[MlMt] New to MailMate - Questions about outgoing mail fonts

[Bill Cole]

On 2025-01-03 at 21:01:46 UTC-0500 (Sat, 4 Jan 2025 02:01:46 +0000 (UTC))
Johnny via mailmate <mailmate at lists.freron.com>
is rumored to have said:

> MailMate is wonderful. I hope I can make it work for me. Is this possible to do?
>
> 1. I want all recipients to see my outgoing mails in Times New Roman font. If I can set a font size, even better. 

That's not something ANY mail client can do for you. Email is not a website. You cannot control how users choose to read your email. At best, you can provide them the option of doing so.

MailMate can construct and send mail including an HTML alternative version which can specify a font and size for text. It will also always include a plaintext version, because not all mail clients can render HTML and not all users with HTML-capable mail clients enable it.

For example, whatever HTML you write in an email, if you write it in MailMate (or just about any other mail client,) *I* will not see the formatting because I have my MM configured to prefer the plain text alternative part. The reason for this is that HTML in email has a terrible history of causing security problems. Even though I'm fairly confident that MM's rendering of HTML is mostly resistant to such problems, I'm not interested in being the person who finds the gaps. I also frequently use mail tools that do not render HTML at all, so it is particularly annoying when I receive mail that is only formatted as HTML.

> 2. I’d like my signature to be in Times New Roman, in a certain shade of blue, some parts bold, in the font sizes I specify.

MM lets you construct your signature(s) in arbitrary HTML. You do need to know HTML.

> With Apple Mail, this is working well. Is there a way to do this in MailMate? If so, how? 

It's all possible, but MM is not really aimed at users who put a lot of weight in the styling of email.

It is worthwhile to note that there is a substantial population of users who, like myself, harbor active hostility towards HTML in email. We are mostly older folks who were managing mail systems when the first rumors of "viruses in email" swirled around and we knew them to be absurd. Then Netscape and Microsoft made such things possible by supporting the full range of web functionality via HTML email. A consequence of this is that some mail systems may be slightly more likely to decide to reject or just discard messages with HTML.


-- 
Bill Cole
bill at scconsult.com or billcole at apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo and many *@billmail.scconsult.com addresses)
Not Currently Available For Hire