With email, what you thought you sent may not be what the recipient sees. Most commonly, certain text non-standard characters are received as "garbage" characters. Plain Text can solve the problem.

STEP 1: PLAIN TEXT SETTINGS FOR YOUR EMAIL PROGRAM:

Go to: http://www.expita.com/nomime.html#programs.
They have instructions for setting just about every email program in the known universe to Plain Text.

If that doesn't work, let us know at writing-workshop-request@lists.psu.edu. If that address doesn't work, try our alternate address. We'll try to help.

STEP 2: SAVING WORD-PROCESSING TEXT AS PLAIN TEXT:
There are two ways:

Way 1: Convert using a website:

• In the top box, you paste your text as copied directly from your word processor.
• Click the "Clean" button below the lower box. This causes the corrected plain text to appear in the lower box.
• Select (Ctrl-A) all of the text in the lower box, copy it, and paste it into your email submission to the workshop.

Way 2: Convert using your word processing program:

1. Open the file you've written in Word. (If you use a different word-processing program, the steps will be similar.)
2. Click the menu item: File, Save-As.
3. In the Save-As screen, look at the "File Type:" line. Click on the downward-facing arrowhead at the right end, and select Plain Text Only (Microsoft Word), or ASCII DOS Text (WordPerfect), or equivalent in other word processors. The File name should end in .txt.
4. Save it, close Word (File, Close), and reopen it. This is to make sure you see the plain-text version, not the original.
5. Select (highlight) your text and copy it (click Edit, Copy).
6. Open your email program in "Send" mode and paste the file into it (click Edit, Paste).

( We no longer recommend Notepad to convert to plain text because it does not convert smart quotes or accented characters.)

OTHER OPTIONS: Changing word-processing defaults to Plain Text .
The word-processing characters that cause the most trouble are “Smart Quotes,”  ellipses (…), and long (em) dashes (—). One solution would be to set your word-processing program to display "plain quotes," plain single-quotes' (apostrophes), three periods..., and double-dashes--.

With these changes, you may be able to get away with selecting, copying, and pasting directly from your regular word-processor text.

Changing settings in Microsoft Word:
    For Word 97 through Word 2003:

1. Select Tools, AutoCorrect.
2. On the both the AutoFormat and AutoFormat As You Type tabs, uncheck the lines reading:
   • "Straight Quotes" with “Smart Quotes”
   •  Symbol characters (--) with dash ( —).
   • The other conversions there can optionally be unchecked too.
3. On the Autocorrect screen, find and delete the ellipses character (...).

    For Word 2007:

1. Select Word Options, Proofing, AutoCorrect.
2. On the both the AutoFormat and AutoFormat As You Type tabs, uncheck the lines reading:
   • "Straight Quotes" with “Smart Quotes”
   •  Hyphens (--) with dash ( —).
   • The other conversions there can optionally be unchecked too.
3. On the Autocorrect tab, find and delete the ellipses character (...).

Changing settings in Sun's Open Office word-processing program:

1. Select Tools, AutoCorrect.
2. On the Custom Quotes tab, uncheck the Replace boxes for both Single Quotes and Double Quotes.
3. On the Replace tab, find and delete the ellipses character (...) and the em dash (—) entries, if present.

Changing settings for WordPerfect (versions for Windows):

1. Select Tools, QuickCorrect.
2. On the Smart Quotes tab, uncheck the boxes for Turn on Single Quotes, and Turn on Double Quotes.
3. On the Format-As-You-Go tab, uncheck Quick Bullets and Quick Symbols.

To shut off Smart Quotes:
On the Header, do AppleWorks, Preferences, General, Text, under Options, uncheck Smart Quotes.

To set to Plain Text: On the Header, do Text, Style, and put a checkmark at Plain Text.

Removing Existing Smart Quotes and Dashes from documents:

Turning off smart quotes, dashes, and ellipses does not remove existing examples in your text. They can be changed manually, or you can use Find and Replace.
The question the becomes, what do you put in the Find line? The answer is, go into your text, find an example of a unwanted character, select it, copy it, and paste it into the Find line. Type its replacement in the Replace line, and click on Replace All.