Offline E-Mail...

Reading Mail Offline

At the moment you can't. There is currently no support for offline readers. That's not to say it may not be possible in the future. It may be something to look into.

Preparing Messages Offline

There may be several ways to do this depending on your software.

In any case, remember that most word processors do not save your work as plain ASCII text. Instead, they save them in a special binary format, which is almost always incompatible with the mail program. To use a file that you have prepared at home you must ensure that it is saved as ASCII text.

Upload and Read in a file

Write the message with a standard ASCII text editor on your local machine.
Connect to VTN, go to the file area [go files], and press 'u' for upload. Then initiate the transfer with your local software (methods vary).
Once the file is in your account, go to mail [go mail] and use the 'C' command to compose a message. Press ^R to read in a file, and enter the name of the file you just uploaded. The text will appear in your message.

Upload a file directly into a message

Write the message with a standard ASCII text editor on your local machine.
Connect to VTN, go to mail [go mail], compose a message, and use your local software to do a straight ASCII upload of the file on your local machine. The text should be sent to your mail message, with no need of going to an intermediary file, and then reading it, etc.

There may be problems with this method, depending on your local software. The message may become garbled (DOS and UNIX text formats differ.) Try it and see. The first (Upload/Read in) method takes more effort, but is more reliable.

Cut and Paste

There may be one more possibility. If you're using a MacIntosh, try opening both the Comm program and the text editor at the same time, and cut and paste between them. Some Windows Comm programs support this as well, but may not be as reliable. As for DOS, some programs like Telix and Telemate implement a clipboard, but results may vary. Try it.