Keeping my Font choices in Message text??

Question

My 30" monitor has such a high resolution that everything appears almost half the size of a printout (for example, 12 pt fonts appear on the monitor screen almost half their real size). Since my eyes are not quite what they used to be, I choose a large message font, as well as large fonts for all other font options in the preferences.
That works for a good many messages, the texts of which are displayed in my chosen font. But some messages like yahoo discussion groups for one example, are displayed in an extremely tiny font that I cannot read.
1) How can I make MAIL display all messages in my chosen message font?
2) if MAIL cannot do that, what email applications can?
Also, some explanation of what is going on would be welcome.
Thanks,
Mark

Answer 1

Hello Mark.
When receiving a message with a small font that isn't your chosen font indicates the message was composed in HTML.
Copied from this link.
http://www.birdhouse.org/etc/evilmail.html
Because it introduces accessibility problems. When you write in plain text, the receiving mail client renders the text in whatever font the reader chooses. When you format email with HTML, the sender controls the formatting. But this is a trap: You only think your message will render the same way to the viewer as it appears to the sender. In reality, the receiver can end up squinting because the font looks so tiny, or vice versa. HTML is not rendered the same way from one viewing client to the next - all guarantee of accessiblity goes out the window. This is especially problematic for visually impaired persons.
There is a way to force the Mail.app to change text formatted in HTML by the sender to Plain Text for all received messages.
You can also do the following when such a message is recieved.
With the message open, at the menu bar go to View > Message and select Plain Text.