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Line 15: == Multi-part formats == Many email clients are configured to send a plain text version of a message along with the HTML version, to ensure that it can be read even by text-only clients, using the <code>[[MIME#Content-Type\|Content-Type]]: [[MIME#Alternative\|multipart/alternative]]</code>, as specified in RFC 1521.<ref>[http://www.freesoft.org/CIE/RFC/1521/18.htm RFC 1521 7.2.3. The Multipart/alternative subtype]</ref><ref>[http://www.codestone.ltd.uk/software/docs/csmail/tn1010-11-2.pdf TN1010-11-2: Multipart/Alternative –— Gracefully handling HTML-phobic email clients.]</ref><ref>[http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/html-email-multi.htm Sending HTML and Plain Text E-Mail Simultaneously]</ref> The message itself is of type multipart/alternative, and contains two parts, the first of type text/plain, which is read by text-only clients, and the second with text/html, which is read by HTML-capable clients. A few recipients have [[e-mail client]]s that cannot display HTML. This may be mitigated by the inclusion of an automatically generated plain text version, but this may be missing important formatting information (e.g. an equation may lose a superscript and take on an entirely new meaning). Line 24: HTML e-mail is larger than plain text. Even if no special formatting is used, there will be the overhead from the tags used in a minimal HTML document, and if formatting is heavily used it may be much higher. Multi-part messages, with duplicate copies of the same content in different formats, increase the size even further. Download speed was more of a concern in the 1990s, though, when most users were accessing email servers through slow [[modem]]s. On a modern connection, the difference in download time between plain text and mixed message mail, which can be a factor of three or more, is negligible, especially when compared to images, music files, or other common attachments.<ref>[http://momentum.insertdisc.com/archives/2004/09/17/html_email_still_evil_part_1.html HTML Email -— Still Evil?]</ref> Additionally, the plain text section of a multi-part message can be retrieved by itself, using [[IMAP]]'s FETCH command.<ref>[http://dsv.su.se/jpalme/ietf/mhtml-discussion.html Do we really want to send web pages in e-mail?]</ref>

HTML email: Difference between revisions