Navigation Bar: Office>Windows Friendly Attachments
Last updated: Tuesday, July 6, 2004 10:28 PM
This applies to Entourage 2004, although Entourage X and Entourage 2001 are similar.
Macintosh files have what are called 2 forks, a data fork, and a resource fork. These can be described as two separate files linked to one filename. The data fork contains your actual data. If we are talking about a graphic file then we are talking about the actual graphic. The resource fork contains information about what created the file, its icon, etc. For information about what these forks are, and what their purposes are, see http://www.asy.com/files.htm. In sum, PC files only have a single fork, it interprets the Mac file as two separate files. Not all PCs will do this, but for those that do, it can be very frustrating for both the recipient and the sender. The blame usually gets tossed onto the Mac user. What happens, is the recipient ends up getting two files, one named (for example) <file.doc>, and one named something like <._file.doc>.
To prevent this from happening with Entourage there are a couple (in-program) solutions. One is a permanent one, and the other is a case-by-case basis. For people who are comfortable with stripping the resource fork all the time, then use the permanent solution. I have never encountered a problem with this way when sending to users of both PC and Mac. I am sure there must be instances when the resource fork is needed, but I have never encountered it myself. For those who would need to retain the resource fork when passing along files to their Mac associates I suggest using the case-by-case method.
Select Preferences... from the Entourage menu. This brings up the Preferences window. In the left side window pane, select Compose under the Mail & News Preferences.
On the right side, under Attachments, it says something like Encode for: Any computer (AppleDouble). Click on that to bring up the pull-down menu and select Windows (MIME/Base64), and make sure Compression is set for None. Also make sure that Append file name extensions and Send attachments to Cc and Bcc recipients box(es) (optional) are checked. I recommend at least checking the first one.
Select OK.
In your message that you are composing, click on the little arrow next to where it says Attachments:. This will expose the attachments area, along with your sending options.
Click where it says Encode for any computer (AppleDouble); no compression; Windows file name extensions. This will bring up your options window.
In the options dialog box, select the Windows (MIME/Base64) radio button, and click on the little square in the upper left hand corner to close it out.
Add your attachment(s) and send the message.