Basically what the subject line says. I’ve got to download a bunch of emailed PDFs, some of which have elaborate and long-loading HTML messages coming with them. Plain txt emails open in a second, HTML takes half a minute, and I could cut down on work time considerably, if only Outlook would let me open all messages as txt only. RegEdit suggestions (apparently meant for Office 2000 and up; suggesting I change a value in non-existing Regentry) have so far failed to help me, but I’m open for ideas.
Have you tried this procedure?
The hell! Why doesn’t that pop up when I tell Outlook to search for a solution?? Grmbl. But yes, that works just fine, thank you!
I think the time delay would be for the download and not for the rendition?
I absolutely fucking hate HTML email. At work I get emails which are hundreds of kilobytes big just because (1) everybody uses HTML and (2) everybody attaches the whole chain of emails. Add any attachments and the whole thing gets out of hand. I hate this.
I ask people to use plain text unless they absolutely need to use HTML but I think most people are without a clue. I have a client who includes every time a signature which is a graphic of 300 KBytes.
I have no bandwidth problem here but I might when I am on the road. And searching and storing plain text emails is a million times more efficient. People just have not even a clue.
No, it’s the rendition – the files are already downloaded, because I couldn’t spare the server space, so I downloaded the emails completely and then removed them from the server. I’ve got a nagging suspicion that the HTML Format loads the PDFs into the cache or whatever prior to displaying the Email, while the plain text doesn’t. It’s curious, but I’m glad there was an easy solution.
That cannot be HTML’s fault. People don’t like plain text because it is… plain. No bold, no italic, no sizes, no fonts… it impedes communication. It’s like being forced to speak in a monotone voice. If other software makes HTML a problem, like generating huge emails, it’s the software’s fault, not HTML’s.
I do not need or like the fancy colors or fonts. It makes emails ten times the size and searches are a lot slower. My boss uses HTML all the time just because he likes the fancy blue color. And he keeps all emails in a single folder because he can’t be bothered to classify them by subject matter. So, his searches never end and he can never find what he is looking for. So he comes to me and I find it in seconds in my computer because I use folders to separate emails and because I avoid HTML. When I answer an HTML email which has a size of 600KB I use plain text and reduce it to 1/20th that size and then archive the response and delete the original. My searches go like lightning. But my boss likes his nice blue colors, fuck his heart.
But you must have noticed how hard-core ASCII fans use things like this to mean this, and other such workarounds. Why do they do that? Because even they find plain text too limiting. Likewise, “fancy” fonts and colors. That’s like saying you don’t like all those fancy fonts that newspapers use. Who would buy a newspaper that was set in Courier 10 throughout? No fancy colour pictures, either.
I guess it is a matter of preference. I prefer plain text and I hate HTML email with passion.
I prefer being able to search in a microsecond than to waste a lot of time. Fancy colors do nothing for me.
I ocassionally use HTML when I need to include a table or some other reason which truly justifies the extra coding. Other than that I never use it and if I were the king of our organization I would instruct people to not use it unless strictly necessary.
I hate being on the road somewhere and having to slowly and painfully download HTML crap. Especially from some woman who thinks it’s cute to change colors, sizes, etc.
But this isn’t really an answer to Ximenean observation.
I don’t need fancy colors or fonts in emails, either, but the type of stuff i send means that the ability to italicize, for example, makes life a lot easier for me and for the person reading my email.
For example, if i’m talking in my email about scholarly books and articles, it helps to differentiate them by putting quotation marks around the article titles, and having the book titles in italics. That way, when i recommend that someone read Robert Wiebe’s *The Search for Order, 1877-1920," the reader won’t need to work out whether i’m talking about a book or an article.
Sure, i could say “book” in the text, but the fact is that basically every form of correspondence used in the past 2000 years has had some easy-to-use way of emphasizing certain text. In handwriting, you can underline the word (even underline it twice!) or write in large letters. Typewriters also had the ability to underline. Word processors allow an almost endless stream of text differentiation. And HTML makes things like bold, underline, etc. easy as well. About the only communication medium that lacks this is plain text, unless you want to use the bold or italic type of style.
While i understand that you hate receiving massive HTML emails with silly colors and different-sized fonts and embedded images all over the place, the fact is that a few judiciously-placed <i> and <u> and <b> tags really add very little weight to
a regular email.
I compose about 95% of my emails in plain text, but if i think that a bit of HTML markup will make the reader’s life easier, i don’t hesitate to switch.
But this isn’t really an answer to Ximenean’s observation.
I don’t need fancy colors or fonts in emails, either, but the type of stuff i send means that the ability to italicize, for example, makes life a lot easier for me and for the person reading my email.
For example, if i’m talking in my email about scholarly books and articles, it helps to differentiate them by putting quotation marks around the article titles, and having the book titles in italics. That way, when i recommend that someone read Robert Wiebe’s The Search for Order, 1877-1920, the reader won’t need to work out whether i’m talking about a book or an article.
Sure, i could say “book” in the text, but the fact is that basically every form of correspondence used in the past 2000 years has had some easy-to-use way of emphasizing certain text. In handwriting, you can underline the word (even underline it twice!) or write in large letters. Typewriters also had the ability to underline. Word processors allow an almost endless stream of text differentiation. And HTML makes things like bold, underline, etc. easy as well. About the only communication medium that lacks this is plain text, unless you want to use the bold or italic type of style.
While i understand that you hate receiving massive HTML emails with silly colors and different-sized fonts and embedded images all over the place, the fact is that a few judiciously-placed <i> and <u> and <b> tags really add very little weight to a regular email.
I compose about 95% of my emails in plain text, but if i think that a bit of HTML markup will make the reader’s life easier, i don’t hesitate to switch.