From...

November 17, 1999
Web posted at: 10:44 a.m. EST (1544 GMT)

by Max Green

(IDG) -- E-mail has become an integral part of our everyday lives, but it's still a rather impersonal way of communicating. Emoticons can add humor or tone to messages, but they aren't exactly appropriate for business correspondence.

These downloads can help add missing context to your e-mails. Images, video, and audio clips can provide richer -- and sometimes more efficient -- modes of expression. For example, you can type a message noting the highlights of a spreadsheet, but wouldn't it be faster to record yourself describing the spreadsheet and attach the audio file to an e-mail along with the document? Whether an audio or visual aid is the right way to get your point across, these shareware programs will help you create them, compress them, and attach them to a message. If you'd like more tips on mastering e-mail, be sure to look through PC World's 75 tips for keeping your e-mail under control (see link below).

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Top 10 multimedia e-mail tools

1. Animated E-Mail Magic: This trial-version program creates attention-grabbing e-mail you can use for lively announcements, invitations, greeting cards, and resumes. You can import graphics files and sounds, and you can even create multiscene animations that play like cartoons.

2. Graphic E-Mail: Use graphics, audio, animation, and text to express yourself with this multimedia e-mail client. The program includes templates for postcards, telegrams, and love notes.

3. Comic Chat: Tired of the same old text-based chat discussions? This program lets you illustrate the absurdity of your life by chatting with friends inside the panels of a comic strip.

4. E-Mail Effects: Spice up your e-mails with eye-catching images, tables, and more with this $15 utility. E-mail Effects also creates ASCII art suitable for use in signature files, flowcharts, maps, tables, and logos.

5. AniMessage98: This $25 animation utility brings your e-mail to life by letting you insert animated characters into your messages. Its powerful HTML editor creates cartoons that zip around your desktop. You can customize messages for any occasion, theme, or event with the included stationery editor. Note: This program requires Internet Explorer 4.01, and its animations work best with Microsoft Outlook and Qualcomm Eudora Pro 4.0.

6. GoMo Mail: This free e-mail client lets you draw and paint inside your messages. You can also add pictures, backgrounds, animations, and a variety of sounds to your e-mail.

7. SeeMail: Create and send video, photos, audio files, or any combination in your messages. It works with any e-mail system that supports attachments, and all the recipient needs to view messages is Windows.

8. Objective Voice E-Mail for Windows: Create voice messages and send them via e-mail with this trial-version program. Just click the "record" button, and when you're done speaking, type a subject line. Objective Voice's compressed messages display a special icon in recipients' e-mail in-boxes. Recipients must have Objective Voice in order to play the voice messages.

9. PureVoice Player and Recorder: Create voice messages that you can send to anyone. This free software features a voice encoder that works like a tape recorder. Once you're finished recording, PureVoice compresses your message and lets you attach it to an e-mail.

10. ZipOut: This $15 Outlook 2000 add-on automatically compresses sound and video attachments, as well as custom Outlook forms. This compression speeds up the transmission rates of messages you send across your network or the Internet.