Changing the Default Character Set in POP3 E-Mail Clients for Writing E-Mail Messages in Chinese and Japanese

To minimize the possibility that someone cannot read your messages in Chinese or Japanese, you can change the default character set for English-language POP3 e-mail programs, which is usually ISO-8859-1, to Unicode (UTF-8), which accommodates most if not all of the world's languages. Detailed instructions are available for Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0, Outlook 2003, Outlook Express 6.0, Pegasus Mail 4.41, and Eudora Mail 7.1. You can also elect to to change the default encoding to one of the East Asian character sets (GB2312 for simplified Chinese, Big5 for traditional Chinese, or ISO-2022J for Japanese), depending on your personal correspondence pattern. But Unicode is the most flexible and compatible choice.

Note that even with the default character set changed to UTF-8, Eudora Mail's message composition window cannot handle East Asian text. However instructions have been provided here for Eudora Mail, both for the sake of completeness (as it was one of the e-mail clients tested for compatibility with East Asian text), and because it may work with some other non-Western European languages.

Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0

Open the Tools/Options submenu. Then click on the Display button.
Then click on the Fonts button under Fonts & Encodings. The Fonts & Encodings window opens.
On the line Outgoing Mail: in the section for Character Encodings, click on the button Western (ISO-8859-1) to bring up a popup list of encodings.

Move the cursor to Unicode (UTF-8) to highlight and select it. Repeat the same procedure for Incoming Mail: Western (ISO-8851) to change the default encoding to Unicode (UTF-8). Then click OK. Click OK again to exit the Options menu.

Your outgoing messages will now automatically be sent in Unicode. You can even mix languages in your messages.

Outlook 2003

Outlook 2003 with Internet Explorer 5.5 or above installed automatically selects the encoding for outgoing messages, based on an analysis of its content.
Since this feature appears to work well, and turning off the automatic encoding of outgoing messages involves an initial step of editing the Windows registry (something that should be attempted only by advanced users), it is recommended that the user leave the automatic encoding in place. However, those who want to attempt turning off this feature and manually configure the default encoding to Unicode or some other encoding can consult the Microsoft document on "Configuring Encoding Options in Outlook 2003," which provides a detailed explanation as well as step-by-step instructions.

Outlook Express 6.0

Open the Tools/Options menu. Then click on the Send tab.
In the Sending section, click on the button for International Settings ...
In the line Default Encoding, click on the button to the right of Western European (ISO). In the dropdown list of encodings that opens, move the cursor to Unicode (UTF-8) to highlight and select it by clicking on it.
Click OK to change the default encoding to Unicode (UTF-8).

Finally, in the Options window, click on the OK button to finish the process.

Your outgoing messages will now automatically be sent in Unicode. You can even mix languages in your messages.

Pegasus Mail 4.41

Open the Tools/Options menu. The Pegasus Mail Preferences and Settings window opens.
On the line Default MIME character set:, click on the button to the left of ISO-8859-1. A dropdown list of character sets opens.
Move the cursor to UTF-8 to highlight, and click on it to select Unicode (UTF-8) as the default character set. Then click on the Apply button and finally the OK button to complete the process.

Your outgoing messages will now automatically be sent in Unicode. You can even mix languages in your messages.

Eudora Mail 7.1

Open a new message window. Then in the message body, type in the following text: X-Eudora-Option:SendCharset

Very important: Hit the space bar.
Press down on the Alt key, and click on X-Eudora-Option:SendCharset. The Change Option window opens.
Manually enter UTF-8 to change the default character set to Unicode, or pick another encoding scheme of your choice.

Click OK. Then exit the message without saving it. The default character set is now Unicode.
Unfortunately, this still does not enable the message composition window to accept input of either Chinese or Japanese. What you end up with is still a series of ????.

Please e-mail me your comments, suggestions, and corrections.