Sending email in multiple languages

[Tara]

We're trying to send out HTML emails in multiple languages
(English and Chinese (simplified and traditional)).

The subject as well as the body may contain multi-byte
characters.

We're having trouble making the email readable for all audiences.
Outlook (back to 2003)
On English computer
On Chinese computer
Hotmail
on IE with a chinese (simpl or trad) locale
on Firefox with a chinese (simpl or trad) locale
Yahoo mail
on IE with a chinese (simpl or trad) locale
on Firefox with a chinese (simpl or trad) locale


So far we're base64 encoding with a multipart doc type and
encoding with Big5 or GB1208 depending on the user's locale.
(UTF-8 didn't work very well).

Is there a mostly-universal way of doing this?



Tara

 

[Thomas Weidenfeller]

We're trying to send out HTML emails

That alone is a bad idea. Many spam filters assign an extra score to
HTML mails. And a lot of people even immediately block mail with a
text/html mime type. Many web-based mail services (you mentioned a few),
do so, too. If it contains HTML, it smells like spam.

We're having trouble making the email readable for all audiences.

Since you didn't care to give a more precise problem and error
description, don't expect a step-by-step instruction on how to fix your
problem.

So far we're base64 encoding with a multipart doc type and
encoding with Big5 or GB1208 depending on the user's locale.
(UTF-8 didn't work very well).

Is there a mostly-universal way of doing this?

No, MUAs are almost free to interpret and display multipart mime mail
however they fell like. The RFC places only few requirements on the
different presentation of different multipart subtypes. In addition,
particular web-based services (but also stand-alone-MUAs - Microsoft
products are notorious) can be very "creative" in interpreting the
standard and don't support everything needed.

/Thomas