This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How can I edit HTML source during compose?

  • 2 replies
  • 8 have this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by Dr.PEBKAC

more options

I often compose e-mails that contain multi-level bulleted or numbered lists, images, and other inserted items. Sometimes, Thunderbird fails to return me to the correct list level between paragraphs or breaks, or it crashes or deletes part of my message when inserting an image. I have found some workarounds, but it would be helpful to me if I could see the HTML code and manually edit it during compose, like I can with received messages (View > Message Source). I haven't yet found a way to do this. Alternatively, I could compose the message in Dreamweaver and copy it into my e-mail, but I might create some tags that are not supported by Thunderbird. Please suggest how I can edit the composed HTML before sending my message. Thanx, -Richard

I often compose e-mails that contain multi-level bulleted or numbered lists, images, and other inserted items. Sometimes, Thunderbird fails to return me to the correct list level between paragraphs or breaks, or it crashes or deletes part of my message when inserting an image. I have found some workarounds, but it would be helpful to me if I could see the HTML code and manually edit it during compose, like I can with received messages (View > Message Source). I haven't yet found a way to do this. Alternatively, I could compose the message in Dreamweaver and copy it into my e-mail, but I might create some tags that are not supported by Thunderbird. Please suggest how I can edit the composed HTML before sending my message. Thanx, -Richard

Chosen solution

A quick way is to select the message body (Ctrl-A to Select All), then Insert/HTML. Or, use an add-on such as EditHtml. As you suggest, copying html from an external editor is likely to cause problems.

Read this answer in context 👍 2

All Replies (2)

more options

Chosen Solution

A quick way is to select the message body (Ctrl-A to Select All), then Insert/HTML. Or, use an add-on such as EditHtml. As you suggest, copying html from an external editor is likely to cause problems.

more options

Using Insert > HTML works great. I'll use that the next time I compose an e-mail to check the HTML at each problem. If I find something that repeatably causes Thunderbird to glitch, I'll report it in case it can be fixed. Thanx ag'in, -Richard