Reply by Neil McLachlan from Co Serve Consulting on Thursday, 12 May, 2011 - 10:49

One possible reason for this with Microsoft Outlook is the email format used. When you send new email messages through Outlook they are set to HTML format by default. If you use HTML (or Plain Text) email format attachements will go in the Attachment line as expected. However, if you are using a Rich Text email format the attachment goes in the body of the email - sometimes with unpredictable results. In Outlook 2003 you can check the Send toolbar to see which email format is used. At the far right there is a drop-down box that will indicate HTML, Rich Text or Plain Text. In Outlook 2007 look on the Options tab in the Format group. Hope this is of some help. Regards Neil

Reply by Neil McLachlan from Co Serve Consulting on Wednesday, 18 May, 2011 - 12:07

OK. I’m sorry that wasn’t expressed very clearly. The following comments are for Outlook 2007 but other versions are similar. In referring to the “sender” I was indicating that the emails sent to you may be using Microsoft’s proprietary Rich Text Format (RTF) as this would explain the attachment appearing in the body of the email and its excessive length. As noted in my previous reply, if messages are sent using the Exchange group of email programs (including Outlook 2003/2007 etc.) and the RTF option is selected, it puts the RTF message (and any attached files) in an attachment called WINMAIL.DAT. But this attachment is not necessarily read correctly by other mail programs. The fact that your colleague receives the problem message intact indicates that in this instance (ie. from this particular sender) they may be receiving a HTML or Plain Text version whereas you are receiving an RTF version. You can check whether they are in HTML, RTF or Plain Text format by opening them and looking at Type on the Properties tab. If this is the case then your sender can do one of the following: • Change the format for a single email message (to you in this case) in the Message window by clicking the Options tab and selecting HTML or Plain Text rather than RTF. • For a permanent change, make sure that RTF is not used with a particular contact (in this case you). This can be done by going to the Contacts folder, selecting the contact's name, and in the Contact form clicking on the contact's email address. In the E-Mail Properties dialog box, from the Internet Format drop-down list, choose “Let Outlook decide the best sending format”. • There is also a possibility that if the sender is sending email via an Exchange Server, the administrator has overridden the email client settings. If so the administrator may need to make changes on the server to ensure that the RTF option is turned off for messages sent to you. A couple of other things to look at are problems with some anti-virus email scanners and using Word as the default email editor. This is a bit lengthy and by no means comprehensive but I hope it helps. Regards Neil

Reply by Neil McLachlan from Co Serve Consulting on Wednesday, 18 May, 2011 - 22:42

The fact that other contacts receive these messages and attachments correctly and can then forward them to you suggests that the problem is likely to be with the email setup of the person sending them. The attachment format doesn't matter - it's the message format that is probably the issue. The senders' email settings must be correctly setup for all contacts, using the HTML or Plain Text message formats as outlined in my previous comment. If you need more help with this it might be helpful to talk to us or another ICT service provider close to you. Regards Neil