Since the =20 problem has been raised several times on this list, I 
thought the following message from the Copyediting list might be 
helpful. I am re-posting with the author's permission.

Geoff Hart wrote:

>Subject: Misc: Eliminating =20 signs
>
>BB noted: <<If everyone would just set their e-mail programs
>to plain text for=20  CE-L, we wouldn't have to deal with the problem.>>
>
>Other have noted that they have set their version of Outlook to use
>this setting, but still can't avoid the problem completely. That
>triggered an old memory: If you're working in an office that uses
>Exchange Server as the e-mail gateway, there's a server-level setting
>that overrides each person's personal settings and sends out the mail
>as HTML. In that setup, nothing you can do at the level of your
>personal computer will fix this problem.
>
>The solution is to speak to your e-mail administrator and ask them to
>turn off this setting in Exchange. (I don't know more details than
>that; it's been 5+ years since I solved this problem at my previous
>employer, and even then, I never knew which specific dialog box holds
>this setting.) A typical e-mail adminstrator is horribly overworked
>(and often appallingly undertrained or ignorant), so you may have to
>go gently over their head to get this change added to the list of
>priorities. The argument that worked for me was to point out to said
>idiot's supervisor that many of our important clients had installed
>spam filters that were blocking mail in HTML format*, and that we
>were doing ourselves an enormous disservice by assuming our mail was
>arriving when it fact it was being incinerated upon arrival, with no
>warning to us. I provided proof of this, and they made the change the
>same day.
>
>* HTML mail is a problem because the hyperlinks are a major source of
>security breaches. A huge proportion of my spam comes in the form
>"Click here to update your bank account/credit card/Paypal/etc.
>information", and at a casual glance, the URL appears to be correct.
>But if you copy the URL into Word, you'll quickly see that it points
>to a Web server in the Eastern Block, Russia, China, Korea, and
>elsewhere. It's called "phishing".

End quote.

I hope this helps.

regards,
Julia

Julia R. Barrett
Science Writer & Editor in the Life Sciences
Madison, Wisconsin
608-238-8409; [log in to unmask] 

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