4 ms·

I send most of my emails as plaintext - have yet to find a problem with it.

by lionkor 4y ago

ornornor 4y ago
The “problem” is that you can’t embed trackers, images for tracking, and other marketing crap.
- lucumo 4y ago
  Yes. Famously, this is why stuff on paper ever only uses a single font with empty line paragraph separators, and nothing else.
  - harryvederci 4y ago
    I thought paper was deprecated?
    - zx8080 4y ago
      Also pens and pencils. Who cares about that since we have chatgpt now!
  - imgabe 4y ago
    Prior to computers most business correspondence would be typewritten in essentially the same font with little or no graphics, maybe a logo on the letterhead if you’re really fancy. That seemed to work fine.
    - zamnos 4y ago
      Ah yes. Prior to computers there was no such thing as art, and then before the invention of color, everything was black and white.
      - imgabe 4y ago
        The topic was email. Email does not need to be art.
        lucumo 4y ago
        https://images.indianahistory.org/digital/collection/m0399/id/31463 https://images.indianahistory.org/digital/collection/m0399/i... Even in this letter from 1950, there is: - bold type - underlining - different text alignments - a table It's done shittily, but it's done. It also took forever, which is why they had to fill large rooms with typists.
        imgabe 4y ago
        You can do all that with plain text, except for the bold.
        lucumo 4y ago
        You can emulate them imperfectly. Underlining will use much more space with dashes. So much so that the spacing adds to the emphasis. And you can't use it in running text. Underlining with underscores OTOH is hard to read and has less emphasis than normal underlining. Alignment can be done more or less correctly, but it is a hassle. And it requires a monospace font, which isn't great for readability. Tables also require a monospace font, and are also a hassle, and you'll still end up with a hard to read pseudo-table. And that's just the mentioned limitations. You also can't include charts, formulas, screenshots, links, superscript, subscript, italics, without severe limitations. If email were still limited to plain text + attachments, I think a lot of them would be "please see attached Word file".
        imgabe 4y ago
        And if you have a document that requires charts and graphics it should probably be a separate document and not an email. That’s not what email is for.
unsupp0rted 4y ago
People need very large red "click here" call-to-action buttons to click inside emails. With plain text email you can't have those. Also people need a sampling of your latest blog posts in a table inside all your emails, with a stock photo in the left column and the article title and snippet in the right column.
- lionkor 4y ago
  Not sure if sarcasm, but I really never got any value from anything like that.
  - donohoe 4y ago
    It’s must be, because it’s provably incorrect. I say this from actual experience.
eviks 4y ago
The problem is pretty obvious - you can't format plain text

I send most of my emails as plaintext - have yet to find a problem with it.

ornornor 4y ago

The “problem” is that you can’t embed trackers, images for tracking, and other marketing crap.

lucumo 4y ago
Yes. Famously, this is why stuff on paper ever only uses a single font with empty line paragraph separators, and nothing else.
- harryvederci 4y ago
  I thought paper was deprecated?
  - zx8080 4y ago
    Also pens and pencils. Who cares about that since we have chatgpt now!
- imgabe 4y ago
  Prior to computers most business correspondence would be typewritten in essentially the same font with little or no graphics, maybe a logo on the letterhead if you’re really fancy. That seemed to work fine.
  - zamnos 4y ago
    Ah yes. Prior to computers there was no such thing as art, and then before the invention of color, everything was black and white.
    - imgabe 4y ago
      The topic was email. Email does not need to be art.
      - lucumo 4y ago
        https://images.indianahistory.org/digital/collection/m0399/id/31463 https://images.indianahistory.org/digital/collection/m0399/i... Even in this letter from 1950, there is: - bold type - underlining - different text alignments - a table It's done shittily, but it's done. It also took forever, which is why they had to fill large rooms with typists.
        imgabe 4y ago
        You can do all that with plain text, except for the bold.
        lucumo 4y ago
        You can emulate them imperfectly. Underlining will use much more space with dashes. So much so that the spacing adds to the emphasis. And you can't use it in running text. Underlining with underscores OTOH is hard to read and has less emphasis than normal underlining. Alignment can be done more or less correctly, but it is a hassle. And it requires a monospace font, which isn't great for readability. Tables also require a monospace font, and are also a hassle, and you'll still end up with a hard to read pseudo-table. And that's just the mentioned limitations. You also can't include charts, formulas, screenshots, links, superscript, subscript, italics, without severe limitations. If email were still limited to plain text + attachments, I think a lot of them would be "please see attached Word file".
        imgabe 4y ago
        And if you have a document that requires charts and graphics it should probably be a separate document and not an email. That’s not what email is for.

unsupp0rted 4y ago

People need very large red "click here" call-to-action buttons to click inside emails. With plain text email you can't have those. Also people need a sampling of your latest blog posts in a table inside all your emails, with a stock photo in the left column and the article title and snippet in the right column.

lionkor 4y ago
Not sure if sarcasm, but I really never got any value from anything like that.
- donohoe 4y ago
  It’s must be, because it’s provably incorrect. I say this from actual experience.

eviks 4y ago

The problem is pretty obvious - you can't format plain text