Other writing systems screenshot below cropped from prior screenshot but shown in email sent above.

This a serious problem that needs to be addressed. In the Composition Pane the message does not look the same as it does in the Drafts or Sent folder, no matter how you sent your defaults. The text is smaller and thinner. I have not had to change my default settings in a long time. Something weird happened with a recent release

The original poster continued offline with me and, using the instructions posted here, found that he was able to set his fonts such that he had consistency in all views. I think the real problem is that people are unaware of the need to specify Latin and Other Writing Systems for non-HTML fonts and that the preferences>general settings are for personal viewing and the preferences>composition are for viewing by recipients.

I think the biggest issue in fonts is people are completely unaware they are specifying fonts in pixels not points when they set sizes. They are also not usually aware the clownishly large setting they have chosen for their email display like billboard sized to their recipients.

They are also not aware Thunderbird silently converts their HTML email to plain text after they click send, simply removing all their font information. Generally they are looking for help with fonts after that occurs because they have no idea their HTML is now text.

Good Morning Matt, Dave and Rmrubinsl:

Three points of clarification and suggestion as the originator of this font problem who never had a SINGLE font problem for 20 years using TB v2.0 - only when I upgraded to v91.x to get rid off of all the remote link problems. Knowing what I know now about all the v 91.x problems I would happily have stayed at v2.0:

(1) David and I did go off line and we came up with a "liveable solution" but certainly not a reliable and optimal solution. The "liveable solution" is still unstable, unpredictable and unreliable. I did not pursue this further with David as I did not want to take up any more of David's time and goodwill;

(2) Matt, as a user of 20 years and appreciative of the time and goodwill all the supporters and comrades of TB provide, please tone down your derogatory tone and lexicon usage as to the competency and knowledge of those of us who are not as familiar with TB as you appear to be.

We are not idiots, just neophytes and a case in point is your reference to pixels versus point sizes. If your refer to an earlier posting of mine (which I duplicate below) I attached a jpeg of the "fonts and encodings" TB2.0 box where the user could choose font size by PIXELS and incoming and outgoing character encodings by PIXELS. I expressly asked all where the v91 equivalent was located - did not receive the location. During my offline exchanges I was about to ask Dave if we could use the config editor to go into the guts of v91 to stipulate in EXACT PIXELS as the options given in v91 as to SMALL, MEDIUM, LARGE and 10, 12, 14 and 16 point size are all inexact and unreliable. V91 sometimes inflates or deflates the font size you have selected;

(3) Rmrubinsl, you are absolutely right, this font hit and miss, trial and error, catch and catch can suggested protocols need to be fixed by the publication of a properly documented USER OR REFERENCE MANUAL which I am more than willing to do the DTP work for the technical author who knows the inner workings of TB.

Regards, Miles Conway, Ph.D.

Dear Miles and others, Thunderbird is a superior email client. I Imap several email accounts. I can view them all easily and from multiple computers and from my phone (using another client) where they are all in sync. I can generally find old email messages easily and quickly, even though I seldom delete unwanted messages. The problem is that Thunderbird puts out releases with bugs or which change a user's default settings. Several times in the last few years, I have had to revert to an earlier release in because a bug was introduced that eventually got fixed. Users who are willing to accept beta releases know what they are getting into. But those of us who are focused on communicating with others shouldn't have wrestle with problems introduced by new development. The basic problem here is the one Miles indicated. Like him, I have used Thunderbird for a long time--surely more than 20 years. It is baffling that the message on the composition screen does not look the same as in the sent or drafts folder. I shouldn't have to tweak anything to make them look the same because it always worked before. I can send screen shots if someone can show me how to see what I am sending. Richard M Rubin (also PhD)

Richard, I feel you are being too harsh. TB is a complex product, maintained by a large group of mostly volunteers and is highly stable. With thousands and thousands of lines of code and the many features we enjoy, rolling out software with no bugs is not realistic. Look at Postbox: I filed a serious bug there four months ago, one they acknowledged, yet not fixed - a bug that corrupts outgoing messages. Look at TheBat: it's been struggling for the past two years to get sufficient bugs out of it to appear even remotely stable. TB works. And, compared to other email clients, it is quite robust.

On the issue of compose screen not looking the same as what was produced, you need to look back to the origin of this thread. The OP showed proof that he specified Times Roman as default, yet his compose window showed 'variable width'. That was a simple bug he corrected with a reinstall. (Interference from anti-virus programs are a major cause of update problems.) If your compose window does not reflect what you are sending, I'll be glad to walk you through the proper setup. My personal preference is to avoid sending fonts and font sizes in email, preferring to let recipient make that decision, but I can show you how to do it,, whether you use plain text or HTML. I use plain text, and my compose window and sent folders show calibri font, my preference. Let me know.

Good Morning One and All:

I do not believe whataboutism is going to solve Richard's and Others' problems with the font problem.

May I suggest rather than Richard and David going through 20 interations as I did, I post screenshots of my current settings in my Preferences/general/composition/Latin/Other etc., etc which has allowed me to be relatively stable in compose/sent/draft etc for Times New Roman 12pt.

Richard can then replicate and if it works for him he can change to his font selection.

If you think this is an option let me know and I will post over the weekend.

On a lighter note and extending the idiom of how many Ph.Ds does it take to screw in a light bulb, Richard how many Ph.Ds does it take to fix a TB font bug ?

Regards, Miles Conway, Ph.D

PS - I never did any re-install of V91 and I did not want to take the risk of losing emails - I just trialed and errored my way to 90% stable of now.

Miles, showing the settings for Latin and Other Writing Systems can be helpful if Richard's desire is for his own viewing, wherein he would be using 'variable width' setting for HTML, thereby allowing TB to send plain text when possible. However, if sending HTML is what he wants, then posting all of that may be overkill. I went through all the options with you because I wasn't sure of your preferences. But I respect your volunteering of this. I'm sure that seeing all the screenshots can prove helpful.

David, Thank you for the offer to to help. My preferences are to send messages in Arial/Helvetica with a yellow background and to view them the same way in the sent and draft views. The attached images show my settings and screen shots of the composition view vs the draft view The images are a bit misleading in that the difference in fonts is not as pronounced as on the actual screen. To notice the difference clearly, compare the font size of the message text with the signature.

I am not being too harsh. I was a software developer for twenty-five years and the number of bugs Thunderbird introduces in new releases is unacceptable, especially on screens users deal with all the time. I shouldn't have to do this. Richard

Richard, Thanks for trusting that we may work through this, for both of us. Like you, I spent a career in computers, having been a systems programmer/mgr/consultant from 1965 through to 2005, wrapping it up as a project mgr for Y2K stuff. And I agree that there should be fewer bugs, and updates should not be the fire drill that so many experience (as any review of this forum confirms), but I volunteer here because I believe in open source and the volunteer nature here and the belief that Thunderbird will be the last client standing in the future. (My email experiences saw the decline of Forte Agent, the demise of Eudora, the failed attempt of Courier - a project where I was involved), the abandonment of Pocomail - which had great promise, and the continued stumbling of TheBat in attempting to fix its seemingly endless bugs). I will also agree that the concept of regression testing seems to be missing in Thunderbird's rollout strategy. Complaining about shortcomings, however, accomplishes little here in the support forum. So, let's focus on the font issue:

My first observation that may deserve further investigation (not here), is the presence or absence of the chosen font. For example, I noticed that, while I can specify Helvetica, my PC does not have that font installed (and Helvetica is not even an option in the beta (release 98). Further, the HTML generated for Helvetica is 'Helvetica, arial, sans-serif', so the resultant font could easily vary from PC to PC. My assumption is that TB relies on the installed fonts for its display, so the display on your PC (and mine) is suspect when a missing font is used. This paragraph may not apply to you, but Helvetica was also not on my prior laptop.

So, to test, I figured it would be more 'fair' to TB if I use a font that I have, so I picked Book Antiqua. The attached images are a combined one, showing compose window and draft window side by side (those lines in compose view are just grammar warnings). The two match, character for character. The other image is of the source HTML. attempted to replicate your sig, assuming it is plain text. I merged yours together so I could compare more easily, and they are close, mostly a slight difference in size, but still the same font.

All I can draw from this is that, when I use a font that is on the PC, the results match. I will add here that you can achieve the same results without HTML, if you are content to let recipients use their own choice of font. And, if Helvetica is absent from others' PCs, they aren't seeing it, anyway. I enjoyed investigating this. It may not be what you want, but at least you have another's opinion. Thanks for the opportunity to discuss. david

Richard, As an aside (not related to fonts), I would be remiss if I didn't share that there is a soft fork of TB, called Betterbird, developed in Germany by a small group of former TB developers who share your belief that TB has too many bugs. They produce a release at approx same time as TB, and their website lists their beliefs and bug fixes that are not in TB, and also a few enhancements. Betterbird, being a soft fork, works fully with the TB profile and is a lookalike in almost all ways. The only difference on panel options (that I'm aware of ) is that there is no automatic update feature. Instead, the client provides notification, but user must take initiative to download and install update over existing version. The support forum is in German. I run Betterbird alongside TB to maintain awareness of each. This might be a client of interest to you. However, I have no idea on it's likely duration in the long run. I keep TB as my default. david

David, Thank you for you reply. I changed my default font in both the General and the Composition settings to Book Antiqua. I checked to see that Book Antiqua is an installed font. I created a new sample message with some random text I picked up from an old book. No difference. To illustrate, I sent the message so that you can see that both the Draft and the Sent folders are different from the Composition view, where the font size is much smaller. After I sent the message, I forwarded it and the Composition view shown is of the forwarded message. When I clicked "forward" on the sent message, the Composition window came up an the text was instantly smaller. I've also included the HTML of the message being composed.

I don't stick with a single font, although my default font is the one I use most often. In replying to questions, I often use a different color and boldface. So, I send in HTML as I would like people to see what I send. The problem I am having now is I don't see what they get, unless I save a draft and inspect it.

I am surprised that it is useless to complain in a support forum. Many companies monitor their support forums and several I've been on have had company employees who respond to queries. Mozilla would do well to look its forums to see what people are complaining about. Doesn't it? Developers should be excessively careful about changes that might affect the user interface. There are few things more exasperating.

Richard

Richard, You may have raised the bar of expectation, such that it is unattainable. I merged your compose and draft and the differences are slight. For futher info, I created an email with random text and viewed in Thunderbird, Postbox, Becky, and TheBat. They are all similar, yet different. And Postbox and TheBat will replace your colors with user pref. And there will always be some who set clients to 'plain text only.' Bottom line, as I see it, is that there is no way to guarantee that viewers will see an email's formatting as intended.

And, at this point, I hope we are at a draw. I have said all I have. On your forum comment, I would agree, except that this is run by volunteers and I have spent more hours this Saturday on this forum than I had intended. Pursuing requests or questions or 'what if' issues is best left to others. Maybe if more people donated, there were be more staff for this, but donations come from a small percentage of users. I enjoyed the sparring, and wish you well. It was fun. Enjoy the rest of the weekend. david

I am sorry that my screen shots have not conveyed the true measure of the difference. On my computer it is obvious and very difficult to work with. My expectation is that it works the way it always did. That's not a high bar.

Good Morning All:

I am having difficulty attaching eight screenshot jpegs of a TB91 email composed, drafted, sent and received all in TIMES NEW ROMAN 12pt. I am thus emailing both David and Richard the jpegs and a pdf of the eight screenshots

In all cases the TIMES NEW ROMAN 12 pt font held, including but not shown a reply with the original email font also holding.

This was achieved with the settings shown in the other jpegs of Preferences-Composition-General and Latin and Other Writing systems.

Richard, I would advise replicating the above and if it works then change to your Arial and add your yellow background.

Hail to Thunderbird, much better than that MS Outlook rubbish.

Regards, Miles Conway, Ph.D.

Upload working now - 8 screenshots attached.

Thanks, Miles, This seems the only change you did from our early discussions was the minimum font setting. Good to know. Much appreciated. The settings for Latin and Other Writing Systems, however, apply only to plain text. With that, all Richard should need to do (?) is set the minimum font size. Where those settings help is that it will show incoming plain text messages the same as HTML messages. If the desire is to show ALL incoming as Times Roman, then the box to allow other fonts should be unchecked. david

Correcto and Indeed. Miles.

It's been an informative discussion, Miles and Richard. I think we all benefited. All the best to you both, david