Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
In iOS Mail, there's no explicit switch; messages use rich text automatically if you add bold,
italics, or other formatting—and plain text otherwise. Even so, incoming messages almost in-
variably look fine, because the formatting options are so limited.
In Mavericks Mail, I
generally
suggest sticking with plain text, because that way your recip-
ient gets to decide which font, size, and style to display your message in. Every time I get a
message written entirely in, say, green, 18-point Marker Felt—and believe me, it happens—I
cringe. I know what fonts, styles, and sizes are easiest to read on my Mac, and I dislike mes-
sages that override those choices. If you want do your correspondents a favor, stick with plain
text. However, if you include any graphics or photos as attachments in a message (see the
next topic), I recommend that you use rich text for that message, because the images are
more likely to show up correctly for your recipient.
To switch between plain text and rich text for the current message, choose Format > Make
Rich Text or Format > Make Plain Text. To set a default for all new messages, go to Mail
> Preferences > Composing and choose either Rich Text or Plain Text from the Message
Format pop-up menu.
Avoid Attachments
Please stop attaching files to email messages. Thanks.
Wait, what?
All right, let me give that suggestion a bit more nuance.
You have a file that you need to get to someone else in a hurry. A photo, a PDF, a word-pro-
cessing document, or whatever. What most of us do reflexively in these cases is to drag it into
an email message and send it. And don't misunderstand, there's nothing
wrong
with that,
per se. It works (most of the time), and (pretty much) everyone knows how to deal with it.
But I've soured on email attachments as a general-purpose file-transfer method, for several
reasons:
• Each email program (and user) does things a bit differently. Mail assumes that
the program receiving the messages it sends will be at least as intelligent and
capable as Mail is, but that may not be the case. Mail also assumes you always
want attachments to appear in what it deems the “prettiest” manner, and your
idea (or the recipient's idea) of “pretty” may not match Mail's.
• The experience of downloading and viewing attachments on a mobile device is
often poor, especially when you're on a cellular network (as opposed to Wi-Fi).
Attachments count against your monthly data transfer limits and chew up valu-
