composing an email - bbcmost email software will give you a spellchecker function - either as you...

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Composing an email

Composing and formattingYou can format your emails however you want by changing font sizes and colours, adding headings, lists, and pretty much make it look however you want. The date in this message has been highlighted. Click the ‘bold’ button to see the date in bold for emphasis.


Some people prefer to send emails as ‘plain text’ messages. With these you cannot add formatting such as colours or different fonts, although you can use capital letters to emphasise a word. Emails where you can change the format are known as ‘rich text’ or html messages.

Spell checkMost email software will give you a spellchecker function - either as you type, or by pressing a button - and it’s always worth doing as no one wants to receive an email full of spelling mistakes. But remember, with all the technology in the world, nothing beats reading everything back to yourself before you press the send button! Click on the underlined word to correct it.


You can attach several files to an email, for example you can send someone four photos attached to a message, or you can attach a document, a video and a picture to a single email.

AttachmentsSo what if you want to send something other than just text? Well attachments allow you to do just that. You can attach photos, music, documents, basically any file you have on your computer and send it to someone via email. Click the ‘add attachment’ icon to start adding attachments, and click the selected jpg to attach it to the email.


Photos taken on a digital camera often have a file size of 1-2MB which is quite large but fine to send by email. Webmail usually has an attachment file size limit of 10MB but you may be able to send larger files using an email client.

Attachments (2)There are a couple of things to watch out for; to protect other users, your software might not allow you to attach certain types of file. Also, be careful when attaching large files, as it will be really slow for recipients on slower connections. But as you can see, using attachments is a fantastic way of sharing things with other email users.


Why not try the Address book topic next.

composing an email - bbcmost email software will give you a spellchecker function - either as you...

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