> =
> this reallyly
> =
> =
> =annoys me
>
> Know what I mean? Sorry if it only occurs at my end, its just
> that I hate reading mails like that, and usually just delete them
> becuase I don't have a lot of time anymore.
This occurs when messages are posted that have lines longer that 80
characters in length. This is especially prone to happen with Macintosh
systems that put no carriage returns after sentences within a paragraph.
Many mail systems arbitrarly break such lines into shorter pieces and
use the "=" symbol to show where the lines were broken.
It is good net-courtesy to use plain ASCII text, with all lines limited
to 76 characters or so. This makes it possible to withstand several
levels of indenting and quotation before the lines cause problems with
mail transmission.
My technique for handling this uses the "vi" macro: "map F !}adj ^[".
This maps the "F" key to run the current paragraph through the system
line adjust routine, formatting all lines to be 76 characters in length.
On other UNIX systems lacking "adj" you might try using "adjust" or
"fmt" instead. On non-vi systems, you'll have to write your own macro,
or just be careful to hit "carriage return" well before the end of each
line.
Best regards,
-- Rick Walker