I get a lot of email from people who use Microsoft Outlook. I don’t know why, but the font size in their emails is smash-your-eyeball-to-the-screen small.

I consider myself to have great near vision, but I can’t read these emails. So I usually select all of the text and paste it into a text editor. That way, I can actually see it.

Before Marked, this post would have ended here. Actually it never would have happened because who the hell cares that I have trouble reading crappy email?

Wait. Marked? Yeah, I said Marked.

Marked not only makes Markdown easier. It makes email easier, too. If you have Marked installed and also have the services that come in the Marked bonus pack, you can

  1. Right-click a mail message in your inbox
  2. Go to Services > Preview Selection in Marked

Bam. You’re now reading the email in Marked. And you can see the text in gorgeously legible Helvetica! Yes sir, the service sends the entire message contents to Marked.

So that this happens even faster, I assigned a keyboard shortcut to the service.

I have no idea if Brett Terpstra had Mail 5 in mind when he wrote the Marked services, but I was happy to find this odd use of my favorite Markdown previewer.