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+:mod:`email`: Encoders
+----------------------
+
+.. module:: email.encoders
+   :synopsis: Encoders for email message payloads.
+
+
+When creating :class:`Message` objects from scratch, you often need to encode
+the payloads for transport through compliant mail servers. This is especially
+true for :mimetype:`image/\*` and :mimetype:`text/\*` type messages containing
+binary data.
+
+The :mod:`email` package provides some convenient encodings in its
+:mod:`encoders` module.  These encoders are actually used by the
+:class:`MIMEAudio` and :class:`MIMEImage` class constructors to provide default
+encodings.  All encoder functions take exactly one argument, the message object
+to encode.  They usually extract the payload, encode it, and reset the payload
+to this newly encoded value.  They should also set the
+:mailheader:`Content-Transfer-Encoding` header as appropriate.
+
+Here are the encoding functions provided:
+
+
+.. function:: encode_quopri(msg)
+
+   Encodes the payload into quoted-printable form and sets the
+   :mailheader:`Content-Transfer-Encoding` header to ``quoted-printable`` [#]_.
+   This is a good encoding to use when most of your payload is normal printable
+   data, but contains a few unprintable characters.
+
+
+.. function:: encode_base64(msg)
+
+   Encodes the payload into base64 form and sets the
+   :mailheader:`Content-Transfer-Encoding` header to ``base64``.  This is a good
+   encoding to use when most of your payload is unprintable data since it is a more
+   compact form than quoted-printable.  The drawback of base64 encoding is that it
+   renders the text non-human readable.
+
+
+.. function:: encode_7or8bit(msg)
+
+   This doesn't actually modify the message's payload, but it does set the
+   :mailheader:`Content-Transfer-Encoding` header to either ``7bit`` or ``8bit`` as
+   appropriate, based on the payload data.
+
+
+.. function:: encode_noop(msg)
+
+   This does nothing; it doesn't even set the
+   :mailheader:`Content-Transfer-Encoding` header.
+
+.. rubric:: Footnotes
+
+.. [#] Note that encoding with :meth:`encode_quopri` also encodes all tabs and space
+   characters in the data.
+