Review: StripMail

HOME

Meeting

Join / Renew

PC Alamode

About Us

HELP

Archives

Theme Issues

Other

Reviewed by
Clarke Bird

Software Review of:
StripMail
Cleaning up e-mail

Clarke Bird likes a good joke - but without the brackets, please.

From the April, 2002 issue of PC Alamode Magazine

I don’t know about you but I get lots of jokes via e-mail. Usually they have been forwarded so often that each line of the joke is preceded by numerous angle brackets <<<<<. You’ve all seen them.

I have laboriously removed the offending brackets one line at a time before sending the more funny ones to others. Then I read of a freeware program that automatically removes these brackets in Bob Click’s Deals column.

I went to the URL mentioned in the Deals column, downloaded it (it’s only 265KB) and now the StripMail icon is a permanent part of my desktop. The first time I opened the program, I was confused about what to do — until I read the instructions that appear on the StripMail screen. Essentially, you first copy the joke with brackets to your clipboard. Then you open StripMail and click the Paste button at the top of the screen which replaces the instructions with the joke and brackets from your clipboard.

Here, step by step is how easy it is to remove the brackets. When you receive an e-mail with brackets:

One:	Right click on the message text and select "Select All" item from menu. Right click again and select "Copy" menu item. This will place entire text of the message on clipboard.
Two:	Open StripMail and click the Paste button at the top of the screen. The joke/brackets from your clipboard replaces the instruction verbiage that previously was on the StripMail screen.
Three: .	Click the Strip button at the top of the screen and the brackets disappear
Four:	Click the Copy button and the verbiage sans brackets is copied to your clipboard ready to be pasted into a new message of your e-mail client.

Click "Paragraph" button to reformat each part of text separated by blank lines into paragraphs.

But to save time, click the "Do It All" button. It will strip brackets, paragraph reformat (remove line breaks), and copy text back to clipboard all at once. StripMail will minimize to the bottom of your screen leaving your e-mail editor on top. You will only need to paste the cleaned text back to the editor.

To get your freeware copy of StripMail, go to DataSoft .