Email Format

Jack_Roberts said:

I’m not sure where to post this question so you mods might have to move it.

I use Hotmail. I like it and it works fine for me with one exception. When I paste my query letter and sample chapters in the body of an email, it formats it for me. How do I prevent this? How do I keep the original formatting on pasted documents?

If anyone has any tips, please let me know.

Thanks

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Quick and dirty way to fix this:

Open word document. Copy text. Paste into NOTEPAD. Copy text from notepad. Paste into email. Done.

Yes, that will mess with the format too. What you might try, and I'm not sure this will work either as I don't use hotmail, is copy the text you're submitting, create a new Word file, then save it in .rtf format. Otherwise, you might just have to make do with sending out unformatted text.

Ideally, you should use Outlook or Outlook express rather than a web based email system. You can still use your hotmail address with either of those programs.

err .. .

I would not use Outlook or Outlook Express or Hotmail, for anything. They're virus vectors.

Hotmail is the least reliable email system because it's so often used by spammers and it has a terribly history of hacks.

Hotmail, MSN and Live all are aggressive blockers of email as well, so that most AW users who use Hotmail for Thread Subscriptions never receive them--Hotmail assumes that they are spam.

I would use Gmail or Yahoo, both of which give you much better control over formatting. Both will also allow you to use an email client as well as the Web interface.

With all due respect to Medievalist, Outlook is designed to work with the rest of MS Office products and cures the formatting problems you are incurring. Yes there are virus problems, but you should not be operating a computer without good AV and Anti malware utilities running, no matter what programs you use.

err...

How is Outlook a virus vector? I use it exclusively and have for years with no problems.

Why do you want to keep the format anyway? Not everyone has Hotmail or a mail client that deals with HTML. And if they do, sometimes the formatting doesn't come out right anyway, depending what email clients they have. So stick with text only.

If you know the recipient can indeed view HTML email, that would be fine.

Otherwise, either cut and paste as a text-only message, or attach an .RTF file.

maestrowork said:

Why do you want to keep the format anyway? Not everyone has Hotmail or a mail client that deals with HTML. And if they do, sometimes the formatting doesn't come out right anyway, depending what email clients they have. So stick with text only.

If you know the recipient can indeed view HTML email, that would be fine.

Otherwise, either cut and paste as a text-only message, or attach an .RTF file.

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That's what I was wondering as well. Other than adding breaks between chapters, I've always stripped out the formatting in my query and pages.I actually copy them into notepad just to get rid of the formatting (though I generally only attach the first five unless otherwise instructed).

I have to vouch for Yahoo. Gmail is nice but Yahoo has worked the best for me over the years. It definitely offers more wiggle room in formatting your material.

There's a trick you can use in Word, if that's the program you are using: Click on File, Send To, then Mail Recipient. You can send the file as is through your default e-mail account.

This might be useful:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2239979_keep-text-formatting-copying-from.html

E-mailing from Word sends it as an attachment, AFAIK. That is a big no-no. Anyway if you don't have an e-mail client configured (Outlook [Express] etc.), it does no good. I have found that many peeps don't have any idea how they do their e-mail, they just clicky-clicky and there it is (that's usually webmail lol).

Webmail (Hotmail, or any e-mail that you go to in your web browser) is NOT capable of taking all of Word's default overbloated formatting. It is a different kind of code, and things get muxt up in translation. Neither is the HTML e-mail provided by a client program. Some of them are so different they can hardly speak to each other, and you don't know what the other person is using! Curly quotes and m-dashes and all that cute stuff are sure death any time.

Just FYI for those wanting to use a easy-to-setup email client... try Mozilla's Thunderbird application. You can import most web-based email address, I think. I KNOW it will import your gmail info by just providing your account name and password. I can't say how easy it is for hotmail or yahoo accounts, since I only use it for my gmail account(s).

Your best option, in my opinion, is to just reformat it in notepad or in the email itself. A bit annoying, yes, but at least you aren't annoying your prospective agent.

Yes, it will do, because your e-mail client would need to have paragraph spacing options which it probably doesn't have, so it doesn't know what to do with the instruction for spacing.

Probably your best bet would be to do a find and replace on carriage returns. Find them, and replace them with two carraiage returns. Paste the text, and you will have space between each paragraph. You can always hit undo in your original text, although I believe that paragraph spacing isn't generally used in publishing novels anyway (anyone to confirm?).

I don't think any agents will care if the spacing is slightly different to what you're used to: they're probably more used to the two carriage return default anyway.

Charlie Horse said:

err...

How is Outlook a virus vector? I use it exclusively and have for years with no problems.

Click to expand...

It is specifically targeted by many Trojans.

Outlook is no more susceptible to viruses than any other piece of software. Use a good virus checker and some common sense and you'll be fine.

As far as the formatting of your query, you're talking about the line breaks. You do NOT want to send it with the line breaks inserted, trust me. If the recipient uses a different program or wants to do anything with your query (like copy/paste it into a spreadsheet/database) inserted line breaks will make your query look like chopsuey.

Just my 2 cents.

Charlie Horse said:

err...

How is Outlook a virus vector? I use it exclusively and have for years with no problems.

Click to expand...

The preview function brings in a lot of unwanted guests. There are viruses that are sent in emails that you don't even have to open an attachment. You simply have to open the email. If you have a preview pain open and click the email to delete it, you just got yourself a virus.

To anyone who uses Outlook I would recommend turning off the preview pane. This will prevent this from occurring.

To the OP Word puts a lot of weird formatting tags when you create the document. Copying that it into a web based email system can cause issues with how it sends in HTML. Places like Hotmail and such attempt to strip the formatting that word inputs so that it will display properly in HTML.

Notepad will remove these tags as others have said. This should help. Never had an issue of formatting being stripped copying over to plain text. Note that RTF also has these format tags and can cause issues.

If you have an issue with Hotmail and still wish to continue using it see if there is an option to change the formatting of the email that you are sending. Most web based email clients have an option to change from HTML to Plain Text when sending the email. Might wanna test this out if the function exists to see if it clears it up.

Note I'm not a user of Hotmail so I'm not 100% sure how it operates now. I haven't used it in years. Moved over to using Gmail then to Google Apps with a personal domain and never looked back. Good luck.