are you sending the email to someone with wingdings font installed?

Look in the font list in the thunderbird compose window. Is wingdings there? My guess is no as it is not a UTF font.

I have attempted to copy selections from a MSWord document, which does support Wingdings, into an outgoing message via Thunderbird. The result replaces the Wingdings symbols with alphas, and a message says "Wingdings not enabled". That implies Wingdings could be enabled, not that they are disallowed.

This is not make-or-break for me, but another feature which Thunderbird does not support might: Building an e-mail distribution list does not allow inserting names in alphabetical order, or provide for automatically reordering them thus. The now nearly 20 year old Outlook Express program I came to know and use in Win XP did just that, and I am annoyed that no true equivalent replacement has appeared.

I read what you originally said. The fact that MS Word is not a decent email editor comes into this discussion. You are trying to copy something that is meant to go on paper into something the same as a web page. That Thunderbird does not support wingdings is obvious if it is not listed in the fonts list.

As for sorting by name, I have no issues when I click name I get a sort by name, what you do not get is an option to sort the list by family name. But I have no issue with that as I don't use the address book to manage lists.

Given the was providers are cracking down on emails sent to multiple parties (lists) and even on the number of mails sent in a time frame (mail merge style) I recommend anyone with a largish email list probably needs the services of a professional mailing house, not a mail client. https://mailchimp.com/pricing/

It is certainly a better way to manage mailing lists for clubs and associations as there is no need to hand over a mailing list, just a club user name and password to the provider.

Clicked post by default.

Click the squarish icon on the far right of the field list and scroll the drop down until you see last. Select it. Now sort by Last (Alphabetical sort by surname.)

My address book is populated last name first. Please assist or provide a link on how to create a distribution list with names so ordered and within which I can add or delete names and retain the alphabetical listing by first entry. My list is in the range of 40-60 names based on genealogical interests.

I do not suggest that MSWord is an e-mail editor. My issue is that I can't paste an extract from a MSWord document into an outgoing e-mail message without having the Wingdings within the MSWord document converted into unrecognizable alphas. I don't feel that I should have to paste the Word extracts into a new Word document and then attach it to a Thunderbird cover message when copying the text into the cover message would serve my interests equally well.

You'll most likely only be able to make it work if you change your E-mail font. Wingdings is a font, and so not all computers or web-browsers have it installed. Keep this in mind when sending E-mails with fonts like that in them.