It is probably best not to address this
problem; unpleasant experience has demonstrated that there is _*no*_
good general solution to the tabbing problem.
It's quite easy to solve the tab problem, actually. All you do is
define the format in terms of an 80-column, constant-width terminal
model. (I.e. what we're using now.) And then you use multiple spaces
instead of tabs to line things up. For example:
*...* emphasis
_..._ alternate vocabulary
A line that begins with 3 spaces (or whatever) indicates the beginning
of a table, and two or more spaces within that table indicates lining
up of the following text with that on the next line. (Note that there
are 2 spaces before the "emphasis".)
This way, you can use proportional fonts and still do tables. Of
course, the message composing program would have to be clever, but
it's not too difficult.
Cheers,
Erik