Re: e-mailing tables (was A paradox? Why not?)

[Ludwik Kowalski <KowalskiL@MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU>]

Leigh (in a private message) pointed out to my typing error.
Somehow 11.09% became 11.9%. Sorry.

And he suggested how to send a table (see below). Let me
try it now. I am in Netscape, using its "Messenger" as mailer.

1) From the Format/Font menu I select the "Fixed width".
2) From the Format/Style menu I select the "Nonbreaking".
Nonbreaking probably means nonwrapping.

I suspect that the word wrapping is not important for a
table whose rows are short; I am using the CR at the end
of each line anyhow.

col 1     col 2    col 3        col 4         col 5
---------------------------------------------------

  0.012    12.4    5.52            3.14159     1.41
123.4     578.1    0.01      9876543.21      210.98

I hope the Internet will not destort the table this time. We will see.
Ludwik Kowalski

Guess what? Here is what was posted (as between the lines of
asterisks below) on my screen when I tried to send the message.
I aborted the attempt (to add this P.S. sentence) and will send it
now as the "Plain Text Only". When did I turn the message into
the HTML? A side effect of some kind?

*****************************************************
Some of the recipients are not listed as being able to receive HTML
mail. Would you like to convert the message to plain text or send
it in HTML anyway?

    XX  <---Send in Plain Text and HTML

    XX  <--Send in Plain Text Only

    XX  <--Send in HTML Only
*****************************************************

Leigh Palmer wrote:

> > The table was again deformed. Why does the Internet deform long
> > strings of blank spaces? How can this be prevented on our list?
>
> Don't use the tab key. Use the spacebar, make sure you are using
> a monospaced font, turn on word wrap, and you get something more
> like this:
> .............
> Of course I understand (and can resolve) the "paradox", but it
> does bother me a bit that the first number I calculated was
> incorrect. (Airline A only had 11.1% delayed flights at LAX
> by my reckoning.) That sort of flaw should not crop up in a
> well designed question; it is distracting.

Thanks Leigh.