Damn Hotmail Problem

Quick question, quick problem…

I have one BIG problem with my hotmail account that hopefully the wise doper minds can fix –

Basically, I have found that whenever I send a message to someone it comes to them in a screwy format.

In other words, it looks like
this and this and this, with weird line breaks
and
sometimes even odd spaces in the wrong places. When I’m writing it nothing shows up
but when it arrives
at the destination it looks like this fucking
mess
and it’s really annoying me, especially as I’ve started using it for business
and don’t want
to change all my addresses now.

So, any ideas?

The chances are that you are hitting the “enter” key when you get near the edge of the message entry window. (Which looks a lot like the one I’m typing in now.)

You should only hit “enter” when you must have a line break no matter how wide the window the viewer is reading your message in. E.g., to start a new paragraph, to sep. items in a bullet list, etc.

It’s an idiot computer, let it figure out how to do word wrap!

I taught Computer Literacy many times and this is one of the hardest things to get newbies to understand: If you don’t want a line break there then don’t hit “enter” there.

Nope, I wish it were that simple. I only hit ENTER under the circumstances you’ve described. I always just type and let the computer run the sentence over.

What’s strange is the places it decides to split the sentence. It’s either something kooky with my account or something with the formatting, but regardless it’s driving me up the damn wall.

Oh well. Thanks for trying, ftg!

It could be some problem with your Internet browser. Which one do you use?

Just regular old IE v6.0.

Anyone else have any ideas…?

Are you sure the problem is on your end and not your friend’s? Does he have some weird word wrap thing going on on his side?

Let me show you an example. Here’s my original post with all the line breaks taken out. It comes out smoothly.

The chances are that you are hitting the “enter” key when you get near the edge of the message entry window. (Which looks a lot like the one I’m typing in now. You should only hit “enter” when you must have a line break no matter how wide the window the viewer is reading your message in. E.g., to start a new paragraph, to sep. items in a bullet list, etc. It’s an idiot computer, let it figure out how to do word wrap! I taught Computer Literacy many times and this is one of the hardest things to get newbies to understand: If you don’t want a line break there then don’t hit “enter” there.

Same text, but with deliberate "enter"s added on to each line as they appear in the reply window. The text still looks nice if your window is wider than my reply window, just some unused space off to the left.

The chances are that you are hitting the “enter” key when you get near the edge
of the message entry window. (Which looks a lot like the one I’m typing in now.
You should only hit “enter” when you must have a line break no matter how wide
the window the viewer is reading your message in. E.g., to start a new
paragraph, to sep. items in a bullet list, etc. It’s an idiot computer, let it figure out
how to do word wrap! I taught Computer Literacy many times and this is one of
the hardest things to get newbies to understand: If you don’t want a line break
there then don’t hit “enter” there.

Now, here’s where you get weird stuff. Same text, but some lines have “enter” on the end and some don’t. Things should look quite erratic. (Again, depends on your window size.)

The chances are that you are hitting the “enter” key when you get near the edge of the message entry window. (Which looks a lot like the one I’m typing in now.
You should only hit “enter” when you must have a line break no matter how wide the window the viewer is reading your message in. E.g., to start a new
paragraph, to sep. items in a bullet list, etc. It’s an idiot computer, let it figure out
how to do word wrap! I taught Computer Literacy many times and this is one of the hardest things to get newbies to understand: If you don’t want a line break
there then don’t hit “enter” there.


I really do think this is it. (Unless you are cutting and pasting the message from another application, so it’s still the same effect and reasoning.)

Like I said, I taught a lot of novice CS and non-CS majors over the years. What people think they type and what they really type are never quite the same. (Even for me from time to time.)

Does this help?

Thanks guys. I think Earthling may have got it right.

Still not sure if I’m following you, ftg. The only time I hit ENTER is when I’ve finished a paragraph and want a space between the next one. I think it has more to do with what the site Earthling sent me to described, i.e. different e-mail formatting.

But thanks all for the help!