mathematica code in email and keeping formatting the same as notebook

Question

As we all know, when one is to send email with some Mathematica code in it, the practice is to do the following

Select the cell, Cell->ConvertTo -> INPUT FORM, then COPY AS TEXT

Then paste the code into the email, or any other exchange media it is.

The only problem with the above, is that when, on the other end, one copies the text from email and paste it back into a Mathematica notebook, the code will then no longer appear as it was in the original form (before the converting to INPUT FORM).

Because when one inserts the text copied from the email to Mathematica notebook, it becomes a standard form cell. All well, except the original code formatting is all lost.

Try it if you have not, convert a cell to INPUT FORM and the code will change shape, and I could not find a way to get back the original form before this operation.

Is there a way to email Mathematica code, in text of course, so that it keeps the same shape, and appear the same as it was originally when it was in standard form before the conversion?

Thanks --Nasser

Answer 1

Cells formatted with the Code style (ALT/CMD-8) retain all formatting when using copy-and-paste. I use them all the time to format postings for SO. Well, truth be told, I use Code cells pretty much all the time, except for one-shot or throw-away input.

There are other advantages to using the Code style. It makes it easy to evaluate all of the definitions in a notebook, without also evaluating all of the incidental and test expressions: ALT/CMD-click on the cell bracket of any of the Code cells and then press SHIFT-ENTER. Also, Code cells automatically become initialization cells, which is frequently exactly what you want for the definitions in a notebook. Finally, when Mathematica spots Code cells in a notebook it offers to create an auto-save package that contains only those cells.

The downside to Code cells is that you lose the automatic formatting that Mathematica performs on cells with the Input style -- but then again that automatic formatting is precisely what we are trying to avoid in the context of this question.

Answer 2

Copying the cell as a cell expression doest the trick. Just right-click the cell bracket and the Copy as > Cell expression.

The resulting code is unusable for posting in newsgroups, as it is highly unreadable, but copying to and from email and back into Mathematica seems to preserve layout in the few tests that I did.