[BLeonard]

There has been a continuing problem in my organization which is mostly PC with mail that is sent by Macs (using OSX mail). The message arrives as an attachment, usually a windows icon. If the outlook user double-clicks on the attachment they are asked if they want to open or save it. If they want to open it there is no association and if they save it the file can be opened by Word. The file is usually just simple text garbled by html commands.

Other html mail comes through just fine from spammers.

Colleagues are quick to say this is a Mac problem but I can't help but feel there may be a configuration in Outlook on the PC that would solve it. I've searched outlook properties but can't find anything that works.

My solution as a sender has been to convert everything I send to users to plain text before sending within my organization.

I can't expect all outside Mac users to do this.

Any suggestions?

[cpac]

Originally posted by BLeonard:
There has been a continuing problem in my organization which is mostly PC with mail that is sent by Macs (using OSX mail). The message arrives as an attachment, usually a windows icon. If the outlook user double-clicks on the attachment they are asked if they want to open or save it. If they want to open it there is no association and if they save it the file can be opened by Word. The file is usually just simple text garbled by html commands.

Other html mail comes through just fine from spammers.

Colleagues are quick to say this is a Mac problem but I can't help but feel there may be a configuration in Outlook on the PC that would solve it. I've searched outlook properties but can't find anything that works.

My solution as a sender has been to convert everything I send to users to plain text before sending within my organization.

I can't expect all outside Mac users to do this.

Any suggestions?

Very strange.

couple things to check:

(1) are you using something other than the "default" text encoding? (look in Message->Text Encoding)

(2) are you placing attachments at the top of your emails? (text after attachments is often interpreted as its own plain text attachment)

FWIW, this is not a normal problem to have happen - I send LOTS of email to outlook users every day and they never have any trouble reading it.

[geekwagon]

Outlook doesn't seem to like the way that OS X's Mail chunks things up into multiple attachments. I especially see this when Mac users use Unicode and the message arrives via the Internet Mail Connector for Exchange. Another problem I have seen is the usage of the "?" character.. Again because it isn't straight ASCII Mail likes to dump it into a MIME attachment and Outlook doesn't like that very much.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by cpac:
FWIW, this is not a normal problem to have happen - I send LOTS of email to outlook users every day and they never have any trouble reading it.

I concur, as a sys admin I send out a lot of email which is received by 100 or so PC desktop users running Outlook.
But then again, maybe that is why the users don't comply with my draconian requests that can't read my emails!

[Busemann]

do the files you send have file extensions (like .doc)? Also be sure to check the "send windows compatible attachments" pref. in Mail.

[BLeonard]

For the record. I'm not sending attachments. These are just text messages but when they show up on the PC's computer mail they become attachments (small ones) that if downloaded and opened in a text editor show the message amidst html code.

[ngrundy]

Set mail to send your email email is ment to be sent, as plain text, not html, mime or any of that other fancy junk.

[cpac]

Originally posted by BLeonard:
For the record. I'm not sending attachments. These are just text messages but when they show up on the PC's computer mail they become attachments (small ones) that if downloaded and opened in a text editor show the message amidst html code.

What about the character encoding?

How is it set?

[BLeonard]

Where is character encoding set?

Again, as a sender, I've been able to modify what I send to be received by the PC users in my organization. The problem is receiving mail from outside users that we have no control over how their messages are formatted.

This reinforces the PC community at work to believe it is just another reason that "Macs don't play well with PC's". My goal is to combat that opinion.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by BLeonard:
Where is character encoding set?

Again, as a sender, I've been able to modify what I send to be received by the PC users in my organization. The problem is receiving mail from outside users that we have no control over how their messages are formatted.

This reinforces the PC community at work to believe it is just another reason that "Macs don't play well with PC's". My goal is to combat that opinion.

If mail sent in rich text format from Macs did this when sent to PC's, I think we would have noticed it by now.

Bottom line: something is wrong with their PC's. They need to fix it.

[wadesworld]

Sounds like some Windows administrator got security conscious (and rightly so) and disabled all mail display except plaintext in their mail clients.

Wade

[voodoo]

Originally posted by wadesworld:
Sounds like some Windows administrator got security conscious (and rightly so) and disabled all mail display except plaintext in their mail clients.

Wade

Sounds very likely.

[juanpacolopez]

Originally posted by voodoo:
Sounds very likely.

Yep...

We did that at work here because of the (seemingly) neverending flow of RPC exploits in IE/Outlook, and the subsequent inability of our users to understand the "don't read something from someone you don't know" rule.

I was quick to point out that it wasn't MY Mac that was giving the problem, it was THEIR OS w/ all its "security".

If you just set Mail to send plain text (which is a good idea anyways since RTF/HTML e-mail isn't actually an official RFC as far as I know) it should fix you right up.

[hart]

"Also be sure to check the "send windows compatible attachments" pref. in Mail."

where is this? I can't find it.

[cpac]

Originally posted by hart:
"Also be sure to check the "send windows compatible attachments" pref. in Mail."

where is this? I can't find it.

in a bizarre location: Edit>Attachments>Always Send Windows Friendly Attachments

as I believe I said above the text encoding is found at: Message>Text Encoding

if you want to always send plain text emails (if this is actually your problem) you can set that in: Preferences>Composing>Plain Text (there's also an option to always reply with the same format if you want to sometimes send Rich Text emails, and I think there's a toolbar button to switch between the two formats also)

[BLeonard]

Again, my problem is not with me sending but Mac users outside the system sending mail to our pc users. I can't control their sending behavior.

I do know that rich text and html is enabled in our district as we reguarly receive html and rich text mail in outlook on our PCs. Just Mac senders mail showing up as a non readable attachment.

[cpac]

Originally posted by BLeonard:
Again, my problem is not with me sending but Mac users outside the system sending mail to our pc users. I can't control their sending behavior.

I do know that rich text and html is enabled in our district as we reguarly receive html and rich text mail in outlook on our PCs. Just Mac senders mail showing up as a non readable attachment.

Ah ok.

well since you don't control what/how they send you're pretty much SOL.

You might check that Outlook is using a standard encoding.

Again, all I can say is that this is not a normal outlook problem: I email to countless Outlook users every day (using rich text) and never have any trouble.

[Mike S.]

Originally posted by BLeonard:
Again, my problem is not with me sending but Mac users outside the system sending mail to our pc users. I can't control their sending behavior.

Assuming this isn't a public address you're getting mail from and you have some kind of established business relationship with them; you can always send them a friendly message informing them of the situation and indicating that non-plain text messages won't work with your mail server.