[GNC] elementary questions

[Adrien Monteleone]

I would add a suggestion to investigate something along the lines of 
Markdown syntax. Most of the syntax/convention allows for 'plain ascii 
formatting' so the text is readable by plain text e-mail apps, and you 
still get your emphasis across.

There are some advanced formatting measures for special cases, and while 
it is possible to attach images to list messages, you need to do so 'as 
attachments' *not* 'inline'. Many e-mail apps default to 'inline'.

Some benefits of learning something like Markdown include: a good editor 
can then generate a nice PDF if you need it (though you wouldn't be 
attaching it to a list message); many websites can easily convert 
Markdown syntax to well-formed HTML if desired (such as for a blog 
post); some forum sites might even let you post it directly and then 
render it properly formatted.

Regards,
Adrien

On 10/23/21 1:48 PM, Chris Green wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 23, 2021 at 02:23:20PM -0400, m.x. keating wrote:
>>
>> As suggested, I do use LibreOffice when composing a message, because of the
>> poor quality of the in-built text editor in Thunderbird. LO does not help
>> with formatting, however, since all formatting but the most basic is lost
>> when transferring into an email client like TB for transmission.
>>
> E-Mail as used in mailing lists like this one is a text medium, it's
> only if you send non-text messages that any formatting like bold,
> italic, underline or whatever is available.
> 
> Thus to get the best out of the mailing list you need to use what's
> available to emphasise or highlight things.  E.g. the usual way to
> emphasise something is to surround it with *stars* or _underlines_.
> 
> Using a word processor like Open Office to create your text will just
> mislead you into thinking you have created formatted text when you
> haven't.
>