Imac OS 9.0.4 ....Outlook Express.... Key caps and webdings have lots of interesting pictures and symbols., but if I use them in an e-mail message they don't go thru properly. (Earthlink) Musical notes appear as small squares on receipients end. In an effort to test things out, my sister (windows...compuserve) sent me 5 umbrellas. I received them as 5 very small dots. Any thoughts? Thanks.

Because the recipient doesn't have the same font. When are people going to learn that e-mail is for text, and if they want to send fancy crap, do it with an attachment or via other methods than e-mail? p

Thanks Pickle, I don't mean to frustrate you. Yes, I have a lot to learn. I admit that and thank you for your helpfulness. Usually when thing don't apply to the progam they are grayed out and can't be used, but I just figured since they weren't grayed out they should work.

Well, people using chinese font sets or chinese OS can send email just like everyone else, but I MYSELF don"t have the chinese fonts loaded so I MYSELF can't read it (assuming that one reads chinese in the first place, which I do not.). So you really are depending on the recipient's system as well as your own.

Thanks Fieraci, I guess what makes it really confusing for me is that I have and Imac and so does a friend of mine. We are both using Outlook Express and have the same fonts.

Well, it also depends on how your e-mail client is configured. For instance, if you send plain text, no font information is transmitted, so the recipient sees the plain text font equivalents (whatever font the recipient uses as a default) of the characters. Unless you resort to something like HTML mail, there's no way around it, and HTML mail is evil. Here's why: http://www.macopinion.com/columns/tangible/02/04/30/index.html http://www.macopinion.com/columns/tangible/02/05/17/index.html And here's how to keep it turned off: http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/listadmins/plaintext.html http://www.berner.org/faq/plain_text.html http://support.pinehurst.net/email/nomime.html p

Thanks, Your appreciated efforts to help me have not gone in vain. I've been reading.......and reading.......and reading. Very good informative material. It all makes sense now. Thanks again.