"&n b s p" in E-mails

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aps@sun wrote:   I received an e-mail from an elderly friend and in the text of the e-mail a lot of "& n b s p 's" appearred as part of the text. I did not think much of it, just perhaps that it was one of those abbreviations that some people use in e-mailing, in which I could not decipher what   was suppose to mean. I opened  another e-mail from an aunt and gosh her e-mail had a lot of & n b s p  's as part of the text also. Thinking that this was too much of a coincidence I did a Google search and did find that   could be a HTML code for a non-breaking space. So what is this exactly and how can this be fixed?

Gosh, I just had to edit this message and type &n  b  s  p with spaces because only the 's showed up.

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Message Edited by gryjhnhpe on 02-07-2004 09:36 AM

The BEST way to fix it is to suggest to those sending these messages that they need to properly configure their mail client to post in plain text only. The internet RFCs define email as text-based.

I stand (actually sit) somewhat corrected.

No, plain text means no control characters, only the printable characters,  and the characters "&", "n", "b", and "s". are plain text.   Some mail programs can interpert HTML and others cant.  The   stands for non braking space.  Without that capability the fancy posting here could not be made. 

Here, yes. This is not email. Email is defined by the RFC's as text only, no control characters, no html, no Mime. Text.

From RFC 2821, SMTP mail 

4.1.1.4 DATA (DATA)

   The receiver normally sends a 354 response to DATA, and then treats
   the lines (strings ending in sequences, as described in
   section 2.3.7) following the command as mail data from the sender.
   This command causes the mail data to be appended to the mail data
   buffer.  The mail data may contain any of the 128 ASCII character
   codes, although experience has indicated that use of control
   characters other than SP, HT, CR, and LF may cause problems and
   SHOULD be avoided when possible.

Thanks for all the replies. I have read each and everyone but I am still unsure what to do. Should the Mail Sending Format be sent as HTML or Plain Text? And why did this just start to happen.I am wondering if a Windows Update could have caused this. My e-mail is sent as HTML Format-not sure about the two folks who have sent me e-mail but I  will check with them.

Aps@sun, I apologize for letting one of my pet peeves get the better of me. I expected someone would give you a usefull answer in spite of my comment. Hope I didn't scare other answers away....

Deleted

Message Edited by Denny Denham on 02-06-2004 08:08 PM

If problem just started & you received E-mails from those senders before OK you could try a System Restore to a point where it worked OK.

gryjhnhpe, I know that I could do a System Restore, however I feel that this is more than a "System Restore will fix all kind of event." Again, I have received e-mails from two people now that had this HTML Code for a now breaking space all over their text. I have received dozens of e-mails from others that did not have this code on the very same day. I do not think that it is my computer that needs to be restored but something that is happening on the other two peoples's computers. The only change that I can remember doing is getting the most recent IE Critical Update. Perhaps's these people did not get this critical update yet. It is just one piece of this puzzle that I am going to explore.

OK , you can examine the E-mail source by using OE right click on the Inbox message , select Properties   < Details tab , Message Source button.

My test of HTML E_mail shows

Return-Path: <gryjhnhpe@iprimus.com.au>
Received: from smtp02.syd.iprimus.net.au (192.168.20.240) by cpms01.int.iprimus.net.au (7.0.024)
        id 400FE66100F5D3DC for gryjhnhpe@iprimus.com.au; Sun, 8 Feb 2004 08:33:48 +1100
Received: from HOPE (210.50.16.126) by smtp02.syd.iprimus.net.au (7.0.024)
        id 401146440047D7DC for gryjhnhpe@iprimus.com.au; Sun, 8 Feb 2004 08:35:22 +1100
Message-ID: <002501c3edc2$12a1fc70$7e1032d2@HOPE>
From: "GJH" <gryjhnhpe@iprimus.com.au>
To: "\(GJH iPrimus\)" <gryjhnhpe@iprimus.com.au>
Subject:   No-brake space
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 08:33:47 +1100
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
 boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0021_01C3EE1E.45366C50"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1209
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

------=_NextPart_000_0021_01C3EE1E.45366C50
Content-Type: text/plain;
 charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

TestOneSpace TestTwoSpaces  TestThreeSpaces   TestEnd
------=_NextPart_000_0021_01C3EE1E.45366C50
Content-Type: text/html;
 charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

charset=3Diso-8859-1">

------=_NextPart_000_0021_01C3EE1E.45366C50--
--------------------------
If is doesn't next show "Next Part"
Content Type         text/html   with following HTML code is was sent as Plain Text.

 

OK I did examine the Properties>Details> Message Source. I copied this: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Does that mean the message was sent as Plain text. What else should I be looking for?