How can I retain formating when copying from WORD to Thunderbird?
I wrote a text in WORD with Century Gothic size 12 as the font, with indentations at the beginning of paragraphs. I copied that text into a Thunderbird email. When I looked at the sent email, there is a different font and the indentations have disappeared. What can I do to make sure that the email looks exactly as I had typed in the WORD document?
All Replies (6)
You can save the word document as a PDF file and attach it to an email. That is about the only way to move a document and have the recipient see it as you intend. Nothing else is guaranteed with any mail client.
Point sizes do not translate to HTML well. HTML uses pixels and a generically numbered 1-7 size that Thunderbird implements as bigger and smaller in the composer.
Fonts used must also be installed on the recipients computer. That fancy font that came with application XXX is probably going to look like courier to the recipient. According to CSS Font Stack
about 87.62% Windows users and 53.15% of Mac:users will see that font.
The most important thing of all is to be aware Word is intended to create words on paper using a printer. It is not intended to generate HTML for emails and as such does a very average job of it. Use the composer from Thunderbird to create your mail and then you will stand half a chance of it going out as you intend as it is a dedicated HTML composer.
For decades I used Outlook Express for email until I recently got a new computer with Windows 7 and problems in getting to Outlook. There was no problem in preserving WORD text in its form when copying it into the email. I could also put a picture along with the text. So it seems that if I want to continue with Thunderbird, I am stuck with an unsatisfactory appearence of my emails. Doing it in PDF as an attachment is no solution. Thank you.
Where do I find "the composer from Thunderbird"?
That's what you see when you compose a message. So, write a new message, or reply to or forward an existing message, or open an existing message for editing ("edit message as new").
If you don't see a toolbar offering formatting options then you are either composing in plain text, or your toolbar is disabled.
meissner said
For decades I used Outlook Express for email until I recently got a new computer with Windows 7 and problems in getting to Outlook. There was no problem in preserving WORD text in its form when copying it into the email. I could also put a picture along with the text. So it seems that if I want to continue with Thunderbird, I am stuck with an unsatisfactory appearence of my emails. Doing it in PDF as an attachment is no solution. Thank you.
Outlook express is a Microsoft product. Of course it worked well with another Microsoft product. That is their strengths. Tight integration and lots of glue over the cracks. Outlook express was also one of the most insecure email applications you could use. I know. I used it to. The mails looked good when you types them, bit what the other folk saw when they got it. That was a real eye opener for me. One correspondent replied after about the 50th email and asked me why every mail I send had an image attached. His mail client did not do background images so all he saw was a white background and an attachment with a textured image in it.