Line wrapping in OSX Mail

[Supernaut]

Hello All

Some emails I read provide sentence line lengths longer than the Mail window, requiring me to scroll sideways to read each sentence. Ugh, not nice at all. Any way to tell Mail to force line breaks (soft or hard) at the edges of the viewing window?

Any pointers welcome. I like Mail, although I will have to use a different email client if I can't straighten this out. Can't find anyway to modify this behavior in Preferences or any of the menus. Will I have to write applescript to do this?

Thanks - JB

 

[mdnky]

Sounds like you have something going on there that shouldn't. Since 10.0 mail has always wrapped properly for me. The only thing I can think of is this: Are you using 800x600 resolution on your screen and not maximizing the app? If so, try running it full or switching up to 1024 x 768 for your resolution.

Also, what encoding do you have it set to and does it happen to every single message you get, or just certain ones. Copy and paste the header from on of the problem messages.

Open one of the offending messages, then click on View>Messages>Raw Source. You might want to remove your e-mail addy (bold items below) before doing so. What you want to copy is in red:

Return-path: <americasarmy@mail.auth.supercomputerinc.com>
Received: from mac.com (smtpin12-en2 [10.13.10.82])
 by ms12.mac.com (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.21 (built Sep  8 2003))
 with ESMTP id <0HXG00H3835JDG@ms12.mac.com> for [b]youraddress@mac.com[/b]; Sun,
 09 May 2004 04:41:43 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from mail.auth.supercomputerinc.com ([69.25.23.190])
	by mac.com (Xserve/smtpin12/MantshX 3.0) with ESMTP id i49Bfhfn006764	for
 [b]<youraddress@mac.com>[/b]; Sun, 09 May 2004 04:41:43 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from localhost [69.25.23.237] by mail.auth.supercomputerinc.com with
 ESMTP (SMTPD32-8.03) id A900134006E; Sun, 09 May 2004 07:41:52 -0400
Date: Sun, 09 May 2004 07:41:53 -0400
From: America's Army Support <americasarmy@mail.auth.supercomputerinc.com>
Subject: Welcome to America's Army
To: [b]you <youraddress@mac.com>[/b]
Reply-to: America's Army Support <americasarmy@mail.auth.supercomputerinc.com>
Message-id: <200405090741511.SM01588@localhost>
[color=red]MIME-version: 1.0
X-Mailer: SCIMail 1.0.0.0
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN
Content-transfer-encoding: 8BIT
[/color]Original-recipient: rfc822;[b]youraddress@mac.com[/b]

 

[Supernaut]

Sounds like you have something going on there that shouldn't. Since 10.0 mail has always wrapped properly for me. The only thing I can think of is this: Are you using 800x600 resolution on your screen and not maximizing the app? If so, try running it full or switching up to 1024 x 768 for your resolution.

It's a powerbook with the resolution at 1280x854.

Also, what encoding do you have it set to and does it happen to every single message you get, or just certain ones. Copy and paste the header from on of the problem messages.

Default English encoding, haven't changed it at all. ? Not every message, just occasional messages from Yahoo! accounts.

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0-1872549837-1084120215=:46592"

Maximizing the window on the desktop does cause Mail to wrap the lines. Not sure why it won't when not maximized.

 

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Ah, yes, I've had this same thing occur with Yahoo! mails. I think it has something to do with the little icon/advertising message they put at the bottom of all Yahoo! emails.

Try turning off HTML for emails ("Display image and embedded objects in HTML messages" in the "Viewing" pane of Mail's Preferences) and see if that helps.

 

[mdnky]

Try this:

Open one of the offending messages and see if "Option-CMD-P" (or View>Message>Plain Text Alternative) solves the issue.

The messages you're getting are HTML/Plain text combined. They basically have a copy of the message in each format, and let the program decide which to display. That combo will force mail to use the alternate method (plain text).

If that solves it, then most likely it's a message from someone who has a pay account with Yahoo!. I'd say they probably have stationary of some kind setup which is causing the issue. That's not available for users of their free accounts. If you don't see an ad at the bottom, then they pay.

What ElDiablo suggested doesn't quite work right for some HTML based messages (on mine at least). It only junks the images and embeded objects, not the html itself. You'll basically get the HTML messages formatted without any visible images.


Here's a link on how to force mail to display plain text by default. I need to be able to get RTF message, otherwise I'd use it.
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030711201917175