The Aesthete E-mail used to be ugly, and even today you can't be sure recipients will see exactly what you intended. All three support HTML messages, but for the ultimate in styled elegance, go with Communicator. Otherwise, Eudora and Outlook Express offer layout and display engines that you may find useful in spite of their lesser capabilities. Although those who read mail in a proportional font may still miss your painstaking formatting efforts, if you rely on characters instead of HTML for formatting, more people will see what you want them to. For example, you could indicate underlining with underscores preceding and following the appropriate word or phrase.
Several programs have useful features for avoiding styles.
Netscape Communicator provides a check box that lets you indicate whether a contact in the Address Book can read HTML mail. If not, Communicator resorts to plain text. Eudora and Outlook Express both offer tools for manipulating text while editing, so you can wrap or unwrap paragraphs, quote text, and achieve the look you want in your messages. Mailsmith isn't necessarily easy to use, but if you need these features, it can't be beat. Despite Internet communications, we're traveling more than ever before for work, for play, and between home and the office.