Hi,
I'll admit that I'm puzzled about how a character like "@" does not
get correctly rendered when someone is sending email directly (as
opposed to forwarding it on or going through a secondary service).
However, the fact that the message got through to you with (a) in
place of the "@" sign suggests there is a genuine problem with how
it's being sent out.
Usually, messages that are sent out in 7-bit ASCII text don't have
problems. It's when your mail is sending html or other such formats
that one of these sequences for characters can get confused with
command instructions. In the case of the mail posting to this list, I
pasted in the processor requirements for library digital download
software from a web page, and that included the Registered trademark
symbol
"®". In the list reply from Jane, that came back as "(R)", so I
thought of your post.
There are two ways I use for handling problem mail encodings; you can
try both. The first is to send mail as Text messages. The second is
to send as 8-bit Unicode. (This is the option under the "Text
Encoding" menu for "Message" on the Mail menu bar. The default
setting is "Automatic". You can set it to Unicode (UTF-8). I had my
mail set up this way on my previous laptop (I think, through my .Mac
account settings), but I'm not sure I've set things this way on this
new MacBook.
You can also use the Mail help to look under "International" for the
topics "Including international characters and symbols in messages"
and "Viewing messages with international characters". For viewing,
you can change from "automatic" to specific character encodings
(including Unicode). For sending in Unicode, I've appended the content
of an article (and included the web page source, which I read in group
mode).
Here's the description from excerpted from:
http://tekkie.flashbit.net/mac-os/changing-apple-mail-default-encoding-to-unicode
<begin quote>
Changing Apple Mail default encoding to unicode
Posted on 7th October 2007 in Mac OS
If you’ve ever used Apple Mail for sending an email that has special
characters in it, e.g. umlauts or any other characters that are not
part of the basic Latin alphabet, you might have noticed that replies
on those particular emails include weird and unreadable characters
despite the fact that you didn’t enter any of those. This is the case
with all the replies from MS Outlook or Outlook Express users.
To prevent that you’ve got to change Apple Mail’s encoding to unicode
so it would leave no space for mixed results.
• First option to go with is to choose Message -> Text encoding ->
Unicode (UTF-8) from the menu for each and every message you create.
But that’s awkward.
• Second option is to set all further messages to use UTF-8 encoding
by default. To do so go to Applications -> Utilities and open
Terminal. Copy the line below and hit Enter to execute:
defaults write com.apple.mail NSPreferredMailCharset "UTF-8"
<end quote>
Hope this helps. I don't know what else the other party can do from
his end.
Cheers,
Esther
On Nov 25, 2008, at 6:10 AM, Maxwell Ivey Jr. wrote:
Hello; Thanks for the reply however late. I changed that setting
as you suggested. What I don't understand is why my messages are
being received by him but that I can't receive messages from him.
It could be a font issue as you suggested. I'm starting to worry
that the fellow is just pulling my leg. To be sure I gave him my
brother's email and phone info in hopes that he would email or call
there. My brother has more details about the equipment in question
anyway. But I tell you its frustrating having a buyer and seler who
probably want to deal but you can't move it forward because of a
silly technical issue like this. Thanks again, Max
