Rosie's Line Length Guide

Let me guess. You're here because you need help setting up the line length in your e-mail. Let's see if we can get this teensy little problem resolved. This page covers all of the mail programs we have here at home..the only two programs I noticed that I'm distinctly not covering is Eudora Pro, as I don't own it. If you have any other mail programs that are having problems, e-mail me and I'll try and help you fix it; be sure to include the name and of the mail program you are using! *S*

If you're still confused after reading, come bother me.

Netscape Communicator 4.5

  1. Go to the "Preferences..." command under the "Edit" menu (located at the top of the screen)
  2. Choose the "Mail & Newsgroups" section of the preferences
  3. Choose the "Messages" subsection of the "Mail & Newsgroups" section
  4. Halfway down the grey area should be a small section called "Message Wrapping." In that area, there's a line that says, "Wrap outgoing, plain-text messages at (blank) characters." Put the number 72 in that blank
  5. Click the "OK" button at the bottom

Congratulations! You just set your line length to 72 characters. You can choose to wrap it at whatever length you want; 72 characters is the default length for most people. *smile*

Netscape Communicator 4.0

  1. Go to the "Preferences..." command under the "Edit" menu (located at the top of the screen)
  2. Choose the "Mail & Groups" section of the preferences
  3. Choose the "Messages" subsection of the "Mail & Groups" section
  4. The first subsection will be a section called "Messages Properties." The third line down should say "Wrap long lines at (blank) characters." Change whatever is in the blank to 72
  5. Click the "OK" button at the bottom

Congratulations! You just set your line length to 72 characters. You can choose to wrap it at whatever length you want; 72 characters is the default length for most people. *smile*

Netscape Navigator/Mail 3.0

*evil grin* You can't do it - it's impossible. I tried. The good news is that the line length is already set to 72 characters, the standard line length for the net. If you need to make it any shorter, unfortunately, you'll have to do it by hand. But take heart! You can get a copy of most other e-mail programs and it supports shorter/longer line lengths. :)

Eudora Light 3.0.5

Rosie Note - actually, I don't know if this helps or not. I think it does. If nothing else, it shows you how long 72 characters is so you can press enter at the end of each line :)

  1. Go to the "Options..." command under the "Tools" menu (located at the top of the screen)
  2. Choose the "Fonts & Display" section of the preferences
  3. About halfway down the grey area should be a small section called "Message Window Length" and an empty text box next to it. In that box, type 72.
  4. Click the "OK" button at the bottom

Congratulations! You just set your Eudora window length to 72 characters. It should help you out - it helped me! *smile*

Microsoft Exchange

The good news: you don't have to mess with any settings. The bad news: you have to count the characters *by hand* and press enter. I wish there's another way, but I checked every single command in the program..I learned how to get rid of the = signs at the end of lines, though! :) e-mail me if you need to know that..

Microsoft Internet Mail

This program is bundled with older versions of MS Internet Explorer, along with Internet News, a newsreader.

  1. Go to the "Options..." command under the "Mail" menu (located at the top of the screen)
  2. Choose the "Send" section of the options screen.
  3. The second subsection is called Mail Sending Format. There should be two bubbles: HTML and plain text. Next to each is a button saying "Settings..." Select the plain text bubble, then click the "Settings..." button next to it.
  4. The line at the bottom of the new window says, "Automatically wrap text at (blank) characters, when sending." Change the number in that blank to 72.
  5. Click the "OK" button in the upper right hand corner of the grey area.
  6. Click the "OK" button at the bottom of the options screen.

Congrats, you just set up Microsoft Internet Mail to send messages that are in plain text with a line length of 72 characters (the internet standard line length). Now everyone will like your messages more *grin*

Microsoft Outlook Express

  1. Go to the "Options..." command under the "Tools" menu (located at the top of the screen)
  2. Choose the "Send" section of the options screen.
  3. The first subsection is called Mail Sending Format. There should be two bubbles: HTML and plain text. Next to each is a bubble saying "Settings..." Click the button next to the plain text bubble.
  4. Second line from the bottom of the new window says, "Automatically wrap text at (blank) characters, when sending." Change the number in that blank to 72.
  5. Click the "OK" button in the upper right hand corner of the grey area.
  6. Click the "OK" button at the bottom of the options screen.

Congrats, you just set up Microsoft Outlook Express to send messages that are in plain text with a line length of 72 characters (the internet standard line length). Now everyone will like your messages more *grin*

Microsoft Outlook 97

  1. Go to the "Options..." command under the "Tools" menu (located at the top of the screen)
  2. Choose the "Internet E-Mail" section of the options (should be the far upper-right tab)
  3. The first section is a section called "E-mail Sending Format" Second line from the bottom of that section is a checkbox and a line that says, "When sending messages, wrap text at (blank) characters per line." Check the box and change the number in the blank to 72
  4. Click the "OK" button at the bottom

Congratulations! You just set your line length to 72 characters. You can choose to wrap it at whatever length you want; 72 characters is the default length for most people. *smile*

America Online (all versions)

As far as I know, you can't do it. AOL doesn't provide the option to change line length. The good news: AOL generally sends mail at 72 characters per line automatically, which is pretty much the standard length. Feel loved. Even by AOL. *evil grin*





© 1999 Rosie Nelson, all rights reserved. Why do you care about copying my help page anyway? *cries*