EMC162    Avoid Botched Email
To:   Emergency Communications Units - Information Bulletin
To:   Emergency Management Agencies via Internet and Radio
By:   Auxiliary Communications Service (ACS) of the
      California Governor's Office of Emergency Services

EMC162    Avoid Botched Email         For release  12/14/98

Ever get an Email message with an attachment you can't read?  Or
a message with numbers or strange characters in with the text,
like a =20 or ^M at the end of each line, or boxes or other
symbols that don't make sense?  Such problems can occur for a
variety of reasons, so let's take a look at some problem areas.

The "universal" language of computers (in a sense) is the use of
ASCII.  ASCII is the universal way for computers to know what
values characters have across many platforms (Mac, Windows,
etc.) in order to display the message so it is readable.

People write their messages in an Email program, or an agency
software (like CC Mail), or in Internet Browsers; others do so
in a text editor, or a word processor.  The ability of these
various programs to handle "text" varies widely.  Even well
known word processors may lack the capacity to do what is
required.

Just because a program can save the file as "text" does not mean
it has done so in the manner that will result in a clean
message.  This problem is readily apparent when a user writes
the message in a word processor or text editor and "saves" it as
"text" or "ASCII"; then "pastes" or "copies" it into a message
to be sent as Email (or via digital radio circuits.)

Here at State OES we've had to "scrub" many a message in order
to remove the strange characters.  To "scrub" means to run it
through another program with special capabilities.  Such
programs remove control characters, ASCII characters 128-255, as
well as "stupefy" quotes, ligatures, ellipses and dashes.  An
example is a "smart quote" instead of a "stupid quote".  A
"smart quote" will show up as the letter Q or U, for instance.
(Quotes used in this message are "stupid" in that they are not
curled.)  (We've used the DOS program "Professional Write" and
the MAC program "TexEdit" to do such scrubbing.  There are
others.)

In a nutshell, the only safe way to assure 100% reception,
without concern for the other users software or computer, is to
make certain that the entire message is written in "pure ASCII"
(characters 0-127.)

Another cause comes from the newer Email messaging systems from
Netscape, Eudora, and Microsoft that insert special formatting
characters (such as HTML language).  The solution is for the
message writer with the software (that includes these special
formatting characters and control codes) to select an option to
send "plain text" or "text only".  Since this is an evolving
medium it may be well to verify that such programs continue to
do what they need to do; that is, save it as "pure ASCII.

Continued, see bulletin EMC163 
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