Are you viewing messages in HTML or plain text? In the main Thunderbird window try View (Alt-V) - Message Body As - Original HTML

Dear Christ1,

Thank you for replying to my inquiry. I did check that View (Alt-V) - Message Body As - feature as you instructed and unfortunately, that's probably not it. It was already set at ORIGINAL HTML (and I'm pretty sure that is one of the first things I checked when I tried to troubleshoot this myself, I just did not think to mention that in my inquiry).

Do you think it could have something to do with my new Vista OS? I only say that because it seems everything was working fine until I got this new system. I just went back to look again at one of the messages I bcc'd myself and it appears that Thunderbird does not strip out ALL of the formatting, JUST THE COLORS. So any text which I have changed to red or pink, for example, all come out as black text in the final message. All the other kinds of formatting seem to remain intact (bold, italics, underline, make larger or smaller...).

Does this get us any closer to a solution? Thanks for helping me with this. I really appreciate it. I like to format my e-mails, so thanks bunches....

Lauren ;-)

I don't think this has got anything to do with Vista. See if this article helps. http://email.about.com/od/mozillathunderbirdtips/qt/How_to_Compose_Messages_in_HTML_in_Mozilla_Thunderbird.htm

Thanks again for trying. That article seems to have no bearing on my problem. In fact, I looked into several of those articles you sent and followed their advice (despite having done virtually all of those things already before submitting this inquiry and all of those settings were already correct), but no dice. And now it's even worse.

Today I tried to format an e-mail and now when I change the text color, the color does not even show up at all. At least before it LOOKED like the text changed to the color that I changed it to (in the e-mails I was composing, before I actually sent them, at which time it reverted back to black). But now, even when I change the color of the text, it just remains black. Grrrrr! Any additional thoughts? Thanks.

Then I'm out of ideas. Not using HTML formatting here, and personally I hate it when people think they must format a message text with all possible font sizes and colors.

You haven't clicked "Choose colour for background" by mistake?

Basic things to check if you haven't already:

1. In "Account Settings > Composition & Addressing > Compose messages in HTML format" must be selected which you obviously have if you see formatting icons. (Already mentioned in about.com link above.)
2. In "Preferences/Tools > Composition > General > Send Options > Text Format" should not be "Convert the message to plain text" and in the tab "Plain Text Domains" the recipient domain should of course not be listed.
3. Before sending a new message, "Options > Delivery Format" must not be changed to "Plain Text Only".
4. "Options > Display > Formatting > Colours > Allow content to choose its own colours ..." should be checked (default).

If you want to check if HTML formatting is applied:

Before sending your message you can check if HTML formatting is applied by selecting the entire message (Ctrl+A) or part of the message (or text that you wanted in e. g. blue colour), then choose menu Insert > HTML ... In the window that appears you should find something like <font color="#3333ff">blue coloured word</font> etc. plus many other HTML tags. Alternatively, select a sent message in your Sent folder, Ctrl + U and check if you see <font color .. plus again many other HTML tags. BTW, you should also find "Content-Type: text/html" somewhere in the header.

If possible check your formatted test mail with webmail (browser) or ask a recipient to report how your test mail looks.

But I agree with christ1, don't use formatting whenever possible.

Dear wuergler,

Thank you for helping me to resolve the formatting problem I was having with Thunderbird. I checked all the settings as you suggested and your option #4 did the trick. I offer only a very slight amendment to your instructions to make them less confusing (for me, anyway---I realize that the menus may differ somewhat in different versions of Thunderbird), as follows:

2. In "Preferences/Tools > Options > Composition > General [tab] > Send Options > Text Format" should not be "Convert the message to plain text" and in the tab "Plain Text Domains" the recipient domain should of course not be listed.

3. Before sending a new message [but while still in the in the new message, not your Inbox], "Options > Delivery Format" must not be changed to "Plain Text Only".

4. "Tools > Options > Display > Formatting [tab] > Colors > 'Allow content to choose its own colors, instead of my selections above'" should be checked (default).

Thanks to christ1 as well. Glad we finally figured it out. Cheers! Lauren ;-)