Replying to emails

D

djkfunk

This may sound like a dumb question, when I reply to emails using
Entourage, it always shows my response BELOW the original email. Every
other email application I've ever used shows my response ABOVE the
original email. Is there a way I can tweak the settings to change
this? I've had several situations where someone thought I sent them a
blank email response because my response did not show up on top.
 
M

matt neuburg

This may sound like a dumb question, when I reply to emails using
Entourage, it always shows my response BELOW the original email. Every
other email application I've ever used shows my response ABOVE the
original email. Is there a way I can tweak the settings to change
this?
Click to expand...

There is no "setting" involved or needed. When you reply to emails using
Entourage, there is no response - it does not "show your response"
anywhere. It is up to you to type a response. It can go anywhere you
like. If you want your response to appear before the quoted material,
click before the quoted material (or press Command-Up Arrow) and type
there. m.
 
P

Paul Berkowitz

There is no "setting" involved or needed. When you reply to emails using
Entourage, there is no response - it does not "show your response"
anywhere. It is up to you to type a response. It can go anywhere you
like. If you want your response to appear before the quoted material,
click before the quoted material (or press Command-Up Arrow) and type
there. m.
Click to expand...

This is not correct. There is indeed a setting - whether it's needed is
another matter. If you use a Signature, then there can be more involved than
merely moving the cursor and typing blank lines and then retreating two
lines. You might have to select and move the signature too. All this can be
a bother. So there is indeed a 3-way setting in Preferences.

In Preferences/Reply and Forward, the default selection for Mail Attribution
of "Place Reply Text at top of message and use this attribution line" puts
the cursor for replying below the quoted text, and your signature below
that.

Checking the box "Place insertion line above quoted text" does just that
plus leaves a line clear to separate your reply from the quoted text without
more ado. It keeps you signature at the very bottom, below the quoted text,
not above it as you may be used to from other email clients.

If instead you select "Place reply at top of message and include From, To,
Date and Subject lines", then you get the cursor at the top with a line
clear, then your signature, then the quoted text preceded by those headers
rather than an attribution line.

Or you can move the cursor and type blank lines as you wish, as Matt says.

You don't get the same flexibility with News messages.

To change your method on a per-message basis (for example, you your
preference becomes Reply at Top but you'd like the option to replay at
bottom when someone has already begun that way) you could also my script
"Reply Insertion Reversed X" script from

MacScripter.net <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>



--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

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

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.
 
M

matt neuburg

Paul Berkowitz said:
If instead you select "Place reply at top of message and include From, To,
Date and Subject lines", then you get the cursor at the top with a line
clear, then your signature, then the quoted text preceded by those headers
rather than an attribution line.
Click to expand...

Wow. What sense does that make? It's just plain drop-dead wrong. Your
signature should be the last thing in the message; a good client will
detect the CRLF hyphen-hyphen-space CRLF that indicates the signature,
and may treat the subsequent material specially - in fact, it might even
fail to show the quoted text. To give a simple and very real example,
when you reply in Entourage, the signature in the original message (and
whatever folllows it) is not included in the quoted material.

Indeed, this is already a problem for me with the way Entourage does
forwarding: when I create a forwarded message, my signature precedes the
forwarded material, and I have to move it by hand. Otherwise, an
Entourage-using correspondent can't easily quote the forwarded material
in replying to me. m.
 
P

Paul Berkowitz

Wow. What sense does that make? It's just plain drop-dead wrong. Your
signature should be the last thing in the message; a good client will
detect the CRLF hyphen-hyphen-space CRLF that indicates the signature,
and may treat the subsequent material specially - in fact, it might even
fail to show the quoted text. To give a simple and very real example,
when you reply in Entourage, the signature in the original message (and
whatever folllows it) is not included in the quoted material.

Indeed, this is already a problem for me with the way Entourage does
forwarding: when I create a forwarded message, my signature precedes the
forwarded material, and I have to move it by hand. Otherwise, an
Entourage-using correspondent can't easily quote the forwarded material
in replying to me. m.
Click to expand...

It's designed for people - and email clients - that reply at the top, as
apparently most do. (Yes, it makes for ever-growing text.) When the next
person replies at the top the same way the bottom (from the signature on) is
not truncated as it is for bottom-posting. There are circumstances -
business correspondence - where people apparently want the full record in
every exchange, Some companies insist upon it. It's a waste of space and
bandwidth, but is the norm in some circles. It means you don't have to wade
through the whole thing to get to the new reply, but it's all there if you
need to refer back to it. People who ask here for how to top-post are
generally those who get top-posted emails from their correspondents and need
(or want) to reply in the same way.

If you've ever had to deal with with messages where you've got to keep
scrolling up, down, up down, to keep up with respondents who reply in
contrary fashion, you'll know that's the very, very worst case. So that's
why I always continue in the same direction as the previous person - bottom
or top as may be (using my script to do it on a one-off basis) - even though
my own personal preferences are to bottom post with snipping, or interleave.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

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

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.
 
D

djkfunk

Paul,

Thank you. You hit the nail on the head. I am in Sales & frequently
correspond with clients & prospects via email. Since their email apps
reply on top, I wanted to make sure I email replies are in the same
format. I do also like to keep a record of the chain of correspondence
as well. It is indeed inconvenient to scroll to the bottom of an email
to see a response. Thanks to both of you (Paul & Matt) for the timely
response.
 
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