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There are many email readers available. The particular program you use may vary based on what type of connection to the Internet you have, what kind of computer you are using, and what specific needs you may have. Regardless of this diversity, there are certain tools you can expect to find in nearly any email client.
The heart and soul of email is writing messages, so it is not surprising that you would have some kind of editor built into an email program. Generally, email programs include text editors that are simpler than most word processors. this is really not much of a problem, because email sends essentially ASCII text, which is what text editors are best at. There are email programs with a spell - checker built into the program. This is an especially handy feature, because it is very embarrassing to send an email to someone with misspellings in it. Many email programs also give you the option to use some other text editor you really like and import the document into the email program for mailing.
Once the message is done, you obviously need some kind of command for sending the message to its destination. Somewhere on the document, you will be given a place to put the email address of the recipient. Be very careful when typing in this address! If you make a mistake or misspell the email address, your mail will not go through. The post office can guess when your address is a little sloppy, but the DNS system cannot! Check carefully before sending your message. Once it is sent, you cannot get it back! Be especially aware of this if you are sending an angry message you may regret later. Once you activate the send command, your letter will be broken into TCP/IP packets and sent to the recipient, where she will use her email program to read it.
Email addresses can be obscure and difficult to remember. Most email programs have some sort of address book that allows you to store the addresses you frequently mail to under a nick name. Rather than having to remember your mother's address as dxdg05a@prodigy.com, for example, you could store her address in the address book and give her a nickname like 'mom'. When you are ready to send your mom a message, you can just type mom in the recipient spot, and the program will replace that with her actual address. Much of the time, you can also use such features to group a number of addresses under one name. If for example, you were a manager and wanted to frequently send messages to all members of your department, you could store all such names with a nickname of 'department.' When you send a message to 'department' everyone in the list gets the message automatically.
After you send all this mail, you will probably be getting mail from others as well. One of the jobs of the mail program is to keep track of the mail you receive when you are not online. When you start up the mail program, it should tell you about any mail you have received since the last time you checked.
Email programs will have some way of allowing you to read any of the mail you have gotten. It will look a lot like the editor you use to send mail, but you cannot usually write in a message you are receiving. There are usually a number of commands built into such a system which allow you some special flexibility:
Allows you to reply to the person who sent you that message. Usually asks you if you want to include the message you are replying to. It will then send you to the editor part of the program, automatically addressed to the person who sent you the mail you were reading. If you chose to include original message, you will see that message in the editor as well. This is especially handy if somebody asked you a number of questions in an email and you want to respond to them individually. You can edit a copy of their message and put the appropriate response after each question.
Allows you to send a message on to another person. If you received an email which somebody else should see, you can use a forward command to copy the mail to the new person. There are 'chain emails' which have been forwarded thousands of times across the Internet. They are just as annoying as the paper kind, but easier to delete.
Lets you save the message permanently. This is very useful when the document contains information you will need later. The document is saved as a plain text file you can manipulate with a text editor.
This command is very important. Once you become active with email, you will receive many messages. It is important to do a little housekeeping now and then so the number of messages in your account does not become completely out of hand.