[wp-hackers] Format post content outside of loop

[Paul Menard]

So dumb question I'm sure. I need to grab the post_content variable  
to include in an HTML email. Normally I call $post->the_content()  
which will echo the formatted content to the screen.

What I need to to apply the same formatting rules etc. How can this  
be done? Is there a single function that will let me assign the  
formatted content to a local variable?

P-