Foreign Languages + Email (Unicode related question, I think)

[dvsman]

Not sure how many of you guys have to deal with foreign languages / fonts but I get emails and occasionally they show up looking like gibberish.

As far as I can tell, the original sender is sending it in a Unicode font but something is messing up along the way to my inbox.

I've tried changing the font and encoding on my end but it doesn't actually change anything.

Is there anything I can do as an end user to fix this or is this something that the ISP has to deal with? Thanks!

 

[tedych]

I've never had (well, at least in the last 10 years) problems with foreign languages.
The sender isn't sending in unicode font but unicode encoding (one of many, probably utf8).
It depends on many factors. Wht encoding exactly is sent out, what additional encoding is applied (quoted printable, base64 etc.), what email service is used by you, what email program or browser on what OS. If you don't have the necessary fonts...
Also, how do you know the sender used unicode?
Maybe you should give an example or paste, after you clear up all the unknowns.
I use Thunderbird with Gmail since forever, no problems.

 

[dvsman]

We have an office / customers in Thailand so occasionally we get stuff from there. If it's in Thai, I normally don't have a problem reading it but occasionally I get emails that look like this:

เรียน เจ้าหน้าที่ผู้เกี่ยวข้à¸à¸‡ ตามที่ได้สืบค้นข้à¸à¸¡à¸¹à¸¥à¹ƒà¸™à¸«à¸™à¹‰à¸ <---- Needless to say that's not Thai

Normally I use Thunderbird too, but it looks like that even when I log into my email even via webmail.

BUT if I look at the source / use View Source in webmail, it actually shows the right fonts.

2nd Caveat - keep in mind, this doesn't happen all the time. I get emails that work perfectly / are readable all the time as well. That's the confusing part.