It may help you to understand a number of issues here. If your email is composed in plain text, then there is no facility to include tables. You can set out text in columns by inserting spaces, and because plain text is often displayed using a fixed-width font the effect may be rather like a table, but the spacings will be approximate. If your message is composed in HTML it can include the formatting codes for a table and the overall effect will be better - there will be lines dividing the cells and so on. However, in your case: 1. When you copy-and-paste a table from another application it may not include all the correct formatting codes. A better approach is to use the facility within Thunderbird itself to insert a table. 2. Although the mail looks fine as you compose it (in HTML I assume) you need to ensure that it's actually transmitted as HTML and not as plain text. Check Options > Delivery Format before you send it. 3. Even if the message arrives correctly formatted, the recipient's email client can strip out the HTML codes in order to display the message as plain text anyway. (Thunderbird can do this too.) Some users like to view messages as plain text by default because it adds additional security, since HTML codes can be used for malicious purposes. So, in short, even if you compose your mail correctly you have no guarantee that it will be displayed exactly as you want. That's an inherent limitation of email which is not always appreciated. If correct display of information is really essential, then the most reliable course is either to send it as a PDF attached to a message or to create it as an image and embed it in the message. I hope this helps!

Thanks very much for your detailed response, this is helpful information. Since using Thunderbird can still potentially strip out the HTML codes (and thus interfere with my formatting), let's assume I stick with MacMail then. You've pointed out that creating my content as an image and embedding it would be a solution. Is there a standard way to doing this? I've attached a screenshot of an email I received that I assume is using an image and is what you are referring to? (grey outer edges and content in a white box). If not, how do I go about creating an image that can be embedded in my emails and that will appear correctly across various devices? Thanks in advance.

That could well be an image, yes. The way to check is to open the email and 'view source'. This will show you the actual codes transmitted to your computer. If there are image files includes you will see references to them -- look for file suffixes like '.gif', '.png' and so on. The easiest way to get an image of your table -- and I'm assuming here that you have a Windows computer -- would be to create the table as you want it in a spreadsheet and then use the 'snipping tool' to take a 'screenshot' of that bit of your screen: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-10/open-snipping-tool-and-take-a-screenshot I assume you could then save it as an image file and include it in your email. However I don't use Windows software myself, so you've reached the limit of my knowledge here!

Oops sorry: if you're using MacMail you won't have a Windows computer I guess. Doh ... it's been a long day and I'm tired, sorry. Anyway I assume that there's an equivalent screenshot app in your computer -- you get the gist of the method, at least.

Hi, thanks again! I scanned through the source code of the email and unless I'm mistaken it appears the content is hosted at a web address? I did try taking a screen shot but I found that the text contained in the resulting jpg image loses quality. Additionally, what I found interesting is that that if I drag the edges of the sample email I sent you before to enlarge or shrink it, the body content dimensions remain the same, that is: it doesn't enlarge or shrink along with the email. Conversely, the jpg I tried does which makes me think the sample email is more than just a jpg. I've attached an example of this side by side. Hope this makes sense!

The image in the sample email could well be hosted externally. It's also possible that the source code contains HTML tags which specify the dimensions of the image as it should display on the screen: look for 'height' and 'width' tags for example. There are two drawbacks to that approach, however. One is that the image won't resize, so if you read that message on a smaller screen it may not all be visible. I often run into that problem viewing websites on a small-screen tablet: I can't see the full page and have to scroll from side to side. (HTML is the coding used to display web pages.) The other, more serious drawback is that many email clients only display remote content when authorised. I regularly receive emails which show up as blank, with a warning that there is remote content: only when I approve it does the content (usually marketing) load and display. Read more here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/remote-content-in-messages

Thanks again for all your info!