[Mallrat]

I starting using MAIL in 10.2.3 instead of Entourage that I used in Mac OS 9.

When I try to send my resume which is a WORD MAC OS 9 document, some people can read it (using hotmail) but a lot of them can't read it.

So that probably means a lot of the places I've sent my resume lately, couldn't open my resume and never bothered to tell me.

I can seem to send it fine using Enourage and Classic mode, but I want to use MAIL.

could anyone other any advice on why this would be happening?

Right now I have my resume on my MAC OS X desktop and I press attach on the mail program. could that affect anything?

any advice would be very helpful. thank you.

[kcmac]

Your looking for a job. Use what you know works. Find out how to make Mail work later.

[Anand]

First make sure your resume has the right file extension. Even on other macs this will be a problem. Also, I have noticed that sometimes when I send a file, people get two files. One is real and the other has nothing in it. I don't know why but you may want to warn people that it is happening and have them choose the right file.

[cpac]

The simplest solution?

Save your resume as a .pdf and send that. While I've had problems with users receiving Word files, I've yet to have one with people receiving .pdfs.

[Mallrat]

But a resume should be in word form, not .pdf only because that is what most companies want.

I just wonder if anyone else has had problems with using MAIL and knows why it doesn't send attachments properly.

Mac OS X is very frusterating when you want to use the new features, but you can't even do the simple things that you could always do before, like send attachments.

[sir_hc]

I had the same problem sending Word .doc to some PC recipients using Mail.app.

The solution was to use Terminal.app to make a copy of the file I wanted to send and attach the copy instead of the original.

I think this has something to do with resource forks and it gets removed by copying in Terminal?

Hope this helps.

[hudson1]

Try GrimRipper (available through a VersionTracker search). It's a contexual menu item that will strip the resource fork from a file and it's dirt simple to use. Make sure, of course, that you have the .doc extension on the file or no computer will recognize it thereafter. This process will almost certainly work to solve your problem.

[MasterBeta]

A problem with the resource fork usually just means you can't double click on the file to open it automatically in Word. They could most likely still open it via the open command withing Word, but that idea never seems to cross the mind of the typical recipient for some reason. And of course it does not allways work.

PDFs are a much better choice for resumes because the content can not be mangled either by accident or design by some twit in the office you are sending it too. If Human Resource departments had any brains and PC's could easily make PDF's, they would be the standard for Resume submission.

[Mallrat]

Originally posted by hudson1:
Try GrimRipper (available through a VersionTracker search). It's a contexual menu item that will strip the resource fork from a file and it's dirt simple to use. Make sure, of course, that you have the .doc extension on the file or no computer will recognize it thereafter. This process will almost certainly work to solve your problem.

I'm totally not familair with "resource fork" the term. What does it mean and how would that affect the file being seen by other users?

And does it only affect PC people?

I downloaded "GrimRipper" and it added the extension to Library/ contextual menu iteams...

Is that where it was supposed to be added. I'm sure it is simple to use, but I was too stupid to figure out how it works.

I installed it, but am I supposed to set it so it opens up with a certain program?

I"m sure it is simple, but I just don't get it.

I"m sorry for all the questions, but after I remove the resource fork from a file, do I have to do that every time I send it, or just once?

Are they any reasons why doing this could be harmful to a file or the computer?

Thanks for the help. And I'll consider the .pdf idea.

[himself]

Originally posted by rushmore:
I'm totally not familair with "resource fork" the term. What does it mean and how would that affect the file being seen by other users?

And does it only affect PC people?

I downloaded "GrimRipper" and it added the extension to Library/ contextual menu iteams...

Is that where it was supposed to be added. I'm sure it is simple to use, but I was too stupid to figure out how it works.

I installed it, but am I supposed to set it so it opens up with a certain program?

I"m sure it is simple, but I just don't get it.

I"m sorry for all the questions, but after I remove the resource fork from a file, do I have to do that every time I send it, or just once?

Are they any reasons why doing this could be harmful to a file or the computer?

Thanks for the help. And I'll consider the .pdf idea.

Resource forks are from the old MacOS (9) and are still lingering around in OS X. They simply tell your mac which app created the document and what app it should open with. OSX relies largly on file extensions (like .pdf or .doc) at the moment. Resource forks don't affect PC's at all, except that your Mac file may not have a file extension, and it needs one in order to open on a Windows machine.

Since GrimRipper is a contextual menu item, you use it by control-clicking (or right clicking, if you have a multi-button mouse) on the document you want to send. I don't think that GrimRipper is the solution to the problem, tho... the problem is how Mail handles file attachments. For some reason, it leaves certain files alone (like .pdfs) and other files (like .doc) it will send as an appledouble file, and encode as MacBinary. Appledouble is apples [outdated] method of ensuring file compatibility by send two versions of the same file. One is macbinary encoded (macbinary is an encoding format that apple uses to preserve resource forks for other mac users). The other file is supposed to be “universal,” but it isn't always the case.

Your best bet would be to either use Entourage, or Outlook in classic, or to compress your word files into a .zip archive and send them that way. There are a couple of other OSX email apps out there that handle sending file attachments much more gracefully, so you may want to try those as well.

[Mallrat]

Originally posted by himself:
Resource forks are from the old MacOS (9) and are still lingering around in OS X. They simply tell your mac which app created the document and what app it should open with. OSX relies largly on file extensions (like .pdf or .doc) at the moment. Resource forks don't affect PC's at all, except that your Mac file may not have a file extension, and it needs one in order to open on a Windows machine.

Since GrimRipper is a contextual menu item, you use it by control-clicking (or right clicking, if you have a multi-button mouse) on the document you want to send. I don't think that GrimRipper is the solution to the problem, tho... the problem is how Mail handles file attachments. For some reason, it leaves certain files alone (like .pdfs) and other files (like .doc) it will send as an appledouble file, and encode as MacBinary. Appledouble is apples [outdated] method of ensuring file compatibility by send two versions of the same file. One is macbinary encoded (macbinary is an encoding format that apple uses to preserve resource forks for other mac users). The other file is supposed to be “universal,” but it isn't always the case.

Your best bet would be to either use Entourage, or Outlook in classic, or to compress your word files into a .zip archive and send them that way. There are a couple of other OSX email apps out there that handle sending file attachments much more gracefully, so you may want to try those as well.

great answer, thank you.

right now I think I'll use Entoruage in classic when needing to send important attachments.

Has anyone used Entourage for Mac OS X and does that work just as great as the classic version did?

Also, what other e-mail apps for OSX do people recommend?

Thanks for all the great advice.

[step]

"Also, what other e-mail apps for OSX do people recommend?

Thanks for all the great advice. "

gyazmail has become very usable, is free, and sends attachments correctly. I send out work attachments with it as it shares the systemwide address book with apple's mail and it can import and export mail to and from it
Entourage osx is fine, but overkill if the attachment issue is your only gripe with apple mail

[Developer]

Originally posted by himself:
Resource forks [...] simply tell your mac which app created the document and what app it should open with.

For the record, this is not true. What you are talking about here are the HFS file creator and file type. These are not stored in the resource fork.
It is true though, that the Mac OS X Finder stores information about which app to use to open a document inside the resource fork, if that has been changed from the default (in something that I assume is called the "user open resource").

[hudson1]

Migrating to a different e-mail package to solve this problem might be overkill and time-consuming. If you have other reasons to do so, go ahead. If not, try GrimRipper first. It solved the sproradic attachment issues for me.

What you need to do, once GrimRipper is installed, is option-click or right-click on the file you want to send. If the file has a resource fork, you'll see "Delete resource fork" as one of the menu options. Go ahead and approve the removal of the resouce fork and then attach that file (drag and drop is fine) to your outgoing e-mail message. I'll be surprised if you have another problem but if you do, post it here and it will get solved.

[cpac]

Originally posted by rushmore:
But a resume should be in word form, not .pdf only because that is what most companies want.

Actually this is changing quickly as more companies become more paranoid about the extra data that gets sent when you send a word doc (like the last few changes you made, version history, etc.) not to mention font problems etc.

Add to that, that pagination never stays the same between word docs in different windows versions of word, not to mention mac versions, and you have the potentiall for nightmarish changes happening to your resume (that extra line you managed to fit it gets pushed to a second page, the font you carefully selected ends up showing up as Ariel because the windows machine doesn't have it, etc.)

Really your best option is to send a .pdf. I would be shocked if a single company complained about receiving a resume that way.

[Xeo]

Originally posted by Developer:
For the record, this is not true. What you are talking about here are the HFS file creator and file type. These are not stored in the resource fork.
It is true though, that the Mac OS X Finder stores information about which app to use to open a document inside the resource fork, if that has been changed from the default (in something that I assume is called the "user open resource").

Thank you for clarifying this. I was beginning to get ill at reading post after post of misinformation.

[Mallrat]

Originally posted by cpac:
Actually this is changing quickly as more companies become more paranoid about the extra data that gets sent when you send a word doc (like the last few changes you made, version history, etc.) not to mention font problems etc.

Add to that, that pagination never stays the same between word docs in different windows versions of word, not to mention mac versions, and you have the potentiall for nightmarish changes happening to your resume (that extra line you managed to fit it gets pushed to a second page, the font you carefully selected ends up showing up as Ariel because the windows machine doesn't have it, etc.)

Really your best option is to send a .pdf. I would be shocked if a single company complained about receiving a resume that way.

The more I think about it the more I think you're totally correct. A lot of places don't even want you to send any attachtments or word documents and prefer that you cut and paste your resume, which is the worst thing you can do since nothing looks even close to what it is supposed too.

On many interviews, I see that the person sitting across from me has my one page resume now printed on 2 pages and I offer him a copy of mine that I printed off my printer.

It is almost humorous how computers can do so much, except transfer files to another computer that will stay the same. You think the same program would be able to open up it's own documents.

So, yes, even though I wish MAIL would work perfectly without the need to use Grim Ripper, I think the answer just might be to send my resume in PDF form.

I just wish every else was as compatible as PDF files.

[donovan713]

I'm having a similar problem, but in reverse. I'm using Mail as an IMAP client with an Exchange server. Whenever someone sends me a .doc file, I cannot access it. The header shows there is an attachment, but it is not available in the message window.

The attachment is there, and I can access it using any other eMail app. I don't want to use another app just to read certain emails, and I don't want to abandon Mail, as I like it's rules. I keep gettinged burned by Outlook/Exchange server side rules (they stop working after I add too many).