This might take the prize for the biggest bump, but I ever so accidentally stumbled upon your lovely forum today and then in a moment so serendipitously immense it is beyond Kismet, found this particular post giving me the answers to questions that have been niggling my brain far too long. Thank you, thank you! Urm.... Thank you!!! Rain

I believe this is the solution. Got this mssg from my son not long after my OP. I did not know he was looking into it. It is long. >>Looks like you're using Outlook Express 6, which hasn't been updated in years. Cue standard rant about upgrading.... I looked at the "source code" of the mail, which shows what the actual text of the message is, and I can see that it's using a multi-part format. Part 1 is a plain text version of the email, and Part 2 is the HTML version of the email. That version doesn't have any indication of what font to use, so you changing it on your side wouldn't make any difference. Take a look at this: http://ask-leo.com/why_does_my_email_sometimes_show_up_with_funny_characters_like_0d_in_it.html It seems that your client is using "quoted-printable" which might be causing some of the problems for people using newer email clients. Maybe. I don't see the odd "=" signs sprinkled around, but they might be interfering with the HTML rendering on some clients. When I read your email in gmail via its website, your email looks okay. (The blue background and tiny font is stripped away.) But when I use a local email application (Mac's Mail.App), the blue background is still there, and the font is smaller than my selected default, but not TOO small, which means, I think, that the quoted-printable stuff is correctly interpreted. When I use Sparrow Mail (a desktop app that integrates with gmail), it's tiny. Sparrow is a brand new application, so they've probably not yet felt the need to deal with old-school quoted-printable content.OK back to me in OEX 6...........I went to: Tools > Options > Send > Mail Sending Format > Settings (HTML or Plain, whichever) > Encode text using: (None or Quoted Printable or Base 64) choose None. I had been sending email using HTML with the MIME mssg format setting 'Encode text using: Quoted Printable' . I changed that to None. The Plain Text Mime Format was set by default to: 'Encode text using: None'. I then sent emails to my Inbox account both HTML and Plain Text. The Plain Text-None font came out proper size. The HTML - None font was still tiny. Now why was I using HTML all these years? Well the HTML Compose Pane has a format toolbar. The Plain Text pane does not. Evidently with OEX 6 you can have formatting ability or Plain Text - not both. On my Yahoo account the choice is Rich Text with formatting or Plain without. So it would seem I need to use OEX Plain Text or another email program to eliminate recipients getting tiny font mssgs.

Hello Mikie, I am so sorry for not replying, For some reason I thought I'd be notified by email if there were any replies and when I didn't receive a notice, I just forgot, Well, you were 100% correct. That was/is exactly what is happening. I clicked the spyglass and sure enough it said "200" so everytime it happens, and yes it still does, I just click "100" and it's back to normal. Thanks so much for your reply,. Barbb

I'm happy for all of you. But fixing whatever was messing you up, seems to have broken my ability to upload photos from my computer (Windows 7). I haven't been able post a photo since August 26! Cleaning out the cache made no difference. I click on the post photo button and go to the folder with the picture. But when I click on the photo....nothing. If I copy and paste it into the post, it shows up on the pre-submit. However, the post won't go through because then it claims I have too many characters. Frustrating!