Article on effective communication and why you should use plain text

A more recent feature of many Internet E-mail programs is the ability to compose, send and receive Hypertext Markup Language documents (HTML). HTML is the language understood by Internet Web browsers and some E-mail programs.

If your E-mail client supports this feature, essentially you are sending a Web page to your recipient. Unless you include pictures, Web pages are just simple text with certain text patterns recognized as control codes for formatting.

While this feature is a great enhancement to Internet E-mail, the majority of Internet mail users may not be using a compatible E-mail client that supports this feature. My advice is that unless you and the recipient have agreed to exchange HTML messages, stick to plain text.

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	Last updated: 01/01/2007

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