & styled both" now.
But I kind of doubt that was causing the problem.

> In the same settings panel, do you have Size or
> Small Sizes checked?

In the section "When receiving styled mail, pay attention to:", I have
all the checkboxes checked, including "Size" and "Small sizes". But it
sounds like those settings refer to how Eudora looks at other peoples'
mail, and the problem doesn't occur with other peoples' mail -- for
example, when someone sends me formatted mail from Outlook, I don't see
any missing word spaces. It only seems to occur when *I* send formatted
mail from Eudora.

If anyone has even a guess as to what's causing the problem, I'd love to
hear it. Thanks.

[original post]:

> > I rarely send mail with formatting, but occasionally I put a word in
> > italic and send the mail that way. Unfortunately, I've discovered that
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
> > a formatted email to yourself.) Any idea what's causing it, or how to
> > stop this from happening?

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Rifty - 11 Aug 2007 02:22 GMT

> It's been happening when I create a new message, if I use even a little
> formatted text.

When words are joined together apparently randomly, it suggest to me
that it is deleting end of line markers used in wordwrap and not
substituting a space. I used the unformatted text option most of the
time but do have Eudora ask me if I want to send both plain and styled,
and it has always worked. What version of Eudora is it, and what type of
computer? The original posting has expired from my newreading program,
so apologies if you have already mentioned that.

Rifty

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riftynet - put a dot after rifty

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Jonas Smithson - 11 Aug 2007 20:53 GMT

> When words are joined together apparently randomly, it suggest to me
> that it is deleting end of line markers used in wordwrap and not
> substituting a space. I used the unformatted text option most of the
> time but do have Eudora ask me if I want to send both plain and styled,
> and it has always worked. What version of Eudora is it, and what type of
> computer?

It's Eudora 6.2.4 (Paid) running on an old Macintosh running OS X 10.3.9
(Panther).

I just tried a series of experiments. I had received an email from
someone, created on a PC in Outlook, that contained quite a bit of
formatting (bold, italic, and different type sizes). I examined it
carefully in Eudora and it was perfect: there were no missing word
spaces or any other apparent problems. I copied the entire contents,
pasted them into a new Eudora window -- adding no editing or typing
whatsoever -- and emailed it to myself.

When I checked the incoming copy in Eudora, at first it looked identical
to the original: but on closer examination, there was one place, in the
middle of a sentence, where two words ran together -- a missing word
space. The words "the center" had become "thecenter". (The copy of that
outgoing mail that Eudora saved was also missing a word space in the
same place.) I re-checked the original in Eudora with "Blah Blah"
checked, so I could see the formatting codes etc. There were a few
seemingly random line breaks in the original Outlook code (of course
they don't show up with "Blah Blah" off, because HTML ignores ordinary
line breaks) but they were *not* anywhere near the words "the center".
There was nothing special (no line break, no codes) between or near
those words. The same thing was true when I examined the code in the
re-mailed copy: there was no code stuff anywhere near "thecenter".

I did a whole series of further experiments, in each case re-mailing the
original to my Gmail account so as to remove Eudora on the receiving end
(it was only involved in sending):

1. I re-mailed the original to my Gmail account, telling Eudora (as I
usually do) to send both plain and styled versions. Viewed in Gmail, the
formatting was intact, but the same word space as before was missing.
This shows that Eudora is dropping it on send, not when it receives the
message.

2. Same as above, only I told Eudora to send "Styled Only". Same result;
viewed in Gmail, "the center" had become "thecenter".

3. Same as above, only I told Eudora to send "Plain Only". Viewed in
Gmail, there was (as expected) no formatting, but the word space was
missing in the same place.

4. Same as number one (send "Both"), but before sending I showed the
formatting toolbar and unchecked the "Quoted-Printable" button. Same
result: same word space missing.

5. As number one (send "Both"), but this time I deleted both words
first, and then retyped them myself (with a normal space between).
Result: same word space missing.

6. As number one (send "Both"), but this time I added an additional word
"EXPERIMENT" just before the two words involved. Result: "EXPERIMENT the
center" now appeared fine, but 23 words later on in the same sentence,
"new findings" had become "newfindings". (I kid you not.)

BTW, there's a different kind of word-space bug in every version of MS
Word for Mac later than v 5.1. When I mention it to people, they always
deny ever having seen it, yet on a few occasions I've been able to show
it to people on their own machines and they always say something like,
"Oh! I've never noticed that before."

Since this only happens to occasional random words in outgoing formatted
mail, and most Eudora users rarely send formatted mail, and most people
don't read text carefully (that's why there are professional
proofreaders), and most recipients wouldn't bother to inform the sender
(if they even noticed it, they'd assume it was just a minor typo), it's
possible this is actually a common bug in Eudora and most people just
haven't noticed it.

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Mac Forum / Applications / Eudora / August 2007

Word spaces missing on formatted sent mail