Replying inline when using Rich formatting

[Richard D. Moores]

I'm a strong advocate of bottom posting and inline posting. Time after
time I get replies to my emails that reply at the top, and that do not
answer questions I've asked largely because the repliers have
forgotten I've asked them. If they would reply inline, then they would
have each question before them when they write their answers.

However, when an email comes in that employs Rich formatting, replying
inline is awkward. The vertical lines that bound the reply being
answered break in a way that leaves it unclear who said what. There
are no <<<, <<, or < ., and I find myself having to type these in.

This inconvenience and tendency to messiness in inline replies to Rich
formatted emails is something I wish Gmail would give some thought to.

[Nick Chirchirillo]

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 2:35 AM, Richard D. Moores <rdmo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm a strong advocate of bottom posting and inline posting. Time after
> time I get replies to my emails that reply at the top, and that do not
> answer questions I've asked largely because the repliers have
> forgotten I've asked them. If they would reply inline, then they would
> have each question before them when they write their answers.

If you reply to a Rich Text email in Plain Text (by clicking the Plain
Text link next to "Check Spelling") all the formatting will be
removed.

> However, when an email comes in that employs Rich formatting, replying
> inline is awkward. The vertical lines that bound the reply being
> answered break in a way that leaves it unclear who said what. There
> are no <<<, <<, or < ., and I find myself having to type these in.

As you can see here, the vertical line was replaced by the > that you
would like.

[Richard D. Moores]

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 21:05, Nick Chirchirillo <nick...@gmail.com> wrote:

> If you reply to a Rich Text email in Plain Text (by clicking the Plain
> Text link next to "Check Spelling") all the formatting will be
> removed.

Sure, but I'd have to give up the Rich formatting of the incoming
email, and also lose access to those features I'd like to use.

[Andy]

> > If you reply to a Rich Text email in Plain Text (by clicking the Plain
> > Text link next to "Check Spelling") all the formatting will be
> > removed.
>
> Sure, but I'd have to give up the Rich formatting of the incoming
> email, and also lose access to those features I'd like to use.

A partial work-around: You can switch to Plain Text, and then back to Rich Formatting.  This lets you use rich formatting in the text of your reply, while leaving the ">>" indicators.  But you do lose any formatting that the original message had.

I have found that replying with Rich Formatting enabled works better than it once did in Gmail.  For me, the vertical line gets cut in the section of my reply text, so you now can distinguish between quoted text and the reply.  It didn't always do this.  But Gmail still has a ways to go.  It is a work in progress.

Ultimately, you might have better satisfaction using an off-line email client program (Thunderbird, Outlook, etc.) and IMAP or POP, and composing your emails in that program.

Andy

[Richard D. Moores]

On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 08:43, Andy <AI.e...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > If you reply to a Rich Text email in Plain Text (by clicking the Plain
>> > Text link next to "Check Spelling") all the formatting will be
>> > removed.
>>
>> Sure, but I'd have to give up the Rich formatting of the incoming
>> email, and also lose access to those features I'd like to use.
>
> A partial work-around: You can switch to Plain Text, and then back to Rich
> Formatting.  This lets you use rich formatting in the text of your reply,
> while leaving the ">>" indicators.  But you do lose any formatting that the
> original message had.

Ah. I'll give that a try.

> I have found that replying with Rich Formatting enabled works better than it
> once did in Gmail.  For me, the vertical line gets cut in the section of my
> reply text, so you now can distinguish between quoted text and the reply.
>  It didn't always do this.  But Gmail still has a ways to go.  It is a work
> in progress.

Then I'll look forward to further improvement.

Thanks, Andy.