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?

Aviles

Answer 1

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.

Philbrook

Unfortunately, the same people that can't read HTML mail on their phones, can't view PDFs on them either. – Aviles

Answer 2

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.

Isthmus