office for mac issue- people can't open my word files when emailed

[Paul_Sheen]

I have bought office for mac 2004. For some reason people can't open my attached word files. Am I doing something wrong or do I have to change some setting?

 

[Phillip Jones]

Are you sure you bought Office2004? if so before sending the file, use
Finder's make archive to create a .zip of the file and send. have them
save and open the zip. Then they should easily open the file.

If however you just bought Office, odds are you purchased Office2008.

In that case the file format has changed to a new XML based system with
new extension designation of docx. In that case do save as of your newly
created document and choose 97-2004 (doc) format. and do the above. Or
save through Save As... as a PDF. If they don't need to edits and send
anyway you want to.

I have bought office for mac 2004. For some reason people can't open my
attached word files. Am I doing something wrong or do I have to change
some setting?

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Paul:

No. As Phillip says, if you are sending Word 2004 then the problem is at
their end, not yours, and there's nothing you can do about it.

PCs made a series of changes going back six months to try to improve their
security. If they made them wrongly, there are some kinds of documents they
can't receive, until they fix their settings.

There are two things going wrong:
1) PCs are having problems with .docx files
2) PCs are having problems with .doc files.

Docx files are the new format. Internally, they are a Zip file. Some PC
mailers are being "too clever" and Unzipping the file when they receive it.
After that, it won't work, because Word 2007/2008 expects a Zip file.

Doc files are the "old" format. Most PCs have had an update to prevent them
receiving old file formats that are less secure than the modern formats.
Doc is a modern format, it should get through, but some system
administrators have got their settings wrong and .doc files are not getting
through if they come from a Mac.

The action belongs to the recipient system administrator to get their
settings correct In the meantime, do what Phillip said: zip it

Cheers

I have bought office for mac 2004. For some reason people can't open my
attached word files. Am I doing something wrong or do I have to change some
setting?

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I have bought office for mac 2004. For some reason people can't open
my attached word files. Am I doing something wrong or do I have to
change some setting?

How are you sending them? When Windows users post this question, I tell
them:

Mac and Win versions of Word from WinWord 97 to MacWord 2004 all use the
same file format, so that's not the basic problem. If the file does not
have the .doc extension, you may need to add it manually or use File |
Open from within Word.

The most common problem arises when the doc was sent by email and the
attachment encoding was not set properly. If you see something about
"application/x-macbinary" or "application/applefile" when trying to open
the doc, sounds like they encoded it for Mac computers. Or if it brings
up a prompt about “encoding†and opens with a bunch of squares.

Try sending the explanation below to your correspondent, asking them to
change their encoding. The help on any Mac email program will tell them
how.

A Mac email program, Entourage, has this to say in Help:

About attachment encodings

When you choose an encoding format, it is helpful to understand how
Macintosh files differ from files created on other computers. Macintosh
files include additional resource information that files created on
other types of computers do not. If you are sending a data file, such as
a Microsoft Word document or Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, such resource
information may not be necessary. However, if you are sending something
more complex, such as a program, to another Macintosh computer, you must
choose an encoding format that preserves all the data.

The AppleDouble encoding format preserves the additional resource
information, and can be read by both Macintosh and other types of
computers. AppleDouble is a good choice for your default encoding
format; it works most of the time with most computers. However, if
AppleDouble fails, you can choose a different encoding format depending
on the type of computer you are sending the attachment to:
• To send an attachment to a Macintosh computer, use BinHex, which
preserves the Macintosh resource information and data.
• To send an attachment to a Windows-based computer, use MIME/Base 64,
which preserves the data only.
• To send an attachment to a UNIX computer, use UUEncode, which
preserves the data only.

 

[Paul_Sheen]

Thanks for that. How do I go about making the file a .doc file? Is this something that happens automatically? How do I make it a zip file? Does this mean that the recipient will requires a program to decode a zip file?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

When using Save or Save As, check the box to append file extension, to
make it a .doc (or .docx, depending on the version you are using)

To zip the file, right-click (or hold down control while clicking) and
select Create Archive. I think Windows includes unzipping by default,
with a double-click.

ALSO check the encoding settings in your email program.