Advice on Email formats

IT Services recommends sending 'plain text' email instead of HTML or rich text email, particularly if sending email to a large distribution list.

Where rich content is required, it is advisable to send a Plain Text email including a link to the relevant content on the web or an attachment containing the rich content.

Explanation

All e-mail applications are not alike, so you need to use a message format that your recipient's application supports. Microsoft Outlook offers some flexibility in message formats that you might use in different situations. The message format that you choose determines whether you can add formatted text, such as bold fonts, coloured fonts, and bullets, and whether you can add pictures to the message body. However, just because you choose a message format that lets you add these features doesn't mean the recipient will be able to see them. That is because some e-mail applications don't support formatted messages or pictures and for security reasons, many people who could otherwise receive them have such features disabled.

Good practice:

Use plain text for both sending and receiving email, except possibly amongst your immediate work group.  This makes sense because:-

Security:

Using Plain Text email is safer than HTML or Rich Text Format emails from the point of view of computer security.  The latter two formats are written in such a way that they can be used to hide malicious code that runs on your machine without you knowing, when you open the email. N.B. an email may originate from anywhere on the Internet, regardless of who the sender may appear to be and so it is always wise to exercise caution.

Filestore usage:

Rich Text Format emails are up to triple the size of Plain Text emails and HTML emails up to five times  the size. This has an impact on: the finite filestore and backup resources of the University, the resources of recipients and the time taken to download for recipients with slow connections such as mobile devices.

Notes:

• Email was invented so people could quickly exchange text messages over fast or slow connections, using simple applications on any type of computer, or using phones, hand-held devices, or almost anything else that can display text and permits typing.
• Except amongst your immediate colleagues is it rarely possible to know what email reading environment your recipient(s) might have available to them.
• Email is not a medium in which you have any real control over the appearance.  Where control over appearance is needed, then another format, such as PDF attachment, is recommended.
• HTML and Rich Text Format email can impede rather than aid communication.