In the digital age, it's becoming increasingly commonplace to send resumes and other information via e-mail. However, remember, that when you e-mail your resume, special or unique formatting may be lost. Save the file in a "plain text" format, and follow these guidelines:

Line Length — To avoid wrapping the line prematurely, set page width at 4-3/4", or 80 characters, and save the file as "Text with Line Breaks."

Vertical Alignment — To achieve an equal number of spaces from the left-hand margin, convert all the text to 10-point Courier or another fixed-width font. Fonts like Helvetica or Arial are variable-width fonts and should be avoided.

Design — Use characters such as dashes (-), asterisks (*) and arrows (>) to highlight information. Do not use bold, italics, columns and bullets; these are special symbols in word processing that may not translate properly to a plain text format.