I'm behind in my reading of this digest, so the following input may
already have been covered, but anyway, here it is:
I use my AOL account to receive a variety of newsletters & marketing/PR
materials. Recently, I received a newsletter from Northwest Airlines that
appeared to be in HTML format, and as far as I knew, I never had been
given an option for plain text vs. HTML. So I contacted NWA, with the
following interesting response from a firm that apparently handles their
web site.
"There are three primary forms of email - text only, AOL, and HTML. AOL
is a different kind of animal. Prior to version 6, AOL did not support
"true" HTML. They did however come up with a few formatting codes to
allow for colored text, bold, increased or decreased text size, etc.
And, one of the great things they added was the ability to handle
clickable links to other websites. This standard AOL email format is
sometimes referred to as RTF for Rich Text Format -- because basically
all you can change is basic text formatting. Starting with the new
versions of AOL (version 6, 7, and now 8), true HTML was supported. On
the NWA website, we ask the following questions for email preference --
Either receive:
(1) Text and Graphics Email, or
(2) Text Only Email
For AOL, number (1) amounts to sending a full "true" HTML email (for
people with the newer versions who desire to receive graphical emails).
Number (2) is the RTF version mentioned above. It does not include any
graphics because the older versions of AOL didn't support them. One of
the nice things about the newer versions is that they are backward
compatible, meaning that they will not only handle true HTML but also the
older RTF format. I realize that the RTF codes that you are seeing look
like HTML. Indeed they do look exactly like HTML, but they represent
only a very small subset covering some basic formatting as described
above."
The obvious solution is to switch preferences to text only, but this is
made difficult by having to dig the pertinent info from text that is
buried in code.
All's well that ends well, and thanks go to ADINFONITUM - which responded
to my original inquiry to NWA - for being helpful in explaining the
situation.
Joe Hallett
*Independent Writer on Technology & Business subjects*
Contributing Editor: Information Display, Image processing Europe, Vision
Systems Design.
Other Credits include Byte Magazine, Church Production Magazine, The
Communications Industries Report, DSLDigest.com, Medical Electronics
Manufacturing, Presenting: Communications, theIPSite.com, The Oregonian
Newspaper, The Visiting Fireman
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