We are sending our mail using the MIME protocol which is widely use now, in particular because of the WEB's spread. It means that in the header of your mail you will found the following lines:
Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE
If you see these lines on top of your mail, ie in the body of the message, you probably won't see correctly the accented characters. To work correctly, your mail browser should be able to interpreted these lines and put you terminal to the correct setting.
This MIME protocol means that a real (8 bits) e-acute, sent by us, has been translated to =E9 before the transfer. It should reach your local mailer (a UNIX machine generally) unchanged. Only your local PC (under DOS or WINDOWS) or MAC or terminal or Work station mail browser has to translate the =E9 into an e-acute corresponding to your screen.
The ISO-8859-1 is adapted world-wide by WINDOWS (not by DOS), and UNIX workstation. The Macintosh uses its own standard, so your mail browser has to translate an ISO-8859-1 e-acute into an MAC e-acute. If not you get an upper E-grave instead of an e-acute: your mail browser has to be upgraded.
Also, on simple terminals (VT200 series or similar) the 8th bit should not be stripped; otherwise the e-acute (ISO8859-1) is echoed locally as an ASCII (7 bits) "i". This is the same thing for printers; printers have to be 8 bits and to understand the ISO8859-1 codes. Otherwise you need local converters, but this is done correctly now on modern WINDOWS and UNIX drivers. Hope it will help.
In the subject of a mail (Subject: ) it is difficult to have accents characters because the mime definition is generally process after the subject. Therefore it is recommended not to type accent characters in the subject line.
