Gmail font problems

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About four months ago I started having two problems with gmail when I use Firefox.

The fonts and colors of some of the letters in some of the words is lost after I compose and send (or sometimes just save) an email. The recipient sees a splattering of characters throughout the email that appear in plain text rather than the selected font and color.

I’m also having a very frustrating problem with the last letters (the number of letters varies) in a word being highlighted as if I had typed two separate words and the last word is misspelled. But I actually typed one correctly spelled word. If nothing is done about this, the word appears as two words to the recipient. Getting Gmail to recognize that there aren’t two separate words can be a hassle. Sometimes retyping the word corrects things. More often than not it is necessary to right click on the highlighted part of the word, make a selection of a supposed correct spelling and then manually correct the resulting non-word.

I’ve been using the “lab” fonts for quite a while now. I only started having the problems after I switched to Gmail’s new compose format. I reverted back to the old format but — the problems didn’t go away.

I don’t have these problems when I use “plain text” (i.e. no formatting). But I don’t like being stuck with plain text.

I recently discovered that I DON’T HAVE THESE PROBLEMS WHEN I USE CHROME!!! But I prefer to use Firefox (one reason being that unlike Chrome FF can run NoScript). I haven’t tried I.E. or any other browser.

Has anyone else experienced or heard of either (or both) of these problems and more importantly does anyone know how to resolve them (other than giving up FF for Chrome)?

My operating system is Visa, but I’ve had the same problem using an XP operating system.

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Hi algins,
30315-WSL

Open Notepad, select Format and tick ‘Word Wrap’ then set the Font & size you want. Type your message, then untick ‘Word Wrap’ & copy & paste into Gmail.

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Roderunner …. Thank you for taking the time to write a suggestion for solving my problem …..

I tried it out. I didn’t write very much and with more writing my results may change but so far when I used Notepad as you suggest it seems to work. I wasn’t able to replicate the problem … that was the case no matter how I set wordwrap in Notepad.

When I copied the text that I wrote in notepad and pasted it into my what I was composing in Gmail it took on the format (font & color) that I had set as my default in Gmail … not the font that I set in Notepad. Which is okay, even desirable since as far as I can tell you can’t select a font color in Notepad.

BUT like many people I often reply to emails by writing my reply between some of the text in the original email. Copying stuff back and forth from Notepad to Gmail strikes me as being very cumbersome.

I’m was hoping that someone knows of something that I can do to make the fonts work in Firefox like they are supposed to …. and like they used to …. and [very strangely — even dare I say suspiciously?] still do in Chrome.

Al

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Hi Al, if you open Gmail, Settings, on the ‘General’ tab, you can set your font colour & size here. Save before closing.

33451-RR

This is how I use Gmail. 33268-WLM-Tips

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Roadrunner …..
What you suggest is how I did set up my font type, color, & size. Those are the settings that sporadically revert to plain text when I send out my emails.
Al

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Hi Al, have you changed these settings in Firefox.

33467-RR

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I played with the content settings under options (which is what I believe your graphic is depicting) but as far as I can tell this only adjusts the font appearance on the screens that list the emails (i.e. inbox) and doesn’t have anything to do with the fonts used in composing.

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Al,

and what if you are using an email client like Thunderbird to read, compose and handle your emails instead of doing this in the webmail of Gmail.

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Hi Blacktomcat ….

Thank you for taking an interest in my little problem of trying to get Firefox and Gmail to play nice together.

I’m sorry but I don’t understand the relevance of your question. I don’t use Thunderbird and haven’t for over six years now. I prefer a web based mail system. As I mentioned in my initial post I don’t have the problem in the Chrome browser … so I can use Chrome for composing and replying to emails (and for more than quick two or three sentence emails I am doing just that) but I was hoping that someone else has encountered the same problem and found a solution. Since I have the same problem on two different computers with two different operating systems I would think that I’m not alone.

Al

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Al, do both your versions of FF have the same addins and plugins? If so, it’s possible that one of these is causing the problem. You could try disabling them all, and seeing if the problem has gone away. Then it’s the tedious job of enabling each one separately and seeing when the problem recurs. Another check is to see what differences your version of Chrome has to FF – perhaps that might help to pinpoint the offending extension (if indeed that’s the problem).

The difficulty of trying to solve a problem like this is the inability of all who’ve replied to replicate the problem. Giving as much information as you can might help us further, but my experience is that often the problem is solved when ‘looking over the shoulder’; ‘why did you do that…?’. Obviously that can’t be done here.

Malcolm

p.s. a reinstall of FF might also solve the problem without telling you what it was…

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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Malcom,

Thank you for your suggestions. I don’t think I have what would be considered many add-ons, I have 14 Extensions and 14 plugins on my primary computer (Vista) and less on my XP machine. None that I recall were added around the time that the problem cropped up. But I think that your suggestion is worth a try. I disabled a few today but the problem persists. I’ll probably disable all of them this weekend and see if that does something. I also like the idea of trying a Firefox reinstall if I don’t hit on a solution pretty soon.

I am really surprised that I haven’t stumbled on someone else who is experiencing the same problem.

Al

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Hi. Al

You’re not alone in having this problem. I do, too. The sense that I have is that it occurs when I make corrections to text, e.g., to correct a spelling mistake or insert some additional text.

Ken

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Thanks for chiming in Ken.

In my case this happens regardless of whether or not I’m inserting text. I’ll start at a clean “compose” screen and start typing. Suddenly one of the words is partially underlined. If I then start over and type the same sentence on a new screen that word won’t necessarily be partially underlined this time.

Trying to tie down when and what causes the second problem (words or parts of words losing formatting on the sent email) is more problematic because it doesn’t happen until I send out the email …. which I don’t want to do with this problem. I have sent some emails to myself in an attempt to figure out what is going on but I haven’t been able to correlate anything with the problem.

Is your problem occurring in Chrome too or just in Firefox? Of course the problem only exists if I use rich formatting. There are no problems if I use plain text to begin with.

I decided that reinstalling FF will be more hassle than it’s worth. I’ve installed several updates on two unrelated computers since the problem started and that hasn’t done anything.

I wish I could explain the problem a little better. I’m thinking of taking a video of my screen as I type and then uploading the video showing the problem to a video share site and putting a link to that site on this thread.

Al

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Hi, Al

I should say that it is just my impression that the problem is caused on my system by inserting text into existing text. My work-around is, just before hitting send, I select all the text and re-apply the font.

Various things are irritating me about Google in general (e.g. killing Google Reader) and Gmail (e.g., this problem, eliminating custom date formats) so I think my next step will be to explore the other web-based mail systems.

Ken

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Hi Al,

Write a test message in Gmail, then click Print Screen (PrtSc) on the keyboard.
Type Paint in the Menu Search programs and files box and press Enter. Click Paste (Ctrl+V). Save as .jpeg. then 33508-Post-Your-Image

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Ken ….
Your suggestion to re-apply the font before sending seems to work and is the easiest work-around idea I’ve heard about so far. It’s a little bit of a hassle because I often break up the text from the sender and respond in sections. Since I don’t want to change the sender’s font I have to search out and highlight my reply text (while holding down the “ctrl” key) and then apply the font settings. But even with that inconvenience your idea is the best so far.

I agree with you that Google seems to be tightening up the ship a little bit too much. But I’d have to be “pushed” quite a bit more before I’d go through the hassle of changing my email account. I realize that Gmail has automatic forwarding so it won’t be necessary to immediately get a new address to everyone I exchange emails with. Still I’d rather not change. Anyway Ken thank you for your suggestion …. if it continues to work as well as it did when I tried it today then that’s probably the way I’ll go until [hopefully] Google or Firefox get this problem straightened out.

Roderunner….
Interesting technique to post a picture on this forum. When I post a picture in a gmail I’m simply able to drag the jpg or whatever from my computer to the gmail screen and it automatically uploads. I played around with a Yahoo account and learned on that one that you couldn’t transfer a picture directly from your computer to Yahoo … but you can make that transfer from one online source to another. From what you’re email says I gather that neither of those methods work of inserting a picture work on this forum.

In any event what I’m trying to show would be clearer if I posted a video rather than a picture. But for the time being I’ll just do the reformatting that Ken suggests until something better comes along.

Thank you to everyone for all your assistance.

Al

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