Email Tip: It’s better in Plain Text
Do you remember when Maureen in HR sent out that lovely email to the entire company, exclaiming to the Heavens her excitement about this Friday’s meeting -casual attire not mandatory, but encouraged- and you could barely read the text in the body of the email above the visual commotion of her Outlook stationary? Adorned with flowers and little kitty paw-prints – it’s enough to give you a headache or at least induce an annoyed sigh.
Most perpetrators of this behavior are unaware of the nauseating effect of email stationary. They simply don’t know that there are many people out there that cannot view it at all. Stationary in email is made possible by HTML code, which is also the basis of how web pages on the internet are able to be seen.
While most modern email clients (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc) support HTML, some web mail viewers, mobile applications and text-based email programs (like Pine and Mutt) don’t show it. In fact, HTML in an email can sometimes make a message completely unreadable. Even adding colored text to your signature – only possible via HTML – can cause viewing problems on the other side.
The fact is that it’s not that important how the email is designed – it’s better to pay attention to things like grammar and spelling. With this in mind, it is most polite to format your emails in Plain Text. When replying to a message you can respond in Plain Text by choosing it on the drop down menu under the format tab. Again, the important part is in your message so try not to distract from that.
