how to get standard signature delimiter "-- "

[sethg]

Outlook2000 seems to delete end-of-line white space. The standard signature
delimiter of dash-dash-space followed by carriage return becomes dash-dash
followed by carriage return. Without the space, most newsreaders will not
automatically trim my signature. This has caused me to receive numerous
off-list complaints from newsgroups of the general theme, "Outlook #$%^&".
While I don't agree with that sentiment, I would like to use the standard
signature delimiter for the convenience of others who reply to me.

This is not related, but when I reply to newsgroup posts using Outlook, I
use Outlook-QuoteFix. This usually, though not always, fixes up line
wrapping when I quote other posts and trims signatures that use the standard
delimiter. Sometimes it is unable to correct bad line wrapping from other
posters using Outlook. It is also unable to put the timezone into the
attribution line, so I have to enter it as a fixed string and remember to
change it twice a year (daylight savings time). I still like QuoteFix, but
does anyone know of an add-in that works any better?

 

[Brian Tillman]

Outlook2000 seems to delete end-of-line white space. The standard
signature delimiter of dash-dash-space followed by carriage return
becomes dash-dash followed by carriage return. Without the space,
most newsreaders will not automatically trim my signature. This has
caused me to receive numerous off-list complaints from newsgroups of
the general theme, "Outlook #$%^&". While I don't agree with that
sentiment, I would like to use the standard signature delimiter for
the convenience of others who reply to me.

Outlook can't post in newsgroups (it doesn't contain an NNTP client), so how
can anyone complain about it's posting format? I personally so no issue
with signatures. In fact, there is no such thing as a "standard" signature
despite the whining of a few.

This is not related, but when I reply to newsgroup posts using
Outlook, I use Outlook-QuoteFix. This usually, though not always,
fixes up line wrapping when I quote other posts and trims signatures
that use the standard delimiter. Sometimes it is unable to correct
bad line wrapping from other posters using Outlook. It is also
unable to put the timezone into the attribution line, so I have to
enter it as a fixed string and remember to change it twice a year
(daylight savings time). I still like QuoteFix, but does anyone know
of an add-in that works any better?

Outlook-Quotefix is the only one I've ever seem.

 

[sethg]

Outlook can't post in newsgroups (it doesn't contain an NNTP client), so how
can anyone complain about it's posting format? I personally so no issue
with signatures. In fact, there is no such thing as a "standard" signature
despite the whining of a few.

Many newsgroups are also available as mailing lists. If you post to a
mailing list and others read it as a newsgroup, then you have a problem.
There is also a problem for people who use MUA's that do not have this bug
and notice that only Outlook users post with broken signature delimiters.
While I personally enjoy using Outlook, I don't think that others are whining
when they point out that this is a bug.

As far as there being no standard signature delimiter, please refer to the
following from RFC2626:

| 4.3. Usenet Signature Convention
|
| There is a convention in Usenet news of using "-- " as the separator
| line between the body and the signature of a message. When
| generating a Format=Flowed message containing a Usenet-style
| separator before the signature, the separator line is sent as-is.
| This is a special case; an (optionally quoted) line consisting of
| DASH DASH SP is not considered flowed.

This is a valid practice for politely responding to any mailing list that is
also available on Usenet. I again ask the question if there is any way to
prevent Outlook from deleting trailing spaces in a standard signature
delimiter.

 

[sethg]

:

As far as there being no standard signature delimiter, please refer to the
following from RFC2626:

That should be RFC2646. Sorry for the typo.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Notice the word "convention"?

This is a valid practice for politely responding to any mailing list
that is also available on Usenet. I again ask the question if there
is any way to prevent Outlook from deleting trailing spaces in a
standard signature delimiter.

I seem to have no trouble with Outlook leaving on the space after the dash.
I just tried it. The space definitely was there on the receiving side.

 

[sethg]

Notice the word "convention"?

This RFC took a long-standing convention from Usenet and made it into a
standard. That's all the language means. It is no less a standard because
it was previously an informal convention. It is also respected by most mail
clients. If you need to communicate with people running non-Microsoft MUA's
on public mailing lists, particularly if they are gatewayed into the news
environment, it is an issue.

I seem to have no trouble with Outlook leaving on the space after the dash.
I just tried it. The space definitely was there on the receiving side.

Please refer to my original post:

Outlook2000 seems to delete end-of-line white space.

This may or may not occur with the latest version of Outlook. I believe
that the latest version of Outlook Express has fixed this bug, so Microsoft
eventually realized this was a problem. Google for "Outlook signature
delimiter" and you'll see lots of references to this bug in Outlook/OE.

FWIW, I can occassionally send myself a test message where the end-of-line
space is preserved, just as you did. From trial and error, I believe it is
related to the presence of long lines that Outlook has to wrap: if there are
none, it seems that trailing white space is preserved. Unfortunately,
manually wrapping lines is not practical. Maybe if someone knows how to
write an Outlook add-in to wrap the lines before passing them back to
Outlook, this would fix a long-standing bug that causes far too many flames.
If someone would help get me started, I'd even take a whack at it.

 

[Brian Tillman]

This RFC took a long-standing convention from Usenet and made it into
a standard.

Thar RFC applies only to Text/Plain messages using fixed-flowed format. I'd
be surprised if Outlook 2000 can generate that format.