Have you tried printing your coloured messages? Colours don't always survive the transition to paper well, and it gobbles up the ink or toner.

I think a template is the right way to do this, as you can set up the exact colour using rgb codes or similar. But the built-in template is a bit limiting and can only be used for new messages. A more general purpose template can be constructed and used via the Stationery add-on.

Is the colour about making a statement in your messages, or for your own viewing comfort? I understand that some users don't like looking at a bright screen. For myself, I don't like looking at bright lettering on a dark background; I get blurry halos. But you can set the display to use colours, and view messages, both incoming and outgoing, using colour schemes of your own choice, whilst your sent messages will still be standard black-on-white.

Hi Zenos, I want my emails to look different when my clients receive them, hence the use of a template, but it's a pain to have to use this every time I send a email and, when I reply to their reply - bingo we are back to white. Given the very nature of the way in which Thunderbird was and is still being developed, I fail to see why achieving this is such a big deal.

I've read as much as I can around the subject without any answers. I can't believe I'm the only one on the planet that wishes to do this.

You and I will will never agree on this. I believe strongly that how I read messages is my choice and should not be influenced by what the sender thinks is appropriate. If a user with poor or failing eyesight requires particular fonts and colours, then his correspondents should not be permitted to override his preferences.

You can set colours in a template. I guess you know how to do this. For example:

<style type="text/css">
   body { 
     font-family: "Tahoma", sans-serif; 
     font-size: 10pt; 
     color: black; 
     background-color: white; 
     text-align:left 
   }
</style>

In place of colour names, you can use these formats:

color: rgb(181, 196, 223)
color: #7777FF

Save your template as an html document. Use the Stationery add-on to apply this template. It can be used with new messages and to replies and forwards, if you must do this. Here's a thought: how many coloured messages do you receive?

It would be polite to include a plain text copy of your messages, for those who might need to print it or simply can't read your mix of colours.

Thanks for your feedback, I do understand your position regarding this, but whilst it has been an exediency within the email culture it wasn't so when letter were all hardcopy. In answer to your question - very few, which is why I wish to do it. In old fashioned money, when you received a letter from a company, it frequently was on a styled paper, not simply plain white. Even today, if a company attaches a brochure to an email, it is in colour, it has a corporate identity, it is very rarely just white. Thanks again for your asssistance, much appreciated.

Yes it's me again, on about the same issue. Since you can select a background colour under options/composition, there must be a file that stores the various colour options, so why can't I simply edit that in the same way that I can edit the background colour for a Template???