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I can't fix the problem of German umlauts (ü,ä,ö, etc.) being rendered as ??? in mails I sent.

  • 5 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by spamalot

Topkapi
Topkapi
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This is a problem many people have, but the given solutions don't work. When I send an email in German, most recipients receive the umlauts ö ü ä etc. as questionsmarks. Have tried switching to unicode to western and everything. It once worked, now it's screwed up again...

Thanks for your ideas.

This is a problem many people have, but the given solutions don't work. When I send an email in German, most recipients receive the umlauts ö ü ä etc. as questionsmarks. Have tried switching to unicode to western and everything. It once worked, now it's screwed up again... Thanks for your ideas.

All Replies (5)

Matt
Matt
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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set your sending character set to unicode. Make sure to use a common unicode font that contains the relevant characters. Calibri and Cambria would be a starting point.

Are you using Yahoo or one of it's contracted IS's to send mail? they have some nasties in their network for 8bit mail.

Topkapi
Topkapi Question owner
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I've tried that. I've tried western (iso) and windows and unicode. It worked once, strangely enough, but the next day it was screwed up again. I'm sending the mail through aol. Might that be the problem?

Matt
Matt
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Topkapi said

I've tried that. I've tried western (iso) and windows and unicode. It worked once, strangely enough, but the next day it was screwed up again. I'm sending the mail through aol. Might that be the problem?

AOL is Yahoo. Try another provider like GMX and see if the issue still occurs. OR register the AOL address with Google and send using gmail. That way the from address appears to still be AOL. DOn't forget to change the SMTP server used on the AOL account to GMails.

Topkapi
Topkapi Question owner
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Hi Matt, thanks for your suggestions. Meanwhile I have set mail.strictly_mime to true in configurations. Chose unicode and set the option to just text no html and now it seems to work. Keep your fingers crossed. If it goes haywire again I'll try the Gmail option, although I don't know how to change the smtp server. Thanks again.

spamalot
spamalot
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Hi there, I am having the same issue - also using yahoo - and none of the options above have worked thus far. Does anyone have a new idea? BTW: sending emails from my gmail account using Thunderbird has the same problem. Thanks!