Electronic mail system for generating a mail message to multiple recipients with multiple attention levels

摘要

A process and apparatus for generating a mail message for multiple recipients which identify to a respective recipient an attention level. A list of addresses for the recipient is created along with a mail message to be sent to all of the recipients. Appended to each address is a tag representing an attention level for the recipients. A text message is created for each of the recipients which includes the addresses and related tag. The text message and related tags are forwarded to the recipients. Each recipient displays on an electronic mail terminal a text message addressed to him. The attention level indication contained in the tag of the message is used to alert the recipient with an attention level assigned to the message for the recipient. The attention level may also be indicated by highlighting specific portions of the text in associating a tag with the recipient's address identifying for that recipient a portion of the text message to be highlighted.