Re: Received attachment converted from .pdf .xls to winmail.dat?

On Jun 10, 8:57 pm, Allen Watson <watson.al...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
You say, "they" referring to Microsoft as if everyone at Microsoft knows
everything everyone else does. The MacBU and Windows Office crew are in
separate cities, separate states for the most part. Your assumption that
just because "winmail.dat" files originate with Microsoft that the MacBu
should know how to decode them is about as naïve as thinking that anyone who
lives in New York must know how to get to The Strand bookstore. Microsoft is
too huge.

No, I assume anyone in Microsoft has a way to get needed information
from other people at Microsoft. In particular, the file formats for
Excel and Word are shared, why not the file formats for Outlook/
Entourage (winmail.dat is a file format)?

Mac users for years have found it necessary to give special treatment to
every attachment sent to Windows users, making sure they have visible file
extensions so that Windows will know how to open them. That includes PDF
files and Word documents. Never mind that the file format is easily
recognizable by a computer without its ".pdf" or ".doc" extension (Macs can
do it); Windows insists on the extension and refuses to open the file. It's
a very small thing to ask of a Windows user that he or she make a ONE-TIME
CHANGE so that they send files in HTML format to their Mac friends.

I have one PC that I occassionaly must use to send email. I mself got
caught with the winmail.dat problem on a calendar appointment (no real
attachment). I fixed the sending format, sent again, and it sent a
winmail.dat again! (BTW, outlook does not have the Resend option. I
didn't realize how useful that was in Entourage until I couldn't use
it.)

The other problem is that many PC users simply aren't savvy enough to
figure out how to make the change. It doesn't affecty THEM, so they
have no real incentive to do it.

These kind of cross-platform problems will exist in one way or another from
now to the end of time, probably. If it were "fixed" now in Entourage, the
winmail.dat format might change next year. But if the Windows user sets
things up so that that format just does not get sent to their Mac friends,
the problem goes away permanently. In my mind, that's a better solution.

The format has been around for well over 7 years, I doubt it will
change again. It's bugged me ever since Office 2000 that it is the
default when so few people want it. The problem is, most people don't
know or care what format their files are transported in.

Maybe someone could write a virus that goes and changes it for people
on PC's everywhere... (j/k)

Keith

.

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