how to change outgoing mail message body font color and make it default!?

[WizardHunt]

Can anyone tell me how I can change my outgoing message font color like from black to Blue and make it default without having to do it manually every time. I can't seem to figure it out. Please help anybody....

Thanks in advance.

 

[WizardHunt]

Well after spending 37 min on hold with apple care, finally getting someone to answer, then got a arab guy that was very hard to understand. I wish they would have people that speak english well, as it makes it difficult to understand otherwise.

Anyway, after 37 min on hold, and then trying to understand what he was saying for another 23 minutes, come to find out there is no way to change the default font color permanently. It can be changed on the fly, when composing a message but i knew that already. So that was a waste of 1 hour on the phone.

 

[Lynne Tilley]

mail font color

I cannot believe that a machine like MAC cannot have a different default font color. It's bad enough they don't have a simple emoticon option, but I can live without smiley's if I have to. But the font color option is THERE, so why offer it if it won't work??

Anyone no a way around this?
Thanks!
L. Tilley

 

[hector]

This topic makes me want to cry.

It makes me seriously mad that Apple don't give you an option to change the font of your outgoing mail.

I sent 2 emails yesterday to 2 separate people without changing font settings, and they both replied. In one email the quoted text of my email was Times New Roman (eugh) and the other was arial, but HUGE size font.

Sooooo embarrassing. To think that they were sent from an iMac....

 

[MisterMe]

This topic makes me want to cry.

It makes me seriously mad that Apple don't give you an option to change the font of your outgoing mail.

I sent 2 emails yesterday to 2 separate people without changing font settings, and they both replied. In one email the quoted text of my email was Times New Roman (eugh) and the other was arial, but HUGE size font.

...

There are other threads on this topic. For this reason, I was reluctant to jump in here. Now get this: The formatting of email is controlled by the recipient, not the sender. Many people waste an awful lot of time trying to figure out how to force their recipients to receive their layout masterpieces. They end up a quivering blob of failure. Your best hope to have your recipients receive messages with formatting "intact" is to send HTML mail. However, the recipient controls HTML rendering. Many Internet users dislike HTML mail--a lot.

My advice to you: If it is that important to you for your recipients to receive your email masterpieces in all their formatted glory, then send them as attachments in PDF format.

 

[miles01110]

They end up a quivering blob of failure.

Well said.

My advice to you: If it is that important to you for your recipients to receive your email masterpieces in all their formatted glory, then send them as attachments in PDF format.

Or a jpg or png. Because everyone loves getting non-quotable images as a substitute for email messages. :-\

 

[hector]

There are other threads on this topic. For this reason, I was reluctant to jump in here. Now get this: The formatting of email is controlled by the recipient, not the sender. Many people waste an awful lot of time trying to figure out how to force their recipients to receive their layout masterpieces. They end up a quivering blob of failure. Your best hope to have your recipients receive messages with formatting "intact" is to send HTML mail. However, the recipient controls HTML rendering. Many Internet users dislike HTML mail--a lot.

My advice to you: If it is that important to you for your recipients to receive your email masterpieces in all their formatted glory, then send them as attachments in PDF format.

Thanks for this advice, I didn't manage to find anything like it on any of the other posts.

I have to say however that I don't control how I see other people's email when they send it to me (ie I haven't changed anything from mail's default settings). I get emails in all sorts of different fonts, calibri, arial, helvetica etc which is obviously because they have set their preferred font in outlook or whatever it is they send email with. This is not uncommon

At work we use outlook and are advised that company emails should be sent in Arial size 10 font, for the sake of uniformity. This is using html email (as I have just checked) which I have never had a problem with, what do people dislike about it? And why can't Mail perform this simple task?

Note that I'm not fussed about creating a 'masterpiece' or send email in 'all its formatted glory', but I do not want my email being sent in size 16 Times New Bl**dy Roman. And no I don't think that the recipient chose to have my email displayed as such, they replied in much more elegant Calibri at a standard size (10 or 12 I guess).

 

[MisterMe]

...

I have to say however that I don't control how I see other people's email when they send it to me (ie I haven't changed anything from mail's default settings). ...

Actually, you are controlling how your received messages are viewed. Accepting your email client's default settings is a choice.

At work we use outlook and are advised that company emails should be sent in Arial size 10 font, for the sake of uniformity. This is using html email (as I have just checked) which I have never had a problem with, what do people dislike about it? And why can't Mail perform this simple task?

When God gave Man email, he gave us 7-bit ASCII text. Many fundamentalists believe that it is waste of resources and an imposition to add the crap that people like to include in email. In fact, 7-bit ASCII is the only format that is guaranteed to work on all email clients. Apparently, you have taken for granted the proprietary features of Outlook. Messages received by Outlook will probably look like messages sent by Outlook. However, formatting across email clients may not be communicated intact.

Back in the days before email clients supported composition formatting, email was assumed to be 7-bit ASCII displayed in a monospaced font. This allowed ASCII art. Today, ASCII art no longer works because most email clients default to a proportional font. Progress?

 

[hector]

Back in the days before email clients supported composition formatting, email was assumed to be 7-bit ASCII displayed in a monospaced font. This allowed ASCII art. Today, ASCII art no longer works because most email clients default to a proportional font. Progress?

Are you serious?!

Which is more useful?

This:

__
/` `.__
\_ _., `'-._ _.--.
_`_ ) | '/ _ \
/ `/ /'---./ / \ \--.___
\__./ /--.. /``-\ '-.___`\
'-' `--` `--` \/
or the ability to send email in size 10 black arial font?

 

[Wyoming Paul]

Good discussion

I was looking for this information as well and find this thread useful. I agree with both sides of this discussion, and with that said it would be nice for a simple font format option for outgoing mail regardless of the higher way of viewing the subject.

As far a receiving mail using mac mail from other mail applications I do think mac mail falls short sometimes. I often receive mail in business from someone that has responded to my forwarded mail by adding highlighted text to the content and that email when I receive it losses its side margins and the text on both sides are cut short. I know these emails are coming from PC users. The same emails are fine in Entourage on my mac. While I use mac mail I think it could do better.

 

[MisterMe]

Are you serious?!

Which is more useful?

This:

__
/` `.__
\_ _., `'-._ _.--.
_`_ ) | '/ _ \
/ `/ /'---./ / \ \--.___
\__./ /--.. /``-\ '-.___`\
'-' `--` `--` \/
or the ability to send email in size 10 black arial font?

Once I figured-out what your ASCII art illustration was a picture of, I would definitely go with the ASCII art. It bears pointing out that this forum is not email. That said, your illustration was created using a proportional font and is meaningless if rendered in a monospaced font. What this gets down to is that sending formatted email requires knowledge of your recipients' email clients, particularly if you don't use HTML. FWIW, 10-point Arial Black in an email message is colossally unimportant to me. I am certain that most of your potential recipients feel the same way. If you want to force them to endure your layouts, then use HTML.

 

[hector]

Once I figured-out what your ASCII art illustration was a picture of, I would definitely go with the ASCII art. It bears pointing out that this forum is not email. That said, your illustration was created using a proportional font and is meaningless if rendered in a monospaced font. What this gets down to is that sending formatted email requires knowledge of your recipients' email clients, particularly if you don't use HTML. FWIW, 10-point Arial Black in an email message is colossally unimportant to me. I am certain that most of your potential recipients feel the same way. If you want to force them to endure your layouts, then use HTML.

Where your wrong is that sending formatted email is important to maintain uniformity, and does not require knowledge of your recipient's email client. The overwhelming majority use software that can read html email (including Apple Mail).

How you can possibly think that it's more valuable to be able to send childish ASCII graphics using apostrophes and question marks than to send actual photographs and consistent text is beyond me.

As we have observed, we are unable to compose html email in Apple Mail for some unknown reason, and so your point about sending it is irrelevant.

I have to say I am amazed at how far off you are here, and so I will let this one go. Sorry if I sound difficult but I think this is something very basic which Apple ought to provide us with the option of using, and it doesn't help to have people such as yourself perpetuating this archaic myth that html email is evil and we are better off with plain text.

 

[AdeFowler]

Can anyone tell me how I can change my outgoing message font color like from black to Blue and make it default without having to do it manually every time. I can't seem to figure it out. Please help anybody....

Thanks in advance.

You can change the colour and formatting of a signature and set it as the default for new messages. New lines that you create as part of the signature can have their font colour set, however, the line automatically inserted above it will use black text, so you'll need to delete that every time. Not ideal

 

[hector]

You can change the colour and formatting of a signature and set it as the default for new messages. New lines that you create as part of the signature can have their font colour set, however, the line automatically inserted above it will use black text, so you'll need to delete that every time. Not ideal

Most constructive post yet.
Thanks for the advice, this seems to work!

 

[jaybirdfive]

Font

Why would MS want to make it easier for people to introduce their own macs into corporate america (where almost everyone else you're corresponding with (at least, who I am corresponding with) is using outlook, and frequently rich text formatting? The fact is there are numerous such examples with Office for Mac, b/c it was a sideshow until very recently - a little project MS was keeping on the back burner in case they should ever need it. It appears that may be about to change however (see, e.g., new Entourage edition) - so stayed tuned for office 2010, I suppose...

 

[ChiAppleMac]

How To Adjust Default Font/Size/Colour in Mail

How To Adjust Default Font/Size/Colour in Mail:

Select Mail | Preferences... from the menu.
Go to the Fonts & Colors category.
Select the desired font under Message font:.
Specify the desired font size under Size: in the same line.
Go to the Composing category.
Make sure Rich Text is selected under Composing: Message Format:.
Under Responding:, prefarably also check Use the same message format as the original message. This means people who send you plain text messages will get emails back in plain text from you — your default font is not used for them, but this is probably what they prefer.

This is also where you adjust all settings for you mail account.

 

[gjb270162]

An easy answer to such a frustrating thread

Thanks ChiAppleMac.

Such a long thread and yet such an easy answer.

Cheers

 

[oyalhi]

Thanks ChiAppleMac.

Such a long thread and yet such an easy answer.

Cheers

Which solves nothing because it does not work. You change the color all you want in the dialog box if that makes you happy, but it won't change the default font color when composing a message.

 

[Bobsw]

Here's a viable solution to the DEFAULT FONT COLOR problem!!

You can change the colour and formatting of a signature and set it as the default for new messages. New lines that you create as part of the signature can have their font colour set, however, the line automatically inserted above it will use black text, so you'll need to delete that every time. Not ideal

Taking a page from the foregoing clever suggestion, if you create a signature with a single hyphen ("-" or any other character) in the font style, size AND COLOR you want, then that is the leading character (signature) in your email and all subsequent text will be in that format AND COLOR. If you choose not to delete that hyphen, your emails will all begin with a -, which I think is trivial.
Thanks to AdeFowler