encoding

[Richard Robin]

Outlook Express reads all encodings. How to set things up properly depends
on whether you are using Windows98 / ME on the one hand, or Windows 2000 /
XP on the other.

However, question marks are almost always a sign of stuff that originated in
Unicode and somehow went through a server or mailer that couldn't handle it.
For example, let's say I send "Nina" a Russian e-mail. I forget to tell
Outlook Express to use koi8. OE defaults to Unicode if it detects foreign
non-European characters. If Nina is using an e-mail program that is Unicode
incapable (like certain versions of Eudora, or Wisemail), all the Russian
will turn into ???. Then when Nina forwards this e-mail, the Russian will be
irretrievably lost.

Another scenario is that a forwarded e-mail in, say koi8, is accidentally
converted to Unicode (easy to do in OE) and then sent on to someone whose
e-mail cleient can't handle unicode.

Keep in mind that older e-mail clients, especially on the Mac running older
operating systems, are Unicode un-friendly.

Unfortunately, question marks are like Humpty Dumpty. Once you see questions
marks, you can't put the Cyrillic back together again. It has already been
trashed.

-Rich
_________________________________
Richard Robin, Associate Professor, Chair
German and Slavic Dept.
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20008
rrobin at gwu.edu
http://home.gwu.edu/~rrobin
Читаю по-русски во всех кодировках.
Chitayu po-russki vo vsex kodirovkax.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Elena Boudovskaia" <eboudovs at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU>
To: <SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2003 12:03 PM
Subject: [SEELANGS] encoding


> To those who can read e-mail in Russian: what do you need to install to
read
> all the encodings? I have Outlook Express with the encodings Cyrillic
> Windows, Cyrillic ISO, Cyrillic KOI8-R and Cyrillic KOI8-U, and I can read
> most of the mail. Sometimes, however, an incoming e-mail consists of
series
> of question marks, and then I cannot read it in any of the encodings. Some
> of my students complain that my Russian e-mails look like question marks
> too. What could the matter be, and how can I fix it?
>
> Elena
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
>   options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
>                   http://home.attbi.com/~lists/seelangs/
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                  http://home.attbi.com/~lists/seelangs/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------