I'm going to assume that you're using a Windows system and that your email client is Outlook Express. The basic tool I'll be using is WordPad, which comes with every Windows system. If you're using another operating system or email client, don't despair, you'll need a simple word program to do the editing and you'll have to make a few adjustments to "translate" these instructions for your system so you might learn something useful here anyway.
First, Let's assume you've received an email that's full of extra addresses and forwarding arrows. You read it, you liked it, and you want to send it to another friend. The first step is to save the email in a format that's easy to manipulate. The most basic text format is plain old text file which has a .txt file extension. To convert the email into a text file, click on "File" and "Save As"
Next you must decide where to save the file (making a note, or keeping the location in mind, so you can find it later) and click on the little down arrow, next to the file type, selecting "Text Files (*.txt)" from the drop down menu.
Confirm that "Text Files (*.txt)" is actually showing in the "Save as type:" window and click the "Save" button.
Here's a text file I saved from my email. I've changed the email addresses and replaced the carriage returns with their HTML equivalent so that the text appears here exactly as it does in the text file I saved.
| From: "Some Friend" <some_friend@yahoo.com> To: "Don Crowder" <whatever@address.com> Subject: i have learned Date: Tuesday, September 17, 2002 5:46 PM and too all my friends > > > > > >> >> I've learned....>> That the best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.>> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That when you're in love, it shows.>> >> >> I've learned....>> That just one person saying to me, "You've made my day!" makes my day.>> >> >> >> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That having a child fall asleep in your arms is one of the most peaceful >> feelings in the world.>> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That being kind is more important than being right.>> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That you should never say "no" to a gift from a child.>> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That I can always pray for someone when I don't have the strength to help >> him in some other way.>> >> >> I've learned....>> That no matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a >> friend to act goofy with.>> >> >> I've learned....>> That sometimes all a person needs is a hand to hold and a heart to >> understand.>> >> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That simple walks with my father around the block on summer nights when I >> was a child did wonders for me as an adult.>> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, >> the faster it goes.>> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That we should be glad God doesn't give us everything we ask for.>> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That money doesn't buy class.>> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That it's those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular.>> >> >> >> >> I've learned...>> That under everyone's hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated >> and loved.>> >> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That the Lord didn't do it all in one day. What makes me think I can?>> >> >> I've learned....>> That to ignore the facts does not change the facts.>> >> >> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That when you plan to get even with someone, you are only letting that >> person continue to hurt you.>> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That love, not time, heals all wounds.>> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That the easiest way for me to grow as a person is to surround myself with >> people smarter than I am.>> >> >> I've learned....>> That everyone you meet deserves to be greeted with a smile.>> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That there's nothing sweeter than sleeping with your babies and feeling >> their breath on your cheeks.>> >> >> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That no one is perfect until you fall in love with them.>> >> >> I've learned....>> That life is tough, but I'm tougher.>> >> >> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.>> >> >> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That when you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.>> >> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That I wish I could have told my Dad that I love him one more time before >> he passed away.>> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That one should keep his words both soft and tender, because tomorrow he >> may have to eat them.>> >> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That a smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks.>> >> >> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That I can't choose how I feel, but I can choose what I do about it.>> >> >> I've learned....>> That when your newly born child holds your little finger in his little >> fist, that you're hooked for life.>> >> >> I've learned....>> That everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness >> and growth occurs while you're climbing it.>> >> >> >> I've learned ...>> That it is best to give advice in only two circumstances; when it is >> requested and when it is a life threatening situation.>> >> >> >> I've learned....>> That the less time I have to work with, the more things I get done.>> >> >> >> To all of you... Make sure you read all the way down to the last sentence.>> >> It's National Friendship Week. Show your friends how much you care. Send >> this to everyone you consider a FRIEND, even if it means sending it back >> to the person who sent it to you. If it comes back to you, then you'll >> know you have a circle of friends.>> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> HAPPY FRIENDSHIP WEEK TO YOU!!!!!! >> >> YOU ARE MY FRIEND AND I AM HONORED!>> >> >> >> >> > > > --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! News - Today's headlines |
Pretty messy huh? Next, I'm going to open WordPad and use it to open the text file. WordPad won't show me the text files in a folder by default. It's looking for documents that have a .doc extension but I can force it to show the the text files, which it can also open, by selecting "Text Documents (*.txt)" from the drop down menu in the file opening dialog box. First I click on "File" and "Open"
Next I select "Text Documents (*.txt)" from the drop down menu.
Notice the folder where I saved my text file appears empty in the image above. As soon as I selected for text files, my file appeared in the window, I clicked on it, clicked "Open", and WordPad opened the text file.
First (working in WordPad) I highlighted the unnecessary text at the top and bottom of the email and hit the delete key to remove it.
Skip this little paragraph if you already know how to highlight: To highlight text place your cursor behind the first character you want to remove and hold the right mouse button down while you slide the cursor, with your mouse, to the last character you want to remove. The text will highlight as you pass over it. If you don't get it right the first time, click anywhere that isn't hightlighted and the highlighting will "go away" permitting you to set the cursor and try again. Once you've highlighted all the text you want to remove, just hit the delete key and that text will disappear. Sometimes, don't ask me why, Windows refuses to cooperate and will highlight a few extra characters which you don't want to delete. You can "fight with it" until you get it right but sometimes it's easier to just delete the characters and retype them.
What to delete: You have to call your own shot on this one. Lots of neat little stories I get in my email have religious messages at the end, warnings about dire consequences that will befall me if I don't forward them, suggestions about how many people I should forward it to or other information that the story doesn't need to give it value. For my part I always remove this kind of information. A good story should have the right to stand on it's own merit without being used as a vehicle to convey a religious message and I'm perfectly capable of deciding whether or not I want to forward it. Nor am I worried about having a run of evil luck if I decline to forward it. Frankly I have a deep and abiding faith, however nave it may be, in justice so I suspect that the person who writes a message like that at the end of an email is the one who's going to suffer all the bad luck.
I deleted all the useless bits of my text file, by highlighting them and hitting the "Delete" key, now I want to get rid of all those arrows. Look the document over carefully to see if the arrows have any sort of pattern. In this document they all seem to be in little groups of two arrows ">>" so I highlighted the first group of arrows in the document
next, I clicked on "Edit" and "Replace".
This opens the replace dialog window with the highlighted characters already showing in the "Find what:" box.
Leave the "Replace with:" box empty and click on "Replace All". Wordpad will replace all the little arrows with "nothing", just as you've told it, and replacing them with nothing removes them from the document.
Now you have to do a little "light housekeeping" to make your document look a little neater, taking out some extra spaces and such but when you're finished your document will look pretty good. I replaced the words "I have learned... That" with nothing, and did a little extra editing to come up with this:
|
1. The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person. 2. When you're in love, it shows. 3. Just one person saying to me, "You've made my day!" makes my day. 4. Having a child fall asleep in your arms is one of the most peaceful feelings in the world. 5. Being kind is more important than being right. 6. You should never say "no" to a gift from a child. 7. I can always pray for someone when I don't have the strength to help him in some other way. 8. No matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with. 9. Sometimes all a person needs is a hand to hold and a heart to understand. 10. Simple walks with my father around the block on summer nights when I was a child did wonders for me as an adult. 11. Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes. 12. We should be glad God doesn't give us everything we ask for. 13. Money doesn't buy class. 14. It's those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular. 15. Under everyone's hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated and loved. 16. The Lord didn't do it all in one day. What makes me think I can? 17. To ignore the facts does not change the facts. 18. When you plan to get even with someone, you are only letting that person continue to hurt you. 19. Love, not time, heals all wounds. 20. The easiest way for me to grow as a person is to surround myself with people smarter than I am. 21. Everyone you meet deserves to be greeted with a smile. 22. There's nothing sweeter than sleeping with your babies and feeling their breath on your cheeks. 23. No one is perfect until you fall in love with them. 24. Life is tough, but I'm tougher. 25. Opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss. 26. When you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere. 27. I wish I could have told my Dad that I love him one more time before he passed away. 28. One should keep his words both soft and tender, because tomorrow he may have to eat them. 29. A smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks. 30. I can't choose how I feel, but I can choose what I do about it. 31. When your newly born child holds your little finger in his little fist, that you're hooked for life. 32. Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it. 33. I've learned that it is best to give advice in only two circumstances; when it is requested and when it is a life threatening situation. 34. The less time I have to work with, the more things I get done. |
The important thing is to save your work by clicking on "Save" rather than "Save As" because this will overwrite the text file with your edited text. Remember, you can't change fonts, font sizes, or font colors when you're editing this in WordPad even though Wordpad will permit it because that's not information that can be saved in a text file. Once you've saved your edited text file you can email the text file very easily by opening a new email in Outlook Express, clicking on "Insert" and "Text From File"
Be sure your cursor is in the compose field (where it would be if you were going to type the email) when you do this. If the cursor is in the address or subject line, the "Text From File" choice will be grayed out and won't work. To tell you the truth this gets me everytime. I try to insert a text fil, and Outlook won't let me so I sit here all confused and frustrated for a minute before I remember to click my cursor in the compose field and try it again. I hate that "duh" feeling, don't you?
Select your text file, and click on "Open", and the text will appear in your email. Once the text appears in your email, you can change fonts, font sizes and colors, or add a background color if you wish unless your email is (like mine) set by default for plain text mode. If you're not sure look under the "Format" selection.
You can see, by the "dot" that Plain Text is selected in my email. Clicking on "Rich Text (HTML)" will switch modes and permit me to add fancy touches if I want.
If you're a regular user of Outlook Express Stationery, you might not be aware that the text from a text file will come up in the stationery's default font settings when it's inserted into a stationery. Rich Text emails and emails using stationery are much larger files that plain text emails and take longer to send and receive so I don't normally use them but many of my friends do.
If you'd like to learn more about Outlook Express stationery you can find a wealth of information by doing a Google search on the words "Outlook Express Stationery" (in quotes) or you can visit the CloudEight site.
If you're using Hotmail, Yahoo, or another web based email client, you can "snag" the text from an email by highlighting it, right clicking on it and selecting "Copy" from the context menu. Open NotePad, or any plain text editor, right click in the compose field (where you type stuff) and click on "Paste" (or look for "Paste" under "Edit"). This should paste the text into your editor while removing any hidden coding (HTML or other) that might be imbedded in the text. Once this is done, you can clean it up using the techniques which have been discussed here or copy/paste the text again, into a more sophisticated editor, like WordPad. Once you have the text cleaned to your satisfation click on "Edit" and "Select All", right click on the highlighted text and click on "Copy" (or hit Ctrl-C on your keyboard), then go to your compose field in your web based mail, right click on the compose screen (where you type the email you're sending) and select "Paste" from the right-click menu. The cleaned text will appear in your email and you can send it on all nicely cleaned up.
If you're forwarding from a web based client, copy the text from your email, paste it into your word program, clean it, highlight it, right click, and copy it again. Highlight the text in the email you're forwarding, then left click and hit "Paste". This will replace the original text with the text you've cleaned.
Windows has "built in" shortcuts for the cut, copy, and paste commands which should work in almost any application and on the web as well Those shortcuts are as follows:
Cut = Ctrl + X
Copy = Ctrl + C
Paste = Ctrl + V
To get rid of forwarding arrows in email that you forward, if you're using Outlook Express, go to "Tools", scroll down to and click on "Options".
In the resulting window, locate and click on "Plain Text Settings..."
At the bottom of the resulting window, uncheck the box where
it says "Indent the original text with (whichever character is
selected from the drop-down menu) when replying or forwarding."
Click on "OK"
and, lastly, click on "Apply" followed by
"OK" in the window which remains on your screen.
If you have questions, comments, or information you'd like to see added to this tutorial, please use my Feedback Form to contact me about it. If you plan for forward cleaned email to several recipients, you should make it a point to learn how to use Bcc when you're sending them.
This tutorial, by Don Crowder, posted on June 20, 2004