Formatting a table in a plain text email in C#

Question

I'm trying to send data in a tabular format via email and I was just told that some of our clients can't receive HTML formatted emails, which is what I was using. I tried to manage this using tabs, but the length of the strings varied too much to make this reasonable.

Is there a way to easily format tabular data in a plain text email?

Will Dean · Answer 1 · 2010-07-20T08:34:24.200

7

I don't think you're going to find anything broadly reliable - you'll fall over the following:

Lots of people read email in proportional fonts, so padding with spaces doesn't work
Email clients don't agree about rendering tabs so you can't use them even without your char spacing problem.

What about sending a PDF attachment? I know there will be angry purists madly down-voting me for daring to suggest it, but it could free you up from an endless unsatisfactory fights with mailers.

edited Jul 20 '10 at 08:34

answered Jul 19 '10 at 21:23

Will Dean

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Unfortunately, the same people that can't read HTML mail on their phones, can't view PDFs on them either. – Jeffrey Lott Jul 19 '10 at 21:31

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 20 '12 at 16:54

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You could try to use a '-' to fill in the white space. It won't be perfect but it might work better than a tab or a space.

answered Jan 20 '12 at 16:54

Brian

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Formatting a table in a plain text email in C#

2 Answers2