Recipient cannot open attachment

[Gwendolyn Hays]

I am sending word and excel documents out. I made sure I followed the steps
in Entourage help. If a recipient has problems opening a file you attached
to a message, try the following solutions:
I am using AppleDouble encoding format by default. I added the file
extension to the file name and clicked none under compression. I have sent
files to several people who all say the same thing. The file appears to be a
temporary file and will not open. I have sent some things to other people
and it worked. I'm not sure what I'm doing different to know what I did
right or wrong. I even tried changing the encoding format. Is there
something I should know that's not in the Entourage help menu.
Thanks!

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

I am sending word and excel documents out. I made sure I followed the steps
in Entourage help. If a recipient has problems opening a file you attached
to a message, try the following solutions:
I am using AppleDouble encoding format by default. I added the file
extension to the file name and clicked none under compression. I have sent
files to several people who all say the same thing. The file appears to be a
temporary file and will not open. I have sent some things to other people
and it worked. I'm not sure what I'm doing different to know what I did
right or wrong. I even tried changing the encoding format. Is there
something I should know that's not in the Entourage help menu.
Thanks!

I don't know off hand what may be wrong. However, I'm willing to bet that
the problem lies with the recipient's configuration. I have been sending
attachments of all types through entourage for years to windows users and
have NEVER had a problem. Instead of double clicking on the attachment in
the email, can the recipient save the attachment to their hard drive and
then open it with the application?

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Gwendolyn -

First, stay with UTF-8 encoding (or Automatic) for anything that doesn't
specifically a different choice.

If you're having a problem with both XL & Word files the problem is most
likely on the other end. Do these files have any macros - that could be
triggering a security issue in the recipients' software.

Are the ones having problems in a corporate environment (probably using
Outlook/Outlook Express & Exchange servers), or are they personal systems?

Have you tried sending the same file attachment to several different
recipients to see if some can open them but some can't?

--
Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac


Re extensions: if you use the OS X Save As dialog feature to Append file
extns (preferable) it may be best to *not* type the extn when you name the
file - otherwise it may wind up as xyz.doc.doc or 123.xls.xls & cause
confusion on the receiving end.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

The file appears to be a temporary file and will not open.

They may be trying to open the resource fork file (which starts with a
".", IIRC), instead of the actual file.

You can try encoding with MIME/Base64 instead.

 

[Richard H]

You can try encoding with MIME/Base64 instead.

That is what I do when sending attachments to friends with Windows - they
have had no problems receiving them so far!

 

[Gwendolyn Hays]

I think the problem was that the extension was not being saved with the
file. I'm pretty sure I have this resolved even though I don't really know
why it didn't work in the first place. Thanks everyone for your responses!