Alan's HINTS & TIPS - Think about attachment formats [L14]

Welcome to Alan's Hints 'n Tips

Think about ATTACHMENT formats.

For information specifically relating to Picture Attachments click HERE

Before you go sending off all sorts of things to other people as ATTACHMENTS, stop to think a minute !!!!

Is the file you are going to send something that EVERYONE will be able to READ or VIEW at the other end. In other words, not every person has every bit of software that is around for computers. They might NOT have the same program that YOU used to create a file. For instance, you might have a program called "PrintMaster Gold", or "CardShop" or some other program for making greeting cards. You make up a fancy card to send to someone but decide to e-mail it to them rather than print it out and post it the old way. FINE - but there is a problem. The person at the other end will probably not be able to read the file as the file suffix NOT recognised on their computer. They need to have the same software before they can read it or display it.

WHAT FILE TYPES SHOULD I USE?

FOR LETTERS OR DOCUMENTS:

The ideal situation is to send text information as a 'text' file, with the suffix .TXT as is the case with 'NotePad', "EditPad', and 'Edit'.     'NotePad' comes with Windows and is pretty basic, you need to turn 'wordwrap' ON or it's a real pain.     To use 'Edit' you need to call it from 'DOS' which is also a bit of a pain, AND it's not all that user friendly unless you were brought up, with such things.     A program I highly recommend is 'EditPad' which is actually "Postcard Ware" - yep, that's it, NOT shareware - you send off a postcard to the author as a thankyou for his great work.     You wouldn't use anything else after trying it.

You can get EditPad from jgsoft.com

As an alternative, just use your wordprocessor and when the time comes to save your file use 'SaveAs' and select the option to save it as plain text (or .TXT).     The text file can then be read at the other end without trouble by their default text editor, or inserted into their wordprocessor (Insert -Text).

Of course, if you know what the other person is using for various file types then you can arrange to send in whatever format suits you both.     Generally speaking, most people will be using some version of MicroSoft Windows, and from Windows 95 onwards there has been a minimal version of MicroSoft Word provided which is called "WordPad".     This will read most files with the suffix .DOC which is what MicroSoft Office (and "Word" versions) use for wordprocessor files.

If you have Microsoft Office and save a file from it to send on to someone via e-mail, it might be worth considering saving it in an earlier version of 'Word' format rather than a later one (some allow you to save as a 'Word 6 Document').     The reason being that once again, not everyone has the latest version of software and format varies somewhat in the later ones, even though the file suffix may still be .DOC .
FOR PICTURE FILES:

Remember what I said at the beginning about the greeting cards? Try to keep your picture files within reason as far as size is concerned.

Read about what PICTURE FORMATS to use in e-mails.

See Why some attachments DON'T WORK as you expect them to.

See also a list of suffixes with what is used to open the file of each type.

and why some attachments don't work.