Resource fork in Word 2008 files, but not Word 2004??

[mgforrester]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

I don't yet have Office 2008 but I'm trying to help somebody at work that has it.

We use Lotus Notes 7.0.x for email, and unfortunately the Mac version of this program does not make "Windows-friendly" attachments by default, and there seems to be no way to specify it as a preference (like you can in Entourage or Apple Mail) so you have to remember to specify it every time you send a message with an attachment.

We have found that when emailing Word 2004 files it doesn't matter whether you remember to select "Windows-friendly" in Notes. But for Word 2008 it does matter (even those saved in the Word2004 format) -- if you don't you get a nasty message from your PC-using colleague that he/she can't read your attachment.

So my question is, what is the difference between Word2004 and 2008 files as far as their "Windows-email-attachment-friendliness". Looking at the files with a resource editor (Rezilla) it appears that the Word2008 files have a resource fork containing a single STR resource (with the Office user's name) in some cases, and no resources in other cases. In either case forgetting to set "Windows-friendly" in Notes means problems. I suspect that's the root of the problem but would welcome other explanations.

 

[John McGhie]

Yes, that's correct. Office 2008 does not use the Resource Fork, it relies
on the file name extension.

Sadly, the PC version of Notes works fine sending Mac Word 2008 .docx files,
so I can't be much help to you.

Are you saying that Notes is removing the filename extension if it is
present? Or are your users saving files without extensions? If they are,
OS X is not going to like that very much either

Hope this helps

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

I don't yet have Office 2008 but I'm trying to help somebody at work that has
it.

We use Lotus Notes 7.0.x for email, and unfortunately the Mac version of this
program does not make "Windows-friendly" attachments by default, and there
seems to be no way to specify it as a preference (like you can in Entourage or
Apple Mail) so you have to remember to specify it every time you send a
message with an attachment.

We have found that when emailing Word 2004 files it doesn't matter whether you
remember to select "Windows-friendly" in Notes. But for Word 2008 it does
matter (even those saved in the Word2004 format) -- if you don't you get a
nasty message from your PC-using colleague that he/she can't read your
attachment.

So my question is, what is the difference between Word2004 and 2008 files as
far as their "Windows-email-attachment-friendliness". Looking at the files
with a resource editor (Rezilla) it appears that the Word2008 files have a
resource fork containing a single STR resource (with the Office user's name)
in some cases, and no resources in other cases. In either case forgetting to
set "Windows-friendly" in Notes means problems. I suspect that's the root of
the problem but would welcome other explanations.

--
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John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]