-----It appears that [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote, on 20020815 6:20 PM: >cryptic characters .... >The message originated on a PC and was written with Word (V98, probably) >and was sent via AOL's mail program. Which of these two is responsible? > >The issue is of some concern since I'm supposed to copy edit a long >section of text from this sender who, as it happens, isn't the most >skilled computer user.
Neal, It's certainly normal for this to happen, especially when there's a combination of PC Word and a 7-bit ASCII email reader (like our beloved Claris Emailer). (AOL is most likely not directly responsible.) Can you get your sender to send attachments? In order to assure safest passage, it's always good to have them compress the files, which AOL will do automatically (though it's not always readily apparent to novice users how to get it to do this -- one suggestion I make to folks is that they make sure to attach more than a single file; that forces AOL to zip them). If you don't have Word (or a software that will translate or open Word docs), you might have to teach them another trick too -- to "Save As" from Word as Plain Text. (And you'll want to get these as attachments too, since they will very likely have characters -- like "smart" quotes and apostrophes -- that could get muddled in email.) If all else fails, it's always possible to write an AppleScript specifically designed to deal with the characters that are peculiar to that sender. (For example, I get a regular newsletter which always has about a scattering of any of up to a dozen garbled characters, but I've figured out what they are and have a script that fixes it in a second.) HTH, Dan Feather =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= =-=- Dan at featherweightstuff dot com -=-= =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
