What is format=flowed? (Windows)

ISSUE:

What happened to the old style ">" that used to appear when I replied to a message? What is format flowed?

SOLUTION:

Eudora 4.2 implements a new Internet standard for sending text, format=flowed. This new standard lets you send text with returns only at the ends of paragraphs, which is much more convenient for reading on small or unconventional displays, as well as being easier to handle when quoting, trimming, etc. However, unlike styled text (eg, enriched or html), format=flowed is not unpleasant for users with simple mailers.

The way format=flowed works is by sending your mail wrapped and with normal quote characters (>'s), just like before. The only difference is that whenever Eudora wraps your text, it adds a single space to the end of the line. This allows Eudora (or other smart mailer) to reconstruct the original text exactly, taking out all the line breaks that were added, and presenting legible mail to the reader, no matter how wide or narrow the window is. A simple mailer won't know how to do this, of course, but that's ok; the only difference will be a single space added on the end of each wrapped line, which will disturb no one.

For a full description of the format=flowed standard, please read RFC 2646.

Along with format=flowed comes increased use of excerpt bars in Eudora. The reason we use excerpt bars with format=flowed text is that the text rewraps itself "on the fly" to your window width, and inserting and removing '>' characters would be very slow and clumsy in such a dynamic environment. When your mail is sent, your mail is wrapped and the excerpt bars are converted back into '>' characters for transmission, so that even if your recipient has a simple mailer, your mail will look fine.

If, for some reason, you do not want to use format flowed and the excerpt bars, you can turn if off. Copy and paste the text below into a new message in Eudora

<x-eudora-option:AlwaysExcerptResponse=0>

<x-eudora-option:ConvertFormatFlowedtoExcerpt=1>

The text you paste will show up in blue as a URL. Hold down the ALT key and click on it - a window will appear asking you to click OK. Click OK.

KEYWORDS: ALLCARDS, EPWIN, FORMAT, FLOWED, EXCERPT, BARS