source file: m1607.txt
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 15:09:43 -0500

Subject: Character width

From: Carl Lumma <clumma@nni.com>

>As an AOL subscriber posting to the tuning forum I've been 
>frustrated by having my posts appear messed up in the 
>Tuning Digests.  I've found that if I enter space then 
>carriage return by the time I've typed 72 characters in a line 
>my entry looks normal and the quotes and other 
>punctuation marks are transmitted as I've typed 
>them.  It took me a while to discover this but it's 
>working well now.  Let's see - (80 character line) -
>
>xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx
>xxxxxxxxx 

Dave, check your mail reader options.  There should be an area to set your
wrap width (although you never know, with AOL).  I use Eudora, which is
about the best wysiwyg mailer around as far as customizing goes (Pegasus is
also very good, and free), and set my width to 79 characters, which is the
width used by most terminals that the internet grew up on.  My posts
usually look okay, although sometimes I have problems.  Your test line
seems to indicate 69 might be better, but then why do my posts not look worse?

Carl