Email Encoding Worldwide

Gosh, this is a vexing problem. I use Outlook Express, Windows 98 SE. Recently, I have gotten emails BACK from friends who say, " What does this odd glyph mean?".

My emails are reduced to a two glyph little blip. After much finagling, I find that in my Email composition menu is a line marked 'Encoding". In there there are choices, such as “Western European ISO, Western European Windows, CEntral European ISO, Central European Windows, UniCode”, etc.

For some reason, the last time I installed Windows, it created Western European ISO as my default. This doesn’t sit well with most recipients of my email. My German and New Zealander clients, they do just fine.

Why would Windows have altered the default setting? It took some fiddling about , and now I’ve gotten to where the default is what it should be. I hope.

This doesn’t bode well for world-wide business clients. How am I to know WHICH Encoding they need, in order to read my emails??? I can’t very well email them first to ask, right?

Grrrrrrrr. Anyone else dealt with this, on the sending OR recieving end? Overseas Dopers, pitch in !

Cartoonverse