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Mail.app font for messages - Yosemite

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  Mail.app font for messages - Yosemite dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid - 2015-05-06 04:51 +0000
    Re: Mail.app font for messages - Yosemite Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2015-05-06 13:19 +0000
      Re: Mail.app font for messages - Yosemite dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid - 2015-05-10 18:52 +0000
        Re: Mail.app font for messages - Yosemite Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2015-05-12 01:06 +0000
    Re: Mail.app font for messages - Yosemite Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2015-05-07 20:49 +0000
      Re: Mail.app font for messages - Yosemite dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid - 2015-05-10 18:56 +0000
        Re: Mail.app font for messages - Yosemite Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2015-05-12 05:43 +0000
          Re: Mail.app font for messages - Yosemite Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2015-05-12 14:04 +0000
            Re: Mail.app font for messages - Yosemite Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2015-05-12 14:28 +0000

#29767 — Mail.app font for messages - Yosemite

In Mail, Preferences Fonts & Colors Message Font doesn't seem to do 
anything.

Is this a problem on my machine or is it like this for everyone?

Some e-mails display with the fixed-width font and font size I have 
specified. But there is a certain amount of e-mail in my inbox that shows 
up with random fonts, usually in sizes I can't read without increasing the 
font size.

I figured that setting the message font in Preferences would allow me to 
skip any rich text or html formatting that came through, and not have to 
increase text size on so many messages. Am I way off-base here?

It also seemed to me that there ought to be an option to display plain 
text under View -> Messages but that option is not there. It may be 
something I recall from 10.6.

Ideally I'd like to know what others are doing - do you all increase font 
size continually like I do, and just complain less?

-- 
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#29768

On 2015-05-06, dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid <dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid> wrote:
> In Mail, Preferences Fonts & Colors Message Font doesn't seem to do 
> anything.
>
> Is this a problem on my machine or is it like this for everyone?
>
> Some e-mails display with the fixed-width font and font size I have 
> specified. But there is a certain amount of e-mail in my inbox that shows 
> up with random fonts, usually in sizes I can't read without increasing the 
> font size.

Those aren't truly random font styles. They are font styles that have
been specified by the person who wrote the message, and the messages in
these cases are HTML rather than plain text.

> I figured that setting the message font in Preferences would allow me to 
> skip any rich text or html formatting that came through, and not have to 
> increase text size on so many messages. Am I way off-base here?

The setting does not apply to HTML emails. It applies only to plain text
messages.

> It also seemed to me that there ought to be an option to display plain 
> text under View -> Messages but that option is not there. It may be 
> something I recall from 10.6.

I remember there being an option to display plain text portions of HTML
mails in past versions of Mail (Command-Option-P, IIRC), but don't see
it in the more recent versions. Not sure Apple would see fit to remove
that useful feature. : ( Of course it didn't work for messages that did
not have a text/plain part. Some don't.

There used to be a hidden preference to instruct Mail to display plain
text parts automatically, but reportedly recent versions no longer honor
the setting:

defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool TRUE

You can use the View > Message > Raw Source command to view the entire
message source, which admittedly is not optimal because headers, HTML
parts, attachment parts, and character escape sequences are included,
making reading more difficult than it would be if you could simply
display the plain text portion.

> Ideally I'd like to know what others are doing - do you all increase font 
> size continually like I do, and just complain less?

Luckily, the vast majority of HTML messages I receive are advertising
messages, which aren't very important to me. I usually just adjust the
size of the messages individually if needed. I suppose if it bothered me
enough, I'd look into using a third-party email client.

I'm not sure if the current versions of Mail respect this, but there is
a hidden preference setting that allows you to specify the maximum font
size for HTML messages - you might give it a shot to see if it helps
you:

defaults write com.apple.mail MinimumHTMLFontSize 13

-- 
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

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#29833

On 2015-05-06, Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> wrote in 
<cquim5F9iviU1@mid.individual.net>:

> On 2015-05-06, dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid 
<dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid> wrote:

>> I figured that setting the message font in Preferences would allow me to 
>> skip any rich text or html formatting that came through, and not have to 
>> increase text size on so many messages. Am I way off-base here?
>
> The setting does not apply to HTML emails. It applies only to plain text
> messages.

Yeah, guess so. On first glance the preference setting gives one the idea 
that it can be controlled.

>
>> It also seemed to me that there ought to be an option to display plain 
>> text under View -> Messages but that option is not there. It may be 
>> something I recall from 10.6.
>
> I remember there being an option to display plain text portions of HTML
> mails in past versions of Mail (Command-Option-P, IIRC), but don't see
> it in the more recent versions. Not sure Apple would see fit to remove
> that useful feature. : ( Of course it didn't work for messages that did
> not have a text/plain part. Some don't.
>
> There used to be a hidden preference to instruct Mail to display plain
> text parts automatically, but reportedly recent versions no longer honor
> the setting:
>
> defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool TRUE

I tried it, but after scrolling through several e-mails in my Inbox I 
don't see any difference. Of course, maybe there isn't a plain text part 
to display as you have mentioned.

Some people that I e-mail regularly have clients that notice my responses 
are in plain text, so their replies come back plain as well. It is the 
first e-mail in the thread that can be hard to read. Web clients don't 
seem to be as smart though - in particular, my sister's AOL webmail.

> Luckily, the vast majority of HTML messages I receive are advertising
> messages, which aren't very important to me. I usually just adjust the
> size of the messages individually if needed. I suppose if it bothered me
> enough, I'd look into using a third-party email client.

My favorite e-mail client is alpine but all my attempts to find a version 
I could install with my limited unix skills have failed. So either I use 
Mail right on the Mac or log into SDF to use alpine.

> I'm not sure if the current versions of Mail respect this, but there is
> a hidden preference setting that allows you to specify the maximum font
> size for HTML messages - you might give it a shot to see if it helps
> you:
>
> defaults write com.apple.mail MinimumHTMLFontSize 13
>

Good idea, but as far as I can tell it didn't work. I tried 16 for a more 
dramatic effect.

Thanks for the suggestions. I've got an iMac still running 10.6 and Mail 
mostly did what I wanted there. Seems like now Apple prioritizes the 
sender's control of e-mail appearance over the reader's preferences.

I'm glad tiny font size is the only issue I'm having, so I can just 
increase it. It would be a bummer if someone who liked to copy current web 
design and send me light gray text on a white background.

-- 
AD

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#29837

On 2015-05-10, dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid <dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid> wrote:
> On 2015-05-06, Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> wrote in 
><cquim5F9iviU1@mid.individual.net>:
>
>> On 2015-05-06, dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid 
><dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid> wrote:
>
>>> I figured that setting the message font in Preferences would allow me to 
>>> skip any rich text or html formatting that came through, and not have to 
>>> increase text size on so many messages. Am I way off-base here?
>>
>> The setting does not apply to HTML emails. It applies only to plain text
>> messages.
>
> Yeah, guess so. On first glance the preference setting gives one the idea 
> that it can be controlled.

Yes. This definitely could be improved for clarity!

>>> It also seemed to me that there ought to be an option to display plain 
>>> text under View -> Messages but that option is not there. It may be 
>>> something I recall from 10.6.
>>
>> I remember there being an option to display plain text portions of HTML
>> mails in past versions of Mail (Command-Option-P, IIRC), but don't see
>> it in the more recent versions. Not sure Apple would see fit to remove
>> that useful feature. : ( Of course it didn't work for messages that did
>> not have a text/plain part. Some don't.
>>
>> There used to be a hidden preference to instruct Mail to display plain
>> text parts automatically, but reportedly recent versions no longer honor
>> the setting:
>>
>> defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool TRUE
>
> I tried it, but after scrolling through several e-mails in my Inbox I 
> don't see any difference. Of course, maybe there isn't a plain text part 
> to display as you have mentioned.

It's also possible it simply does not work anymore. : (

> Some people that I e-mail regularly have clients that notice my responses 
> are in plain text, so their replies come back plain as well. It is the 
> first e-mail in the thread that can be hard to read. Web clients don't 
> seem to be as smart though - in particular, my sister's AOL webmail.

Yeah. Apple dropped the ball on this one. There should be a simple way
to make Mail automatically display plain text if that's what you prefer.

>> Luckily, the vast majority of HTML messages I receive are advertising
>> messages, which aren't very important to me. I usually just adjust the
>> size of the messages individually if needed. I suppose if it bothered me
>> enough, I'd look into using a third-party email client.
>
> My favorite e-mail client is alpine but all my attempts to find a version 
> I could install with my limited unix skills have failed. So either I use 
> Mail right on the Mac or log into SDF to use alpine.

I haven't ever used Alpine, but it looks like you should be able to
compile it easily, and there do seem to be pre-compiled OS X binaries
available as well:

<http://www.washington.edu/alpine/acquire/>
<https://www.madboa.com/geek/pine-macosx/>
<http://osx.iusethis.com/app/alpine>

>> I'm not sure if the current versions of Mail respect this, but there is
>> a hidden preference setting that allows you to specify the maximum font
>> size for HTML messages - you might give it a shot to see if it helps
>> you:
>>
>> defaults write com.apple.mail MinimumHTMLFontSize 13
>
> Good idea, but as far as I can tell it didn't work. I tried 16 for a more 
> dramatic effect.

I'm betting that hidden preference setting is no longer honored as well.

> Thanks for the suggestions. I've got an iMac still running 10.6 and Mail 
> mostly did what I wanted there. Seems like now Apple prioritizes the 
> sender's control of e-mail appearance over the reader's preferences.

Yeah, that sucks, IMO. If you really care, you should take just a moment
and give Apple feedback about it, in the hopes they'll see fit to fix
this in a future update:

<https://www.apple.com/feedback/>

> I'm glad tiny font size is the only issue I'm having, so I can just 
> increase it. It would be a bummer if someone who liked to copy current web 
> design and send me light gray text on a white background.

Yeah, there's really no substitute for plain text!

-- 
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

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#29776

In message <mic6kl$e5a$1@odin.sdf-eu.org> 
  dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid <dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid> wrote:
> In Mail, Preferences Fonts & Colors Message Font doesn't seem to do 
> anything.

If you use the old-style view it does, but yeah, the font settings
mostly do nothing at all.

> Some e-mails display with the fixed-width font and font size I have 
> specified. But there is a certain amount of e-mail in my inbox that shows 
> up with random fonts, usually in sizes I can't read without increasing the 
> font size.

Those are styled emails, either in HTML or RTF or something.

> It also seemed to me that there ought to be an option to display plain 
> text under View -> Messages but that option is not there. It may be 
> something I recall from 10.6.

It did used to be there.

Quite mail
Open Terminal.app
type: defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool true[return]
relaunch mail

-- 
BILL: I can't get behind the Gods, who are more vengeful, angry, an
dangerous if you don't believe in them!
HENRY: Why can't all these God just get along? I mean, they're
omnipotent and omnipresent, what's the problem?

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#29832

On 2015-05-07, Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote in 
<slrnmknk0m.1cas.g.kreme@amelia.local>:

> In message <mic6kl$e5a$1@odin.sdf-eu.org> 
>   dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid <dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid> wrote:
>
>> It also seemed to me that there ought to be an option to display plain 
>> text under View -> Messages but that option is not there. It may be 
>> something I recall from 10.6.
>
> It did used to be there.
>
> Quite mail
> Open Terminal.app
> type: defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool true[return]
> relaunch mail
>

Thanks, but it is either not working or there was no plain text to 
display. I did find it again on my Mac that still runs 10.6. Unfortunately 
e-mail is too important to only use one of my Macs to view it.

-- 
AD

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#29838

In message <mio9k0$sh9$2@odin.sdf-eu.org> 
  dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid <dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid> wrote:
> On 2015-05-07, Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote in 
> <slrnmknk0m.1cas.g.kreme@amelia.local>:

>> In message <mic6kl$e5a$1@odin.sdf-eu.org> 
>>   dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid <dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> It also seemed to me that there ought to be an option to display plain 
>>> text under View -> Messages but that option is not there. It may be 
>>> something I recall from 10.6.
>>
>> It did used to be there.
>>
>> Quite mail
>> Open Terminal.app
>> type: defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool true[return]
>> relaunch mail
>>

> Thanks, but it is either not working or there was no plain text to 
> display.

The preference *does* work, but many styled emails do not contain a
plain-text alternative. You can always view source to see if the email
has only styled or mime or base64 text.

It used to be that short messages with only base64 encoding were a sure
sign of spam, but now most plain-text messages I get are base64 encoded.

Well, maybe not most, but certainly a LOT.

-- 
The omnipotent eyesight of various supernatural entities is often
remarked upon. It is said that they can see the fall of every sparrow.
And this may be true. But there is only one who is always there when it
hits the ground. --Hogfather

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#29839

On 2015-05-12, Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
> In message <mio9k0$sh9$2@odin.sdf-eu.org> 
>   dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid <dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Thanks, but it is either not working or there was no plain text to 
>> display.
>
> The preference *does* work, but many styled emails do not contain a
> plain-text alternative. You can always view source to see if the email
> has only styled or mime or base64 text.

It certainly doesn't work in Mail 8.2 (2098) on OS X 10.10. 

I just looked at an iTunes Store receipt message, and verified that it
is multipart and contains a text/plain part, yet Mail displays the HTML
and not the plain text.

-- 
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

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#29840

In message <crefjnFmmulU1@mid.individual.net> 
  Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> wrote:
> On 2015-05-12, Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
>> In message <mio9k0$sh9$2@odin.sdf-eu.org> 
>>   dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid <dyera@not.freeshell.org.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks, but it is either not working or there was no plain text to 
>>> display.
>>
>> The preference *does* work, but many styled emails do not contain a
>> plain-text alternative. You can always view source to see if the email
>> has only styled or mime or base64 text.

> It certainly doesn't work in Mail 8.2 (2098) on OS X 10.10. 

<looks>

Well I'll be damned. I'd assumed those emails jsut didn't have an HTML
part.

Thankfully, then, most email I get is plain-text. Sheesh.

> I just looked at an iTunes Store receipt message, and verified that it
> is multipart and contains a text/plain part, yet Mail displays the HTML
> and not the plain text.

Yep. Annoying, that.

-- 
WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN?  The Death of Rats looked
up from the feast of potato. SQUEAK, he said. Death waved a hand
dismissively. WELL, YES, OBVIOUSLY *ME*, he said. I JUST WONDERED IF
THERE WAS ANYONE ELSE. --The Truth

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