ATTACHMENTS TOC GENERAL SIZE COMMUNICATE FORMAT VERSION READING SECURITY SENDING GENERAL Keep in mind that the Internet email system is a different context than a single computer or a network at work. Also keep in mind the email maxim that you must include additional information compared to face-to-face, because the recipient cannot immediately ask questions. SIZE Is a problem, as people's Internet connection may be slow and old gateways may limit size, perhaps by breaking the file up. Pay attention to your creating software for file size. Use SaveAs to remove revision history before sending, and avoid large graphics (in MS Word even a simple letterhead logo seems to bloat file size), use the reduce file size option in Acrobat. COMMUNICATE Tell the recipient what the filename is, and what application version created it if not .TXT or .PDF file type (e.g. MSWord 6). FORMAT You must speak a common language with the recipient. .PDF is very popular, as it maintains format and the reader is no-charge. RTF is the next best, as it preserves some formatting. Beware that some implementations of RTF generation and reading capability have little flaws that get in the way of portability (MS Word in Office 97, and all but latest versions of WordPerfect, respectively). Good old text is almost always readable. VERSION Most applications are not fully compatible across different versions of themselves. WordPerfect and Acrobat are better than most, but made some version changes over the years. Some applications have SaveAs options to generate different file types. READING Acrobat Reader is no-charge from www.adobe.com, to read .PDF files. Note that recent versions of MSIE do not show status well during loading of large .PDF files in a browser window. Also watch the version of .PDF used: Acrobat 5 uses default file version 1.4 but can SaveAs 1.3. Acrobat 4 and 3 use file version 1.3. (Somewhere before Acrobat 3 there was an earlier file version.) There is limited forward readability, depending on use of features only available in the later version. And note that recent versions of MSIE and Acrobat/ Reader may seem to have downloaded a blank document, because while the PDF file has been downloaded it is being uncompressed for display. Be patient - or SaveAs and view offline. I understand there are settings in Reader that can help, but I do not have details. Viewers for Excel, Powerpoint and Word are available no-charge from www.microsoft.com. Note that more than one may be needed to span files from all versions of the applications, and both 16 and 32-bit o/s. WordPerfect provides good support for reading its old versions (better than MS Word does) but only medium capability to read MSWord versions. (MSWord has less capability to read WordPerfect, though it helps that WP's file format has not changed since v 6. Of earlier versions, only the + version of 5.1 can read v6.) It is improbable that fancy documents generated with a Word Processor will be readable by another brand of word processor. (Heck, MS Word sometimes cannot read its own versions.) That is why PDF is so popular - but it costs the few-hundred-dollar price of Acrobat to generate it, unless you can make do with the less capable SaveAs or Publish to PDF functions in Word, WordPerfect, and some other software intended to produce simple PDF files. ENCODING Because the Internet mail system is a "7-bit" system, whereas todays PC/Mac type computer software applications generate "8-bit" files, normal computer files must be encoded for transmission with email. The recipient's software must recognize the format and should automatically decode it. Sometimes, especially if your correspondent did not use good email practice, the attachment will not be automatically decoded by your receiving software. If you really want to read the attachment, look for decoding software that is fully capable of handling at least UUENCODE, BINHEX, and MIME encoding methods thus most Unix, Mac and PC software. One trap is the case of the message text and the intended attachment being rolled together in one mess. Often you can read the message part in a simple text editor like WordPad whereas the decoding program will ignore that text and just give you the intended attachment. Some decoding software does not handle those combined files because it is not programmed to look beyond the beginning of the file for the encoding header. (WinCode is smart enough to see it.) In that case try using the text editor to remove the message part (each encoding method starts the encoded part with a type identification in plain language and the following encoded info usually looks like gibberish). And some combinations are just troubleshome. For example, old Microsoft mail software for Macs did not correctly implement protocols. Often the original filename will be obscured. Your correspondent needs to read the COMMUNICATE and ENCODING sections above, and you need to recognize the problem may be in your ISP or software (legacy providers like Compuserve and AOL, and their older user software, commonly have problems). SECURITY Some company Internet firewalls will not accept attachments. Check if they have an FTP site to upload to. SENDING Read Kurmudgeon Keith's guide to proper email behavior, http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/sketchley_keith_h/ emailbeh.txt, for tips on preserving filename and format. ---------------------------------------------------------- Copyright Keith Sketchley 2017.01.01 ---------------------------------------------------------- BACK in your browser should return to where you came to this page from. 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