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Call us for help--Accent on Computers. 203-625-7575.
June 16, 2006
No Strings Attached
Dear Larry,
Sometimes I’m unable to open an e-mail attachment. Can you
tell me what I might be doing wrong?
F. S.
Dear F. S.,
Let’s address the most common reasons why people run into
e-mail attachment problems.
1. The attachment was sent with the wrong “extension.”
As you’re probably aware, information is stored on a computer
in files, be they word processing documents, spreadsheets, programs, etc. Each
of these files has a name associated with it along with a three character
extension (often hidden from view), which follows a period at the end of the
file’s name: for instance, “My Document.doc,” “Joe’s Spreadsheet.xlw,” or
“Acrobat Reader File.pdf.” These extensions are used by Windows to determine
with which program the file is associated. So in the examples above, a file
ending in .doc tells Windows it’s a Microsoft Word document, .xlw refers to a
Microsoft Excel worksheet, and .pdf, an Adobe Acrobat file. Sometimes,
extensions are generic: .jpg is a common extension applied to a photograph, and,
in this case, Windows associates your “default” photo editing program with this
type of file.
The point of all this: Sometimes, when a person attaches a
file to an e-mail, the extension may get lost or incorrectly assigned. So
instead of receiving the file named “My Document.doc,” it arrives as “My
Document” (with no extension), “My Document.dat” (with a wrong extension), or
“My Document.ibm” (with an incorrectly assigned extension). When you detach this
document (or “download” it in AOL parlance) and attempt to open it, Windows
won’t exactly know what to do with it because it’s missing the correct
extension. You may have to manually rename it once you learn what type of file
it is, or you may have to ask the sender to resend it with the correct
extension.
2. You don’t own the program needed to view the file.
This one’s more straightforward. A colleague may send you a
Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (.xlw or .xls), and be unaware that you don’t own
the Microsoft Excel program necessary to view this file. Or perhaps a friend
attaches an Adobe .pdf file to an e-mail, but, for some reason, you never
downloaded and installed Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer (the program
needed to interpret .pdf files). In this case, you may have to contact the
sender and ask him/her to try sending the file in a format that your computer
would be able to understand. Or, you may just have to go out and purchase or
download the necessary software on your own.
3. The wrong program is associated with the file extension on
your computer.
At one time, you may have tried to open an Adobe .pdf file,
but you hadn’t ever installed Adobe Acrobat. Windows would have asked you at the
time to choose a program to associate with a .pdf from a list of programs
installed on your computer. You may not have known what to choose, and you
selected Microsoft Word in error. What you did was unknowingly associate the
wrong program with this file type. That’s like asking the French interpreter at
the U.N. to help you translate what the Russian ambassador is trying to say. In
this case, you may need a professional’s help to straighten out the babel!
This is Larry Schneider, logging off.
