Email formats

[Sonny]

What's the difference between HTLM, Rich Text, and Plain Text?

[PeteQ]

The simple answer is:

HTML - Allows you to view an email document as a web page or thereabouts. Colors, images, links, etc. Some email applications don't get these right and your message may be garbled and come across as a source code document.

Plain Text - Unformated, plain jane text. Kind of like the old DOS days of bulletin boards. Pretty much universally accepted and can be read by any email application.

Rich Text - Similar to plain text except it supports some basic formating. Paragraphs italicized fonts and stuff like that, but no embedded images. Pretty close to plain text in acceptance, plus you get to show your basic formating to help get your point across.

[Sonny]

Thank you!

[LoungeLizard]

Other difference is the ability of some mail systems/programs to handle them. As you'd expect, safest and most compatible is Plain Text - but it is lowest in features.