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cpac · Jan 6, 2003, 01:01 PM

Hello all:

My wife uses Mail.app to correspond with a major investment bank office in NYC. She it attempting to send them an invoice that is a Word document created with Office X.

Regardless of whether she does the drag and drop or uses the "attach" button to attach the invoice to an email, the receiving people at the investment bank (using Windows) get a file that is compressed. Specifically:

filename.doc.bin

It's not a large document. How can she make Mail stop compressing attachments to .bin ? (or force it to use .zip as it's more likely the investment bank can deal with those)?

Swift replies are appreciated.

Thanks

Emotionally Fragile Luke · Jan 6, 2003, 01:12 PM

Have her compress it as a ZIP file first and then send it. Or she can send it through a hotmail account.

cpac · Jan 6, 2003, 01:28 PM

Originally posted by Emotionally Fragile Luke:
Have her compress it as a ZIP file first and then send it. Or she can send it through a hotmail account.

I did have her send it by .zip-ing it first. That may work, but is there any way to force mail either to use .zip compression or to force it not to compress?

Using hotmail is not an option. (she needs to be able to use PGP and other such fun that is integrated into Mail)

Emotionally Fragile Luke · Jan 6, 2003, 01:31 PM

Originally posted by cpac:
I did have her send it by .zip-ing it first. That may work, but is there any way to force mail either to use .zip compression or to force it not to compress?

No, me and the tech guys are work were trying to figure out the same thing. It's not an option. Just have her zip things before they go out, it is easy.

cpac · Jan 6, 2003, 01:36 PM

Originally posted by Emotionally Fragile Luke:
No, me and the tech guys are work were trying to figure out the same thing. It's not an option. Just have her zip things before they go out, it is easy.

The problem is for whatever reason, the people on the other end are not allowed to "save" attachments, and their version of Outlook, or whatever, will not open .zip files without a place to save the results.

I'm having her save the doc as a .pdf to see if that works on the other end, but ideally there would be a way to just send things uncompressed... (it's not like they're big to begin with or anything, and they don't always show up as .bins when sent to other people, like say, me).

someone_else · Jan 6, 2003, 02:40 PM

Originally posted by cpac:
The problem is for whatever reason, the people on the other end are not allowed to "save" attachments, and their version of Outlook, or whatever, will not open .zip files without a place to save the results.

I'm having her save the doc as a .pdf to see if that works on the other end, but ideally there would be a way to just send things uncompressed... (it's not like they're big to begin with or anything, and they don't always show up as .bins when sent to other people, like say, me).

First of all, .bin is not a compression format, it is an encoding format to send binary (8bit) data in a possible ASCII (7bit) container. So Mail is just trying to make sure that the file gets through uncorrupted. There may be a way to force Mail to use UUEncoding (which is more popular on the Windows side). But the simplest thing to do is have the Windows people download and install Stuffit Expander for Windows (http://www.aladdinsys.com/). This program knows how to decode the .bin format.

HTH.

cpac · Jan 6, 2003, 03:29 PM

Originally posted by someone_else:
There may be a way to force Mail to use UUEncoding (which is more popular on the Windows side). But the simplest thing to do is have the Windows people download and install Stuffit Expander for Windows

Thanks for the clarification. Unfortunately telling Goldman Sachs that it needs to download and install a program (even one as seemingly universal as Stuffit) just so one outside consultant's email attachments can be decoded isn't really an option. (Nor is telling them to give the people somewhere to store .zip'd files). It's ridiculously stupid, but we kind of have to take their computing environment as a given and work around it.

Now, that said, how would one force Mail to use UUEncoding? Is it in any way related to choosing which text encoding to use? (I.e. could she just choose "Western (Windows Latin 1)" from the Text Encoding submenu and have the attachment go through correctly?

hudson1 · Jan 6, 2003, 03:42 PM

cpac, I became confused reading your posts. The opening post indicated that a zip file would be OK. Your second and third posts mentioned that a zip file would not be OK. I take it that zip files are not OK???

Maybe the question becomes how does her client receive anything that has a compressed file? That could be a clue to finding the answer.

hudson1 · Jan 6, 2003, 03:49 PM

cpac, I became confused reading your posts. The opening post indicated that a zip file would be OK. Your second and third posts mentioned that a zip file would not be OK. I take it that zip files are not OK???

Maybe the question becomes how does her client receive anything that has a compressed file? That could be a clue to finding the answer.

Emotionally Fragile Luke · Jan 6, 2003, 04:07 PM

Originally posted by someone_else:
There may be a way to force Mail to use UUEncoding (which is more popular on the Windows side).

Nope. You cannot.

cpac · Jan 6, 2003, 04:25 PM

Originally posted by hudson1:
cpac, I became confused reading your posts. The opening post indicated that a zip file would be OK. Your second and third posts mentioned that a zip file would not be OK. I take it that zip files are not OK???

Maybe the question becomes how does her client receive anything that has a compressed file? That could be a clue to finding the answer.

Sorry if it isn't clear. Here's an attempt to clarify:

The receiving end (I-bank in NYC) has (for our purposes) a *fixed* computing set-up. It's limitations include:
(1) inability to install StuffIt to expand .bin files (the default encoding Mail uses)
(2) inability to save .zip files to disk (apparently they can only open attachments on the server, and since opening a .zip creates a new file, they are stuck).

The issue then becomes: how to send a Word file ,e.g., to them. Thus far it seems that the answer is "Not with Mail," which is a disappointing answer at best.

-----------------

Now, that said, we have found (at least) a temporary solution in that .pdfs that are dropped into a Mail message are not sent as .bin's and are received just fine. This will work for any files which don't need to be sent in an editable form, but still leaves us in the lurch for files that do need to be edited.

-----------------

Question: Why does mail feel compelled to encode .doc attachments using .bin, but does not do so for .pdf attachments?

Emotionally Fragile Luke · Jan 6, 2003, 04:28 PM

You could always use entourage since you already have Word.

himself · Jan 6, 2003, 04:40 PM

Originally posted by cpac:
...Why does mail feel compelled to encode .doc attachments using .bin, but does not do so for .pdf attachments?

Resolution to this problem:

Send feedback to Apple asking them to include the functionality that you (and many others, I assume) would like to see in Mail.

In the meantime, switch to another email client that provides the options you need... Entourage, Eudora, Mailsmith, et. al...

Eug · Jan 6, 2003, 04:48 PM

Do you have a website where you can house the file temporarily? You could just mail them the URL.

cpac · Jan 6, 2003, 07:12 PM

Originally posted by Emotionally Fragile Luke:
You could always use entourage since you already have Word.

Originally posted by himself:
In the meantime, switch to another email client that provides the options you need... Entourage, Eudora, Mailsmith, et. al...

Yep, I'd considered it. And if it continues to be a problem I'll help my wife switch to Entourage. One problem with Entourage though is that the PGP (encryption) integration isn't nearly as good (end up having to use various Applescripts rather than the handy tool bar items as in Mail.app). On top of that, it's a Microsoft product which I avoid using as often as possible.

Anyway, before I send feedback, I'd like to know (from those who have more knowledge) precisely what the problem is.

Do I need them to support alternative message encoding? Do I need them to offer the option of whether to encode messages? Or do I just give them a more generic "please make emailing attachments to windows users easier" and leave it at that?

Also, nobody has responded to my question: why would Mail encode a Word document, but not a .pdf?

cpac · Jan 6, 2003, 07:17 PM

Originally posted by Eug:
Do you have a website where you can house the file temporarily? You could just mail them the URL.

I considered this too, but if they can't save a .zip attachment, I doubt they can save a web download.

Mostly it's a problem created by their lack of flexibility/knowledge, I'm just trying to find ways to work around them.

jaske · Jan 6, 2003, 07:30 PM

WAIT! Don't switch yet. Try this:

When attaching files, make sure they are the very last item in the message like this:

Click HERE for a full-size photo.

If the attachment is near/next to text, Windows users cannot handle it. This should end the problem.

And, yeah, Mail.app's intergration with PGP is great.

hudson1 · Jan 6, 2003, 09:29 PM

Here's a solution that I think would more likely than not work for you. After re-reading the problem and the symptoms, it seems like one that I've seen before.

Before attaching the file, strip the resource fork with GrimRipper (or something else if you prefer). My hunch is that this will work because Mail won't try to force a MacBinary encoding since it doesn't see both a data and resource fork. Give it a shot.

This solution worked for me when trying to send some JPG files that Mail munged.