I often use copy and paste to take content from one e-mail andadd it to another. Because of the cost of ink and the limitedknowledge of some of my friends, I usually like to make fontssmaller and change them from color to black. But I often have ahard time changing both the font and the color, and sometimes Ican't do either. I'm wondering whether this has something to dowith the originator's programs. In any case, I'd appreciate anyhelp that you can offer in this area.

Whether you reply or copy/paste, cleaning up formatting inHTML-based e-mail messages can be tough. Just because the senderliked pale green text against a background of clouds doesn'tmean your reply needs to be equally illegible. The easiestsolution is to convert the message to plain text and then, ifdesired, back to HTML. To do that in Outlook, you would selectFormat | Plain Text from the message's menu, click Yes toconfirm you want to discard the formatting, and then selectFormat | HTML. Using just the keyboard, you can accomplish thisby typing Alt-O, T, Y, Alt-O, H. In Outlook Express, you'dselect Format | Plain Text, click OK to confirm, then selectFormat | Rich Text (HTML). Again, this would be Alt+O, X,Spacebar, Alt+O, and R on the keyboard. Once you've removed theunwanted formatting, you can format the remaining text any wayyou please