Font Size Tiny When Read by PC Email Apps

M

Michael McWatters

I¹ve set my default settings to HTML messages, and the point size to Arial
12 (a nice, clunky big size on a Mac, and a size which should be fairly
readable on a PC). Problem is, many PC users I send emails to tell me the
font size in my emails is 7 pts! Okay, so I set the type size to Arial 14,
and now they tell me it¹s about 9 pts!

Am I missing something here? Is there some magic setting which allows me to
set the font size large enough for PCs to read normally, but not so large
that my many Mac recipients get GIANT TYPE?
 
P

Paul Berkowitz

I¹ve set my default settings to HTML messages, and the point size to Arial 12
(a nice, clunky big size on a Mac, and a size which should be fairly readable
on a PC). Problem is, many PC users I send emails to tell me the font size in
my emails is 7 pts! Okay, so I set the type size to Arial 14, and now they
tell me it¹s about 9 pts!

Am I missing something here? Is there some magic setting which allows me to
set the font size large enough for PCs to read normally, but not so large that
my many Mac recipients get GIANT TYPE?
Click to expand...

The resolution is different on PCs than on Macs. The problem used to be that
any message sent from Mac to PC in HTML appeared gigantic to them, and
messages sent by PCs to Macs looked miniscule to us. Entourage 10.1.4, which
you have, has changed its encoding and HTML tags: it now sends pixel
information instead of point size. So people on PCs should be seeing it at
roughly the same size as what you send - their reader should be finding the
correct point size to display the specified number of pixels. If they are on
a very small screen, or have a very high resolution - higher than yours -
the point size may possibly come out too small. But I suspect they may just
have a poor email reader that can't convert the pixels to points properly.

If you look at the source of the message you sent, you'll see that the HTML
part has this tag:

<FONT FACE=3D"Arial"><SPAN STYLE=3D'font-size:12.0px'>

That's pretty clear. The recipients' email reader should find the right font
size to display text 12 pixels high.

If you have too many correspondents with the problem, perhaps you should
switch to plain text, where all your recipients will see text at precisely
the size and in the font that they have chosen themselves. You won't get any
problems then.


--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage
Entourage FAQ Page: http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - 2001 or X.
It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.
 
G

geoff.fitch

I am just discovering this problem, now. I see that this post dates
back 14 months. Any change in Ent 2004? I have some PC users that get
tiny fonts and others that don't. One complains that each time we
exchange replies to an email the point size seems to get smaller.

If I specify Verdana 12 point font, what would the rationale be for not
sending that information along and rather converting it to a pixel
specification?

Geoff Fitch
 
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