appending .doc to save files

[levo]

Since installing Panther on my iMac, I find that I cannot append .doc
to saved word files that have been sent as e-mail attachments. This
occurs despite the fact that the box 'append file extension" is ticked.
Generally Word will add the file extension if I re-tick the box however
the name of the file is then changed to the first letter of the
previous name ie. smith.doc becomes s.doc!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Word will not
append the file extension automatically when 'save as' is selected.
This has not been problem with the previous operating system. Any
suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

What version of Panther? Have you installed updates all the way to 10.3.9?
The File | Save dialogs are actually produced by the OS, and Word doesn't
really have much to do with them, so this sounds like a disk issue. Try
repairing permissions (apps/utilities/disk utility, select a disk, click
repair permissions). You might also turn the computer off, and let it sit
for a minute or so before starting it up, the OS does some basic maintenance
then.

If that doesn't work, your question is not completely clear. Can you clarify
exactly what dialog you are seeing difficulties in?

I find that I cannot append .doc
to saved word files that have been sent as e-mail attachments.

This suggests that the problem is when you use your email program to send an
attachment, it doesn't append .doc to the end.

Word will not
append the file extension automatically when 'save as' is selected.

This part suggests that you are in a File | Save As or Save dialog when
seeing this problem--but then how can it be limited to documents that you've
already sent by email? Are all these documents in a certain folder? What
distinguishes them?

 

[levo]

Hi Daiya,

The files in question are Windows XP Word files sent to me as
attachments from my office. I open them from the e-mail application
Entourage, make corrections and save them to the desktop via 'save as'
option which comes up as a dialog box with the option 'append file
extension' checked. Despite this, the files do not have the extension
appended to the name however, they do if I check the box again in which
case the name is contracted to the first letter of the file name.
Interestingly, this does not occur if I save the file to the desktop
first, open the files from the desktop and then save them.

I have OS version 10.4.2! I also have tried to repair permissions which
did not solve the problem. It appears from your reply that you have the
same problem!

 

[Helpful Harry]

Hi Daiya,

The files in question are Windows XP Word files sent to me as
attachments from my office. I open them from the e-mail application
Entourage, make corrections and save them to the desktop via 'save as'
option which comes up as a dialog box with the option 'append file
extension' checked. Despite this, the files do not have the extension
appended to the name however, they do if I check the box again in which
case the name is contracted to the first letter of the file name.
Interestingly, this does not occur if I save the file to the desktop
first, open the files from the desktop and then save them.

I have OS version 10.4.2! I also have tried to repair permissions which
did not solve the problem. It appears from your reply that you have the
same problem!

Somewhere in the Mac OS Preferences (Finder, Preferences I think) is
the option to hide filename extensions. Check to see if that's on and
if so try turning it off again.

Sorry, that's not very specific, but I haven't used Mac OS X much so
don't know where all these things are hidden yet.


Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

 

[CyberTaz]

Harry is correct... With the Finder active, go to
Finder>Preferences--Advanced and that is where you'll find the setting to
show the extensions.

Regards |:>)

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi levo,

My faulty memory is dragging up some information that John McGhie once
posted to the effect that you should never edit documents when they are
attached to emails. Always save them to your desktop, edit, save, and then
re-attach. I don't remember the reasons for this, but if John sees this
post he'll no doubt jump in. At any rate, your experience bears this out
and it's a simple enough workaround.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice ­ or use another browser.)
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Helpful Harry]

My faulty memory is dragging up some information that John McGhie once
posted to the effect that you should never edit documents when they are
attached to emails. Always save them to your desktop, edit, save, and then
re-attach. I don't remember the reasons for this, but if John sees this
post he'll no doubt jump in. At any rate, your experience bears this out
and it's a simple enough workaround.

Some email applications don't actually open the original message's
attachment and / or the editing application can't actually save over
the top of the email application's version. This means when you
supposedly save the document after making changes, you will later open
the attachment to find all the changes have "disappeared".

This means it's always best to either drag the attachment to the
Desktop (or anywhere else on you hard drive), save the attachment from
the email application, or open the attachment and then do a Save As
from the editing application. Then edit this version and re-attach it
to any reply message.


Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Yeah: What he said

The main reason I suggest that people should never open any file from their
email program is that it tends to bypass the system's antivirus protection.
People who think Macs can't get viruses can stop reading now: come back when
your system won't work

But what Harry says is also important: You may not be editing the original
of the file, you may be working on a copy. In this operation (renaming an
attachment) you may send the unchanged original, the edited version, or
nothing at all, depending on the mail application you are using and how it's
configured.

If you changed the linked name but not the original, you will send nothing.
If you changed the linked name but saved a new version, it's the old version
that will go when you hit SEND.

If you changed the original's name AND the linked name, you will get what
you expect (the file sent will be renamed...)

Cheers

Some email applications don't actually open the original message's
attachment and / or the editing application can't actually save over
the top of the email application's version. This means when you
supposedly save the document after making changes, you will later open
the attachment to find all the changes have "disappeared".

This means it's always best to either drag the attachment to the
Desktop (or anywhere else on you hard drive), save the attachment from
the email application, or open the attachment and then do a Save As
from the editing application. Then edit this version and re-attach it
to any reply message.


Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Yeah: What he said

The main reason I suggest that people should never open any file from their
email program is that it tends to bypass the system's antivirus protection.
People who think Macs can't get viruses can stop reading now: come back when
your system won't work

It won't bypass the antivirus protection if you include the folder where the
attachment gets saved as a protected folder. Using Entourage, include the
whole Microsoft User Data folder in ~Documents as a protected folder, since
that's where received attachments get made if you double-click them from
within the email (see below).

But what Harry says is also important: You may not be editing the original
of the file, you may be working on a copy. In this operation (renaming an
attachment) you may send the unchanged original, the edited version, or
nothing at all, depending on the mail application you are using and how it's
configured.

In Entourage, when you double-click an attachment in a _received_ email
message a copy gets made in the Saved Attachments folder of the Microsoft
User Data folder. If you double-click an attachment you're preparing to send
from a new message window which you have _not_ saved as draft, it will open
the original file. But if you have already saved the message as draft with
the attachment already added (so you saw the "Encoding attachment..." dialog
when you saved as draft) and new copy is made and then opened in the Saved
Attachments folder of the MUD folder. If you drag an Entourage contact to a
new message window, then (unsaved) a .vcf file is made in the Entourage Temp
folder of the MUD folder, so it can been sent as a vCard. All this is hard
to keep track of, so you'd be much better off removing the attachment,
editing the original, then attaching it again.

If you changed the linked name but not the original, you will send nothing.
If you changed the linked name but saved a new version, it's the old version
that will go when you hit SEND.

That's the tricky one.

If you changed the original's name AND the linked name, you will get what
you expect (the file sent will be renamed...)

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi levo,

I don't have the same problem, and 10.4.2 is Tiger, just by the way. In
fact, under Panther 10.3.9 I do receive attachments from Win users all the
time and though I usually remove the extensions, I don't recall seeing this
problem. (I'll start looking for it)

Your current description is much clearer and that's a very interesting
problem. I would suspect that it has something to do with the settings that
come through email--say, if the windows users have extensions hidden then
for some reason the OS can't see them properly and gets confused. But I'm
just making that up, I really haven't a clue.

With luck, the system prefs option that Harry and Michel recommended will
have an effect.

Question: when you say:

Interestingly, this does not occur if I save the file to the desktop
first, open the files from the desktop and then save them.

How do you do that? You use Save As and it works fine because you aren't
renaming the files; or you drag them to the desktop or something?

Daiya

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

In Entourage, when you double-click an attachment in a _received_ email
message a copy gets made in the Saved Attachments folder of the Microsoft
User Data folder.

That's the key point applicable to the original question. Why would that
file, created by default, behave differently when it comes to renaming than
a file saved to the desktop and then renamed?

And the OP is using Entourage, under Tiger.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Some email applications don't actually open the original message's
attachment and / or the editing application can't actually save over
the top of the email application's version. This means when you
supposedly save the document after making changes, you will later open
the attachment to find all the changes have "disappeared".

Legions of Windows users have been caught by this.

Just by the way--Entourage handles this because it makes a copy of all
opened attachments in the Saved Attachments folder in MS User Data, so if
you make changes to the original doc, they get saved there. If you rename
them and save them elsewhere, Entourage deletes the copy when you Quit.
It's very nice and efficient.

Haven't a clue what Mail or any other Mac email app does.

This means it's always best to either drag the attachment to the
Desktop (or anywhere else on you hard drive), save the attachment from
the email application, or open the attachment and then do a Save As
from the editing application. Then edit this version and re-attach it
to any reply message.

Still good practice, even with an app that saves them for you.

 

[Arno Wouters]

Harry is correct... With the Finder active, go to
Finder>Preferences--Advanced and that is where you'll find the setting to
show the extensions.

Levo, you didn't say which version of Word you use, which is important
because Word X behaves differently from Word 2004 when it comes to file
extensions. I assume in the following that you have Word X.

It is also important to make a distinction between 'having an extension'
and 'seeing an extension'.

In contrast with wat Dalya Mitchell wrote the part of the save dialog
that talks about extensions is delivered by Word rather than the system.
Irony wants that Word X behaves more mac-like than Apple wants: it does
not pay attention to extensions, but (in deviation from the Apple guide
lines) uses the type and creator in the old fashioned real mac way. By
default Word X does not append an extension to the files it saves
(because it doesn't use them), but for those who want so it offers the
option to do so. If that option is checked it will append an extension
(I would recommend to check it because the Finder and many other
applications expect a file to have an extension). However, a file can
have an extension without it being shown. The visibility of an extension
in a certain application is determined by that application. So it
depends on the Finder whether or not an extension is visible in the
Finder. The default behaviour is specified in the Finder preferences, as
explained by Cyber Taz. You can change the behaviour of one or more
individual files via the Info dialogue: select the files and choose
File->Get Info from the Finder menu (or press command-I). In the
resulting 'Info dialogue' open the part with 'Name & Extension (double
click on the little triangle) if needed. Here you see a box that shows
you the name of the file, including its extension (if it has one) and a
check box to hide the extension.

If you first save the file to the desktop it is Entourage rather than
Word that adds or does not add an extension and apparantly Entourage has
a different strategy than Word (I don't have Entourage installed so I
can't check this).


Hope this helps!