ITS LOGO August 2007

How do I ... logo Understand E-mail Attachments

Contents

Introduction

When sending an e-mail message, you may want to include a document that was created with another application (i.e. a document that is already prepared rather than the message you are typing in the mail package's message window). Examples of documents you may want to send are a Word or WordPerfect file which includes all the formatting information, an Excel spreadsheet, an image, etc.

These types of documents are non-text (i.e. Binary) and cannot be just copied into the message body. They need to be sent as attachments. Most mail packages have a way to send a document as an attachment so that none of the original formatting is lost in the transfer.

The person on the receiving end:

File Extensions

It is strongly recommended not to change the default file extension of a document that you are creating with an application such as Word or WordPerfect. The file extension is the three letter code after the "." (e.g. in myfile.doc, doc is the extension). The first part of the file can be anything you like. If the extension of a file that you send as an attachment is kept as the default, then the person who receives the attachment can just double click on the file and the appropriate application will open with that document. If the extension is changed, the receiver may have problems opening the document properly.

Some common default extensions are:

Special Note Regarding Attachments

With the large increase in virus and malware activity that uses email to spread itself through the internet ITS has stopped transmitting ZIP files among others, as email attachments either incoming or outgoing.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause but it is a security & protection measure for the University community at large.

For a full list of the blocked attachments please refer to http://www.uwo.ca/its/email/blockedfiles.html.

Transmission protocol (encoding)

In order for an attachment to be sent correctly via e-mail, it needs to be converted into a format that can be sent over the Internet. You need to find out what kind of e-mail package the receiver is using and what kind of transmission protocols it recognizes (e.g. MIME and Binhex are some popular protocols).

The e-mail package takes care of transmitting the document in the proper format automatically and the receiving mail package will automatically convert the document back to its original form.

The most popular type is MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions). Most mail packages use this protocol. All of the UWO/ITS recommended mail options support MIME.

Netscape Communicator

Sending an attachment

  1. From the message composer window, click on the Attach button. If you don't see this button, you can also choose Attach from the File menu. You can choose to attach a File, web page or My address book card.
  2. Most commonly, you will probably want to attach a document (e.g. a chapter from a report, written in Word). Choose File.
  3. You will be presented with a Enter file to attach dialog box. Find the file you want to attach and click Open.
  4. You can leave the encoding set to the default.
  5. In the message body, type in a short message indicating the type of file you are sending so that the receiver will know what appolication to read the file with.

Viewing an attachment

  1. Netscape can be configured to view attachments as Inline (i.e. displayed in the body of the message) or As Links that you can click on. To set this, choose Attachments from the View menu and select Inline or As Links (default is Inline).
  2. Depending on the type of document that was attached, you may not be able to see it displayed even if you choose Inline. For example, Word documents always appear as Links.
  3. You can also click on the paperclip icon in the message header of any message containing an attachment. A small icon with the document name will appear at the bottom of the message window. To view the document, double click on this icon. For some types of documents, you may get a dialog window asking you to open it or save it to disk.

Saving an attachment to your disk

How you save a received mail attachment depends on its type.

An Inline image attachment:

  1. Right-click the image
  2. From the pop-up menu, choose Save Image As.
  3. You can choose a folder to save to, but do not change the name of the attachment.
Attachment that appears as a Link:
  1. Right-click the link
  2. From the pop-up menu, choose Save Link As.
  3. You can choose a folder to save to, but do not change the name of the attachment.
Attached web page:
  1. From the View menu, choose Attachments and then As Links.
  2. Right-click the link (on the Mac OS, click the link and press the mouse button)
  3. From the pop-up menu, choose Save Link As.
  4. You can choose a folder to save to, but do not change the name of the attachment.

Once an attachment has been saved to disk, you can open/edit it using the application with which it was written (or an application that can understand this format). For example, if you saved an attachment chapter1.doc (Word document), you can read it into Word by opening Word or by double-clicking on the file chapter1.doc.

Forwarding an attachment

This is a tricky subject, as the settings needed to sucsessfully forward the attachment depend on a number of factors. These factors include what mail program was used to send the original message, what format the original message was sent in (plain text or HTML), and whether or not this message has been forwarded by another program already. The general rule of thumb that will ensure that the attachment is received and is able to be displayed is to save the attachment, and then compose a new message and attach the file. Follow the instructions above to save and then send the attachment.

Note about viewing attachments that were saved to disk

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ITS Help Desk help.desk@uwo.ca
Last updated: June 17, 2005
Reviewed: August 13, 2007