in reply to Re^3: Is ChatGPT like having a thousand monkeys? (Blank lines in emails)
in thread Is ChatGPT like having a thousand monkeys?

I haven't posted a good example because I'm protecting my client's information, but here's a taste of what I was seeing. This is one of the parts of the page that was causing breakage: 

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
 <head>
  <title>Daily Sage Issues</title>
  <style>
   body { font-family: sans-serif; }
   table { border: 1px solid black; border-spacing: 0px; border-collap
+se: separate }
   td { border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px; }
   td.right { text-align: right; }
   td.left { text-align: left; }
   td.center { text-align: center; }

   td.bold { text-align: right; font-weight: bold; }
   div.head { text-align: center; font-size: 24px; }
  </style>
 </head>
 <body>
...

[download]
and here's the repaired section that worked fine: 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
 <head>
  <title>Daily Sage Issues</title>
  <style>
   body { font-family: sans-serif; }
   table { border: 1px solid black; border-collapse: collapse }
   td { border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px; }
   td.right { text-align: right; }
   td.left { text-align: left; }
   td.center { text-align: center; }
   td.bold { text-align: right; font-weight: bold; }
   div.head { text-align: center; font-size: 24px; }
  </style>
 </head>
 <body>
...

[download]
It really was as simple as removing all of the blank lines in the HTML page.

Alex / talexb / Toronto

For a long time, I had a link in my .sig going to Groklaw. I heard that as of December 2024, this link is dead. Still, thanks to PJ for all your work, we owe you so much. RIP Groklaw -- 2003 to 2013.

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Re^5: Is ChatGPT like having a thousand monkeys? (Blank lines in emails)
by LanX (Saint) on Mar 25, 2025 at 17:32 UTC
    Sorry, maybe I should have been more explicit about the SSCCE we need.

    Not just the embedded HTML, the whole surrounding email.

    If you use gmail for instance, you can click on "Show Original" to see what was exchanged. (I forgot how to get there in Outlook)

    Here a"censored" SSCCE I've send this Sunday.

    MIME-Version: 1.0
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2025 15:22:37 +0100
Message-ID: <5i96M49FeA+kFy8n2BdseXUtqAHQ_CAAJWxWVzdM@mail.SOME_PROVID
+ER.com>
Subject: Klappt morgen???
From: rolf lanx <rolf.lanx@SOME_PROVIDER.com>
To: "Joky Bäcker" <j.Baecker@SOME_OTHER_PROVIDER.de>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0000000000003918c406310
+338d2"

--0000000000003918c406310338d2
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Hi

Ich wei=C3=9F du hast es in deinem Kalender stehen, aber sicher ist si
+cher.=
..

LG
  Rolf

--0000000000003918c406310338d2
Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<div dir=3D"auto">Hi<div dir=3D"auto"><br></div><div dir=3D"auto">Ich 
+wei=
=C3=9F du hast es in deinem Kalender stehen, aber sicher ist sicher...
+</div=
><div dir=3D"auto"><br></div><div dir=3D"auto">LG=C2=A0</div><div dir=
+3D"au=
to">=C2=A0 Rolf</div></div>

--0000000000003918c406310338d2--

    [download]

    I have no Outlook configured to test ATM, But as I said already, even if that failed with empty lines, a base64 encoding should IMHO work.

    PS: I doubt we need the message ID, I think this is added anyway by the outbound mail server, not the client. (But I may be wrong and might be corrected soon ;)

    Cheers Rolf
    (addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
    see Wikisyntax for the Monastery

[reply]
[d/l]

      I have this part .. 

      --17410280190.8F1407fC3.912618
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2025 13:53:38 -0500
Content-Type: text/plain

<html>
 <head>
  <title>Daily Sage Issues</title>
  <style>
   body { font-family: sans-serif; }
   table { border: 1px solid black; border-spacing: 0px; border-collap
+se: separate }
   td { border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px; }
   td.right { text-align: right; }
   td.left { text-align: left; }
   td.center { text-align: center; }

   td.bold { text-align: right; font-weight: bold; }
   div.head { text-align: center; font-size: 24px; }
  </style>
 </head>
 <body>
    <h2>Sage IC Issues - SG1</h2>
...

      [download]
      And I'm intrigued to see that the content type is labelled as text/plain (probably the default that Email::Simple::Markdown creates). I wonder if I switch that to text/html if the blank line problem would go away. It could be that the message arrives as text/plain, but Outlook checks it out and says, "Hey, this is HTML! I can render this!", then sees a blank line, goes back to displaying regular text until the "HTML!" code pops back into gear and it goes back to rendering.

      Alex / talexb / Toronto

      For a long time, I had a link in my .sig going to Groklaw. I heard that as of December 2024, this link is dead. Still, thanks to PJ for all your work, we owe you so much. RIP Groklaw -- 2003 to 2013.

[reply]
[d/l]
        I've never worked with Email::Simple::Markdown, but the doc says you feed it with Markdown and it creates a multi-part email with the original text and the generated HTML version.

        From your previous description mentioning templates it seems you fed it with HTML right away, which could explain all your problems.

        Probably you just want to use Email::Simple ?

        Cheers Rolf
        (addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
        see Wikisyntax for the Monastery

        update

        NB: please note also that lines longer than 78 characters (80 with CR LF) are discouraged by the RFC. (>998 are forbidden)

[reply]

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