Encoding Outgoing Messages

[Richard Parsons]

Hello there

I'm having a problem properly encoding outgoing email when I forward a
message originally sent to me by work colleagues who use Microsoft
Outlook.  Emacs presents me with a prompt asking if I want to delete the
character that can't be encoded, replace it with ".", send it as is
anyway or continue editing the email.  If I choose any of the first
three options then I get an error message as follows:

assertion failed: (save-excusion (goto-char (point-min)) (not
(re-search-forward "[^^@-y]" nil t)))

I've not transcribed the message exactly because actually the "y" has an
umlaut over it.  In any event, the message doesn't send.

In order to forward emails I'm having to reply, change the recipients
address and then cite the original email.

I'm using GNU emacs 24.3.1 and the usual compose email modes to send the
email.

I've googled that error message and can't make sense of the references.
There seems to be some posts on the bug-gnu-emacs list, but it's too
technical for me to understand.

I and my colleagues are in the UK if that makes a difference in terms of the 
encoding.

Many thanks in advance
Richard