Can you check a couple of things?

1. mentioned that the specific recipient wants plain text in Tools | Address book... 'prefers to receive mesages formatted as 'Plain Text' and click on OK to save changes.

Is there a conflict..Have you checked that there is only one entry for that person. They are not somewhere else in another address book like Collected Addresses etc.

re: 'Yet, the outgoing message is visualised as HTML both in my Thunderbird outbox and in the receiving inbox on a webmail system'

2. Edit | Preferences | Composition | Send Options

• Under 'Text Format' section. Have you selected to send emails as:

• 'Send the message in both Plain text and HTML'
• Then click on OK to save send options.
• then click on ok to save Options.

3. Edit | Account Settings | <account name > | Composition & addressing

If you uncheck 'compose messages in HTML' and then click on OK to save changes, this will only allow you to compose messages in Plain Text.

If you have this selected so that you can compose in html and also have set the option (see 2 above) to send the email as both HTML and Plain Text AND set the address book contact to prefer to receive Plain Text, then they should get Plain Text.

You can select to 'compose messages in HTML' in the Account Settings as stated above, but you can swap to Plain Text for a specific email by holding down 'Shift' key and clicking on 'Write' button.

Providing the settings (see 2 above) are set to actually send in both html and Plain text, you could send this to yourself and receive a plain text message no matter what the settings under 'View' > 'Message body As'.

Thanks for bothering about this!

1. Check on Tools | Address book...

All addresses are in the Collected Addresses list with no duplicates.

2. Check on Edit | Preferences | Composition | Send Options

I had tried both settings "convert message to plain text" and "send the message in both plain text and HTML" with the same unhappy outcome.

3. Check on Edit | Account Settings | <account name > | Composition & addressing

I agree that the text gets composed in plain text. However it is saved in the outbox and received by the webmail as formatted text. At least I name it 'formatted/HTML' because URL's have been automatically transformed in hyperlinks, which is a feature that I want to avoid in the first place. Maybe this frames the same problem in a different perspective (sorry for the confusion in that case)

Plain Text Only (sends in plain text only, which means that no formatting is transmitted, such as bold, color, hyperlinks, etc.):

I believe it will depend upon the recipients email client on whether that product auto recognises a hyperllink and converts it into one even in a Plain Text message.

For example, if you sent a plain text email to yourself which has a www. webpage,then look in the 'Sent' folder and select that email to read. click on 'other actions' and 'view source', you will see that it is not a hyperlink. There is no formatting associated. This is also the case if you view the received email you sent to yourself. So, Thunderbird is auto recognising the text as a link and displaying as a link. So, this means that if the recipient of your plain text emails is also seeing a link, then this is because the product he/she is using is performing the same action - recognising a link and thus creating the hyperlink even in a Plain text sent email.

In Thunderbird, there is a way to turn this off.

You would need to access your Profile folders. These are hidden folders and files, so make them visible:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Show_hidden_files_and_folders
• http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/show-hidden-files#show-hidden-files=windows-vista

In Thunderbird

• Help > Troubleshooting information
• click on 'Show folder'
• a new window open showing your Profile folder
• Close Thunderbird now.

• Create a folder called 'chrome'
• Open notepad and type the following

.moz-text-flowed :link, .moz-text-plain :link {

 color: inherit !important;
 text-decoration: inherit !important;
 cursor: inherit !important;
 }

• Save the file as 'userContent.css' in the 'chrome' folder.
• Open thunderbird.

Now check the email you sent to yourself and the plain text email should not display the webpage as a link.

If the recipient uses Thunderbird, then show them a link to this forum webpage to see what is written, so they can add it to their Profile.