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It is possible to attach files to your emails.
Click on the toolbar or icon (normally a paperclip), find the file you want to
attach, then click to attach it - one file successfully attached.
You can repeat this operation to attach many files to a single email.
You can tell if an email has an attachment
because it tells you by listing the files or an icon such as a paperclip
beside the name of the sender. When you receive an email with an attachment, to open the attachment just
double-click on the file then save the document. Until you save the attached
file, it normally remains part of the email. If you delete the message before detaching
the file, you will lose it.
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This screenshot,
taken from Microsoft Outlook, is typical of email packages. |
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When saving a document you should select where
you want to store the file on your computer. You can often change the format.
Many text files use Rich Text Format (RTF), plain text (TXT) as well as
Microsoft Word (DOC). Remember to select 'All file types' when looking for
attached documents that you have saved, as they might have different file
extensions and might therefore not show up automatically.
One of the joys of email is that it can travel
between different computer platforms. It is a good way to transfer files between
Macs and PCs. But Macintosh file names might be changed by the PC. The
first 6 or 7 letters will be the same but with a number added.
It is not just the computer platform and
package but the version of the software that is important. Someone sending
version 4 of some software to a friend with version 5 will be successful. But if
the friend edits it in version 5 and returns it, there will be problems.
One of the reasons why we advocate the use of
RTF files is that they can be read in every word processing package we know.
Another reason for adopting this neutral format is that they are smaller.
Microsoft Word documents can be saved as “RTF”
(Rich Text Format). This is an ASCII (American Standard Code for Information
Interchange) text with minimal formatting. Other word-processors allow you to Save_as
plain text.
More about file types
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It can take many minutes to download a large
document, especially if it contains pictures. You might think your link has frozen,
only to discover that someone is sending an uncompressed, glossy 8 by 10 colour
photo which will take half an hour to receive over a dial-up connection.
If you have an indicator of your modem’s
activity you can check if it is working when it appears to be “dead”. On PCs
you see 2 little boxes flashing on and off. Some machines look as if they have
worms wriggling along to indicate that data is moving. But if nothing happens
after several minutes the system might actually have jammed.
If you have a dial-up connection where you pay
for your connection, make sure you check your email when the telephone line is
available on cheap rate. People accustomed to office networks or college systems
might not appreciate how long these transfers can take. Files which move around the office network in seconds can take many minutes when
travelling by telephone wire.
If you cancel a download part-way, when you
resume the server might try to send you the whole mail again.
If some mega file is blocking your download, send a message to your server and
ask them to delete it.
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If you do not have the particular package that
someone has used to compose an attachment, you might have troubled reading it.
To solve this problem you need a 'viewer' or 'reader'. These are provided by
large software companies on their sites. You can check our links
to find them but the most common one is for MS Word.
Once installed the attachment should find the viewer by itself. You can then
save the attachment in a format you can edit if you want to.
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It is the email software that attaches and
detaches files.
 | University systems sometimes still encode files so you have to
decode them. |
| Some places use old email software that can only deal with certain
attachments. |
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You may sometimes want to check that the file you attached is
the right one.
To check:
- Right-click an Attachment file.
- Choose Quick View from the pop-up menu.
- A special viewer window will appear and you can check the
document.
- When you are happy close the Quick View.
- If it is the wrong file, right clicking also provides the
Remove option.
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Email uses only the basic 128 text and
formatting characters from the ASCII (American Standard Code for Information
Interchange) character set. This uses just 7 of the 8 available bits. Every
computer in the world should recognize these, even Chinese machines. The bad
news is that they contain no graphics or embedded formatting.
There are 2 components in any email transfer.
The sender and receiver are 'clients' while the system that transfers and
stores your mail is known as the 'server'.
As well as text, you can send binary files.
Computer software is binary codes. Because it is binary codes that control
computers, these files have to be encoded to stop them interfering with the
computers that they pass through. It would spell disaster if the communication
system responded to the data it was carrying, mistaking it for a binary
instruction. The effect is to make binary files much larger than the original.
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Little is now heard of the encoding required
to speed your text through the system. Five years ago you had to understand it
so that you could read your mail. It is little wonder that email used to be for
engineers and academics.
There have been 3 popular encoding
systems:
UUencode and BinHex
Unix computers employ the uuencode/decode
system, which was adopted in early PCs while Apple Computers went for the BinHex
system, so both are 'platform-dependent'.
MIME (Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions)
is the present standard that allows the Internet to handle email and carry
attachments. It is also independent of the computer used. Most mail programs are
now 'MIME-conformant'.
If you find your file is full of 'junk' when
you open it, here are some clues to the coding used. A Word file has pages of
square symbols. An uuencoded file has the word Begin followed by 3 numbers near
the start and the word End at the end. A BinHexed file announces that This file
must be converted with BinHex. MIME has the word Base64 near the start.
Pine is often found on Unix service
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Microsoft Outlook (Freeware version is
Outlook Express)
Sending
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Look for the paperclip icon when you have
written your message. If the clip is not visible then look for the >>
on the toolbar to view the missing icons or maximize the size of your
message. |
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Browse to find your document then click Open to attach it to the message. |
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You can attach a number of documents to a
single email, but think about the person who will have to download them all. |
Receiving
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Attachments are marked with a paperclip.
Select the message and click on the paperclip icon to view the names of the
files attached. |
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Highlight the one you want and
double click to open it. The appropriate program will be opened to view the
file although you might have to help it if the extension is not recognised. |
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Then save the document in the format
required. When saving the document you can select where and how you want to
store the file on your computer. |
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Macintosh Eudora (Freeware version is
Eudora Light)
To send
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Use AppleDouble, which is Apple’s
version for MIME. Uncheck the Macintosh resource icon, 5th from left at the
top of the message window, if the receiver does not have a Mac |
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You can select other types of encoding by
clicking the box in the upper left of the composition window. |
Receiving
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Attached files are decoded and dropped
into your Eudora Attachments folder, without you having to take any action. |
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