winmail.dat instead of JPEGs?

[Michael Brendzel]

By way of background, I am operating OS X (v 10.4.1) and Entourage 2004 (v.
11.1.0) and have only been using a Mac for a few days.

My problem is that occasionally I receive a .jpg attachment that is read by
Entourage as winmail.dat. I can forward the attachment to a WinXP machine
and see the picture fine. But I can't open it on my Mac.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Michael

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi Michael,
I suppose the people who send you these e-mails use Outlook and encode their
e-mails in RTF format. Have a look at this article from the Entourage help
site, http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq_topic/attachments.html#att7.

Michel

 

[Barry Wainwright]

By way of background, I am operating OS X (v 10.4.1) and Entourage 2004 (v.
11.1.0) and have only been using a Mac for a few days.

My problem is that occasionally I receive a .jpg attachment that is read by
Entourage as winmail.dat. I can forward the attachment to a WinXP machine
and see the picture fine. But I can't open it on my Mac.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Michael

Winmail.dat and/or application/ms-tnef files are sent by Windows users of
Outlook or Exchange who have their mail clients set up to use ŒRTF¹ instead
of plain text or HTML.

Usually they only contain a styled text version of the message you have just
read in plain text, but they can contain encoded attachments that you can¹t
usually get to.

Fortunately, there is an excellent little application that lets you read
these files and extract the attachments, called ³TNEF¹s Enough², by Josh
Jacob. Here¹s a link that should let you find it on VersionTracker:

<http://www.versiontracker.com/mp/new_search.m?productDB=mac&mode=Quick&OS_F
ilter=MacOSX&search=tnef& ;x=14&y=8

Better still, contact you correspondent and ask them to reset their mail
client prefs to use plain text, or at worst, HTML.

 

[mmmmark]

Winmail.dat and/or application/ms-tnef files are sent by Windows users of
Outlook or Exchange who have their mail clients set up to use ORTF¹
instead
of plain text or HTML.

Usually they only contain a styled text version of the message you have
just
read in plain text, but they can contain encoded attachments that you
can¹t
usually get to.

Fortunately, there is an excellent little application that lets you read
these files and extract the attachments, called ³TNEF¹s Enough², by Josh
Jacob. Here¹s a link that should let you find it on VersionTracker:

<http://www.versiontracker.com/mp/new_search.m?productDB=mac&mode=Quick&OS_F
ilter=MacOSX&search=tnef& ;x=14&y=8

Better still, contact you correspondent and ask them to reset their mail
client prefs to use plain text, or at worst, HTML.



--
Barry Wainwright
Microsoft MVP (see http://mvp.support.microsoft.com for details)
Seen the All-New Entourage Help Pages? - Check them out:
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>

Outlook 2003 has a setting found under Tools\Options "Mail Format" tab,
INTERNET FORMAT button. Inside this dialog box, the Outlook user has the
option of converting messages sent outside the Exchange server to HTML,
plain text or unchanged.

Our company uses rich text quite extensively in-house, so simple formatting
can easily be shared. It is imperative, however, to be sure that this
setting which is off by default, be set to convert the rich text to another
format. It will save others wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I don't believe rich text is the enemy. Mis-use of the software is the true
culprit.