On 03/09/2012, at 11:57 PM, Alex <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Stephen > > I used to be annoyed about this myself previously, which was the main > reason I didn't use Mail (until Eudora died one time). However I > spoke to Peter at a WAMUG meeting one night & he explained to me that > the attachment still goes out as an attachment even though we see it > as being embedded in the email. I have sent quite a few attachments > lately, one being an individual 172 kb screen dump sent by itself & in > my email screen it is embedded but I can see it as an attachment as > well when I open it from the Sent Box. Then again I have looked at > another attachment which is only 80.5 kb & that only appears as an > attachment icon - not embedded! I seem to think that I remember Peter > also saying that there was somewhere you could turn off this > embeddedness, but I must be wrong about it as I can't find that > preference. > > I still am a little annoyed about it as I find it a bit of a > distraction, but then that's just me. Have learnt to live with it. > (I hope I haven't misquoted Peter) > > Cheers, Alex > >
Sometimes we Mac users have to pay a price for OS X making things so easy. If we were only sending attachments to each other this stuff would not be an issue. As I would have explained to Alex (as I explain to everyone else who listens), the only thing that email supports is pure text: nothing else. Despite appearances, the email format does not support photos, movies, sound files, PDFs, Word files, or anything else someone might choose to send to you. Email supports only text. This is very important to understand. The only way that something which is not text can be sent by email is for it also to be converted to text. This is done through a process known as Base-64 encoding, and these days that process is extremely fast and completely invisible to the user. Base-64 encoding (or MIME-encoding) basically takes the file you are sending and converts it to a large block of pure text, then adds it to your message. The recipient's email client then decodes the text and converts the text back into its original form, be it a Word file, a photo, a movie, or anything else. It's something users don't have to think about these days, but it was a different story 15 years ago when this stuff was in its infancy. It was important in early email clients to know which encoding was being used, and who your recipient was. If you encoded your attachment incorrectly it would be unreadable by a recipient who did not have the correct de-coder. So, if we understand this fundamental aspect, it really shouldn't matter where in the message we place our attachment: it should still be able to be de-coded by the recipient and handled appropriately. Apple's Mail is a great example of such a client. The problem is that many email clients out there expect the attachment to be at the END of the message, and nowhere else. As noted, it often happens that some clients will know enough about a photo attachment, for example, to be able to display it as an image on the screen, but bot enough to allow it to be detached from the message, so it remains embedded. The only reliable way to handle attachments therefore, especially when you're sending to Windows recipients, is to make sure that they are at the very bottom of the message, below your signature, below every other bit of text. It can also help, of your recipient is still having problems, to enclose your attachment in a .zip wrapper before sending it. I have one regular recipient who cannot receive a simple text file unless it is zipped first. The frustrating thing about all of this is that it is the Mac which ends up with the poor reputation! In fact, is the sad development cycle of most email clients out there that has prevented them from "growing up" beyond their original early '90s behaviour in handling attachments. So...if you want you make your life with attachments easy, remember a few simple rules 1. Always send "Windows-friendly" attachments (in Apple's Mail, go Edit > Attachments > Send Windows-Friendly Attachments - this helps with the de-coding at the other end) 2. Always put attachments at the very end of your message (unless you know your recipient has a Mac) 3. Send as a Zip archive if necessary (also helps reduce the size of the attachment). Nil bastardo carborundum! Peter Hinchliffe Apwin Computer Services FileMaker Pro Solutions Developer Perth, Western Australia Phone (618) 9332 6482 Mob 0403 046 948 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Mac because I prefer it -- Windows because I have to. -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug>
