In an email dated Wed, 1 2 2006 2:40:19 pm GMT, writes: >Why do SOG messages often come out slightly scrambled? >I am talking about lines ending with =20 or what is presumably >a Pound sign >being replaced by =A3 and suchlike. This is because this list is text-only, but people still send formatted emails to it. As formatted text can in certain circumstances hide dangerous code, it is safer to receive emails as text-only. Because some equipment does not have the sophistication of modern PCs or Apples, the autoconversion routines have to work to the lowest common denominator, which in most cases is the old teletype. This ensures all recipients get as much as possible of the message, albeit with some odd combinations of characters. Furthermore, the pound sign does not appear in the repertoire of American or other non-Sterling characters so the conversion routine would fail to produce the pound sign for most non-UK recipients. The solution is for everybody to only send pure-text emails (not putting it through a word processor first) and to always use the international standard for currency display, which for Sterling is GBP, as in GBP4.99 Most systems for writing emails do allow you to specify the format you want to output an email in. For currency codes I usually use the document headed 'Rates of Exchange for Customs and VAT purposes' as my guide and you can find the latest version of this via <http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageVAT_RatesCodesTools> DaveD