Format-It!
Email Formatting Tool |
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-Email Formatting and Text Formatting Tool
The purpose of this free, simple email text formatting tool is to format text to a specified column width while preserving the original paragraph endings. This is especially useful in email formatting. All to often, email clients leave the lines too long. This results in that famous long...short, long...short condition we have all seen. Example: I am constantly getting emails that look like that -- often from professional sources... including many newsletters. The way to avoid this rather obnoxious behavior is to limit each line to no more than 50 columns. The default suggested width of 72 columns is definitely too wide for sending email that will appear properly formatted. This utility will limit each line to a more reasonable column width and insert an end of line marker that is universally recognized at the end of each line. One culprit of this unflattering formatting is viewing the message in the preview pane of an email client such as Outlook Express. While it is true that the message will probably look normal if opened up in a separate window, when viewed in the smaller preview pane, excessive line lengths will result in this poor formatting. However, if the line lengths are kept to 50, chances are that the message will look good even in the preview pane, which is what most people will be using to view your message. But, while the advantages this offers to email formatting are obvious, this utility will also be useful for any text application that would benefit by formatting the text to a specified column width. And why limit line lengths even when the format displays properly? Readability. There is a reason why your newspaper is split up into columns rather than having long lines that run all the way across the page. The reason is that it is difficult for the eye to follow long lines of text. It is much easier to read text that is split up into relatively narrow columns. If you have surfed the web for any length of time, you have probably seen this demonstrated. The next time you come across a site that has the text running all the way across the screen, note how difficult it is to read. Then, as an experiment, manually adjust your window width to half screen and see how the readability improves. Reading text on screen is hard enough without exacerbating the problem by making the lines too long. If you want to portray a professional image, I would highly recommend limiting your line lengths to 50. This can definitely be an issue when posting to various message boards or forums, as well as email. What about URL's? Yes, web-site addresses could pose a problem when arbitrarially limiting line lengths to 50 columns. The reason is that if a URL were to exceed 50 characters in length, as many do, the URL would be broken into two lines and would be rendered dead. However, you needn't worry about that when using this text formatting utility! Format-It will not break up a URL even if it exceeds the specified column width! Format-It takes the guess work out of text formatting and assures you that what your reader views is the same as what you send.
Enjoy! First enter your desired column width in the appropriate box (again, I suggest no more than 50). Then simply cut the text from whatever application you are using and past it into the text field, or compose the text directly in the text field. If you need to start over for some reason (like pasting the wrong text), click the ~Clear Text~ button to clear the text and start again. Once you have entered the text into the field, click the submit button to send the text to be formatted. Within a few seconds, you will be transported to another page that will contain your formatted text in a similar text field. Select the entire text by clicking on it and copy it to your clipboard, then paste it back into your application. Filter If you have a character, a combination of characters, a word or a combination of words that you would like to remove from the text, enter the exact characters that you want removed in the filter text field before clicking submit. Note: the filter is case sensitive. "But, what if my text has already been formatted?" I am glad you asked. If you have a text document that has already been formatted by Format-It or in some other way has had an end of line marker inserted at the end of each line, and you would like to remove all the end of line markers and start over, you may want to try Format-It's cousin ReFormat-It. ReFormat-It is especially useful to correct a long...short, long...short condition of an email that you receive before forwarding it on. ReFormat-It will also allow you to edit email that you receive, perhaps adding comments, and then send it in a properly formatted condition. For example... Have you ever received an email that looks like this: > > The following statements about the Bible were written by children.> > They have not been retouched or corrected (i.e., bad spelling has been > left > > in). > > > > > > a.. In the first book of the Bible, Guinessis, God got tired of creating > the > > world, so he took the Sabbath off. > > > > b.. Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. > > > > c.. Noah's wife was called Joan of Ark. Noah built an ark, which the > animals > > come on to in pears. > > > > d.. Lot's wife was a pillar of salt by day, but a ball of fire by night.
YUCK! After running it through ReFormat-It, it looked like this: The following statements about the Bible werewritten by children. They have not been retouched or corrected (i.e., bad spelling has been left in). a.. In the first book of the Bible, Guinessis, God got tired of creating the world, so he took the Sabbath off. b.. Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. c.. Noah's wife was called Joan of Ark. Noah built an ark, which the animals come on to in pears. d.. Lot's wife was a pillar of salt by day, but a ball of fire by night.
Much better!
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