"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| HTML email then they should see an inline image as an
| attachment. Otherwise they'll see it where you put
| it in the message. Both are base64-encoded text
| sections in the email. There's no difference in that.
|
| Nope: nothing to do with HTML. If I send a truly inline image, _in the
| middle of an email/post_, most other clients will see the image _and the
| text that follows it_ as two attachments.

If you add an inline image that is HTML. If you
look at the raw code of the email you should see
the email specified as multi-part. A unique boundary
string will separate text/html/binaries. You can only
add an inline image in an HTML section, and that
image data can only go in a separate boundaried
content section.

I wonder if maybe this has to do with how you're
using the client software itself. In theory there's
no reason that an image can't come before text,
but it still has to be in a different content section
with a boundary, because only one type of content
goes in a section. And I've never seen it done. In
virtually all cases, an email is done in plain text, followed
by HTML, followed by any base64-encoded files. A
plain text email would skip the HTML section.

Maybe you're trying to put inline images in a
plain text email and the software is "humoring you"?

______________________________
plain text with attachments
______________________________

from
to
date
subject
Message-ID
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
boundary="BOUNDARY_STRING_1"
X-Mailer: [your program name here]
#
--BOUNDARY_STRING_1
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
#
(email text here)
#
--BOUNDARY_STRING_1
Content-Type: image/jpeg;
name="earth_sm.jpg"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment;
filename="earth_sm.jpg"
#
(base 64 here)
#
--BOUNDARY_STRING_1--

_________________________
HTML with pictures
_________________________

from
to
subject
date
Message-ID
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/related;
boundary="BOUNDARY_STRING_1";
type="multipart/alternative"
X-Mailer: [your program name here]
#
--BOUNDARY_STRING_1
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="BOUNDARY_STRING_2"
#
--BOUNDARY_STRING_2
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
#
(default text for non-html email readers)
#
--BOUNDARY_STRING_2
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
#
(html body here.......
IMG SRC=3D"cidic.gif"
......)
#
--BOUNDARY_STRING_2-- (end of alternative boundary.)
#
--BOUNDARY_STRING_1
Content-Type: image/gif; (or image/jpg, etc.)
name="pic.gif"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-ID: pic.gif
#
(base 64 here)
# (repeat for other pics if present: space, boundary,
content, space, base64, space)
--BOUNDARY_STRING_1--