Web by E-mail allows you to obtain worldwide web information using e-mail messages instead of a web browser. You can either use your browser to display the page once it has been received in your e-mail, and effectively surf the net by e-mail, or receive the page contents as text in the message body itself. It is not as real-time as accessing the Internet directly, but may still be found useful for such purposes as downloading text such as a news page that you wish to read later rather than need to visit the page at a particular time. Being able to download Internet files in your e-mail, including zips and other kinds of web documents, also comes in handy for updating documentation files and the like from time to time. Another reason why browsing by e-mail might be convenient is that if pages are replaced regularly, for instance sports pages updated to keep abreast of events, you can request a page to be sent to you to read at your leisure rather than having to make sure you read it while it is still current.

Web by e-mail services are free. It entails sending a specially formatted e-mail message to a "robot" asking for the contents of a web site at a specified address. The robot then obtains the required web page, formats it (if necessary), and sends it to you in an ordinary e-mail message. You can have the page sent as an attachment to display in your web browser, or you can have the contents of ordinary pages sent to you in the body of a message. Exactly what facilities are available depends on the robot you use and your e-mail program, and include:

When reading a page in your browser, you can select links of interest to automatically generate new e-mail requests for those documents.
When reading a page as an e-mail message, the links are indicated by numbers and you can obtain the actual address of the documents to send new e-mail requests or visit immediately.
Specifying an e-mail address other than the one your messages are sent from enables you to send web information to other people.

WintextCom provides a template for requesting web pages by e-mail using one such robot. To request a page, highlight it in the directory and press the alternative web command, Alt Shift W. Your e-mail program opens showing a completed message to request the page. At the top of the e-mail is a command to the robot suppressing usage statistics information, followed lower down by a line requesting the page itself. The message is displayed for verification and to give you the opportunity to add more commands or requests, if required. Click the send button or press Control ENTER, or do whatever you normally do to send an e-mail, to send the request or queue it for sending the next time your e-mail program sends out pending messages. At some time in the near future, you will receive an e-mail message containing the contents of the requested page. If you added more page requests to the message (up to 5 requests per message), they will be sent to you in separate e-mails.

The time taken for a page to be received after sending out the request may be anything from a few minutes to a few days, depending on the load on the robot at the time and its level of activity. Typically, response time is within a few hours if not minutes. Most robots limit your usage to a certain number of page requests per week. With WintextCom's default web by e-mail facility, you can request up to 300 documents a week. WintextCom suppresses the usage statistics e-mails that the robot would otherwise send with each page; these e-mails tell you how many requests you have left in the week, but are not generally very useful unless your use of the system is very heavy or you need the information for personal record keeping.

Standard pages that you can display in a browser are downloaded to your computer in the body of e-mail messages when you use WintextCom's shipped web by e-mail facility. You can read the text of the page like any other e-mail message. The links on the page (if any) are indicated by numbers in brackets ("[]") before the link description. At the end of the e-mail is a numbered list of web addresses, corresponding to the numbered links, enabling you to find and request any that you want. Depending on your e-mail program, you may be able to click on an address in the list at the end to go to the page there and then in your web browser. Alternatively, you can copy it to the clipboard then paste it into the WintextCom run dialogue to either visit it immediately or send an e-mail request for it. To do this:

With the address on the clipboard, display the WintextCom directory.
Press Control Context Menu Key or right click on a directory line then left click on "R: WintextCom Run Dialogue" (or press letter "r").
Press Control V to paste the address from the clipboard. Edit the box if necessary to make sure it contains only the actual web address for immediate access to the page, or the address with an at sign ("{") before it to request it by e-mail.
Click the Execute button or press ENTER.

If a page or document being requested via e-mail doe not include a protocol at the beginning, "http" is prefixed.

When you store a web page address in the directory, you can specify that you wish to request it by e-mail by default rather than visit it in your web browser by preceding the address by an at sign ("@"). That is, enter "@" as the first character in the information box, followed by the address of the page. Then you can request the page to be sent to you in your e-mail simply by selecting it in the directory as normal, either by left clicking the line or highlighting it and pressing ENTER. If you want to visit a page in your browser that is stored for web by e-mail access, highlight it and press the alternative web command, Alt Shift W.

Page url: http://wtcmanual.wintextware.com/index.html?ug_webbye_mail.htm

Downloading Internet pages and files in your e-mail