Emailed PDFs Become DAT files or Disappear

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I am finding that some people get my PDF emailed files and others dont? This never used to happen.
Using Outlook 2007 and latest Adobe Professional to print the PDFs.
Sometimes they turn into .DAT files and are unopenable by the recipient.
I have checked the Adobe and Microsoft sites and they have little help. Changing emails to Plain text is a suggestion I have been trying with mixed results.
Perhaps it is a problem with the recipients anti virus programs?
Any help gratefully accepted.

thanks,

[Ralph Wessel]

Graeme wrote:
Sometimes they turn into .DAT files and are unopenable by the recipient. Changing emails to Plain text is a suggestion I have been trying with mixed results.

This is a nasty thing Outlook does if messages are sent as rich text - ensuring that no other email client in the world can read the contents (thanks Microsoft). You have to make sure that messages are not composed in rich text both globally and for individual recipients (because Outlook can decide that individuals really should have rich text anyway). If you have problems with certain addresses, check the properties for that address and make sure Plain Text is selected there too.

[Anonymous]

Send your .pdf as .zip or .rar compressed files.

[Thomas Holm]

This is a common issue when you're on a Mac and receive email attached jpegs of pdfs from certain Windows users.

The winmail.dat file is a "RichText" attachment. It is possible to manuallly open it in any text editor and remove Microsoft's uneccessary extra headers and re-save the file as a .jpg or .pdf if you know what you're doing, but that isn't easy.

But - help is available: There is a developer, Josh Jacob, that has made a MacOSX 'donation-ware' program called TNEF`s Enough, that will extract the true contents of the winmail.dat or ms-tnef file. THe program is available at his web site, as is some additional info on the issue:
http://www.joshjacob.com/mac-development/tnef.php

NB: If you have Graphic Converter installed on your machine, it has a habit of hijacking the .dat files. You will have to Save the winmail.dat file, and then open it by right- (Crtl) - clicking, select Open With... and Other.., and in the dialog's bottom, select All Applications and then locate Tnef's Enough.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies.

I am thinking of changing to Apple machines. Does the same problem happen when an Apple machine sends an Outlook email with PDF attachment to another Apple machine?

I have tried the Zip trick to send the PDF but unfortunately without success.

It seems the high point of computing was a couple of years ago, say 2007. It was relatively easy to send drawings by email, ArchiCAD worked well in AC11 and 12 and work was flowing. Now there seems to be problem after problem or I am finding it harder to find the solutions.

It is hard to believe MS would not want us to send Rich Text or HTML emails with PDF attachments. Perhaps it is an attempt to stop viruses and spam spreading but it appears the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater! Plain Text emails can't contain tables, different font colours, some paragraph formatting, etc. It is very limiting in application. One may as well use Outlook Express for email!

Perhaps there is a better email program that sends rich text and PDF's?

[Ralph Wessel]

Graeme wrote:
I am thinking of changing to Apple machines. Does the same problem happen when an Apple machine sends an Outlook email with PDF attachment to another Apple machine?
It is hard to believe MS would not want us to send Rich Text or HTML emails with PDF attachments.
Perhaps there is a better email program that sends rich text and PDF's

The crux of the problem is that MS is trying to maintain a monopoly - the key is to make it appear that software from everyone else doesn't work properly. If you send the rich text message and PDF to another Outlook user, everything will work seamlessly. MS does this by either ignoring or poisoning existing standards. If standards were observed, any email client would work perfectly with every other email client. AutoDesk has pulled similar tricks with DWG.

If you use the built-in Mail application on a Mac, you will find the problem disappears. On Windows, you could try switching to Thunderbird.