# Entourage 2004 Attachments!



## rboklewski (Oct 12, 2006)

I am having some difficulties sending email attachments from my xp pro machine using microsoft outlook to my mac, which uses entourage 2004. Now what happens is for example, from my pc i will send an excel spreadsheet to my mac, when i go to the mac i get the email and i see the attachment without the excel icon on it. It is a blank icon, is there a fix for this?


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## MisterMe (Oct 12, 2006)

Are you using the standard *Excel* file extension on the Win XP Pro machine?


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## rboklewski (Oct 12, 2006)

what do you mean by standard, just tried attaching an excel spreadsheet and hit send


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## rboklewski (Oct 12, 2006)

anything particular i need to do on the windows machines to send it correctly, i would have a hard time believing that because i would have to tell the rest of the world who uses a pc this info so my mac users can see the right file types


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## MisterMe (Oct 12, 2006)

rboklewski said:


> what do you mean by standard, just tried attaching an excel spreadsheet and hit send


*Excel* saves files in the form _Workbook.xls_ where _xls_ is the standard three-character extension. If your files do not have this extension, then your recipients' computers have no way to identify their filetypes.


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## rboklewski (Oct 13, 2006)

well that is true when sending from mac to pc, i just append filename extensions, but from pc to mac i don't think there is a way to control that, no matter if i add the filename xls or not to the attachments macs can't see it right.


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## rboklewski (Oct 17, 2006)

bump, anybody else have an idea? Somebody has to have a fix or at least know of the problem.  So again ive fixed the macs sending attachments to pc's by appending filename extensions checkbox in the preferences in entourage.  All pc's can now view the attachments correctly.  But what about the other way around, pc's sending attachments to macs, Macs CANNOT see the right file type. It shows up as a blank icon.  Anybody who has an idea please let me know or email me at rboklewski(at)pfwmedia.com


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## MisterMe (Oct 17, 2006)

If the Mac recipient does not have *Excel* installed, then *Excel* spreadsheet attachments will not display with the expected icon.


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## fryke (Oct 17, 2006)

Okay, but even _if_ the attachment doesn't have the Excel icon, can you still _open_ the file in Excel on the Mac? I.e.: What happens if you drag the attachment to the Excel icon in your Dock?


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## rboklewski (Oct 17, 2006)

excel is installed, and if i go into excel and do file open it works, but i want them not to have to do that when opening attachments, it should show up as the right document with the programs installed.


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## fryke (Oct 17, 2006)

Okay. Something else to test. If you mail an Excel file from Macintosh A to Macintosh A (yes I mean what I just wrote), does the file _then_ have the correct icon?


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## rboklewski (Oct 17, 2006)

mac to mac fine, mac to pc fine, pc to mac NOT fine.


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## eric2006 (Oct 18, 2006)

If you do a get-info on an excel file, is excel set as the default program to open with? Also, click the change all button once you set excel to open .xcl files.
It should look like this (but with excel files), if properly configured:


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## MisterMe (Oct 18, 2006)

eric2006 said:


> If you do a get-info on an excel file, is excel set as the default program to open with? Also, click the change all button once you set excel to open .xcl files.
> It should look like this (but with excel files), if properly configured:


The proper extension for *Excel* is .xls and not .xcl. Also, Microsoft *Word* and Microsoft *Excel* are different apps.


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## fryke (Oct 18, 2006)

He _did_ say "like this but with excel files", so I guess eric2006 knew that.  If it _still_ happens after setting everything on the Mac to automatically handle .xls-files with Excel (which it normally is, _anyway_!), I think it would have to be something to do with how the PC encodes attachments. There are a _lot_ of possible ways an E-Mail client can encode attachments, and I'm pretty sure that some of them can mess up such things.


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## rboklewski (Oct 18, 2006)

Yeah it just sucks. But, also my macs are still on office 2001 which runs in classic, and my entourage 2004 runs in osx.  I wonder if the older version is the cause.  All my word docs, excel docs on my mac show up with the right icon, just when i receive attachments from pc's.


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## fryke (Oct 18, 2006)

ah! now *there's* the culprit. AFAIK, Entourage (for OS X) can't see the Classic apps as file handlers correctly. So there's one solution: Install and use Office 2004.


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## rboklewski (Oct 18, 2006)

Yeah i bet that is it, but the problem is that i would need to upgrade like 12 computers, i have to somehow convince the bean counters that we need it, which is always fun in any event


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## rboklewski (Oct 18, 2006)

but how come when i attach an excel doc or word doc it shows up with the correct icon when it is attached?  I think it is that my office is outdated and can handle the newer office docs from my pc users?????


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## MisterMe (Oct 18, 2006)

rboklewski said:


> Yeah it just sucks. But, also my macs are still on office 2001 which runs in classic, and my entourage 2004 runs in osx.  I wonder if the older version is the cause.  All my word docs, excel docs on my mac show up with the right icon, just when i receive attachments from pc's.


If you are running Classic, launch Classic's *Internet* control panel.
Click on the _Advanced_ tab.
Scroll down to find the .xls extension.
Is it associated with *Excel*?
If it does not exist, add it.
If it does but is associated with a different app, change it.
You may do the same thing with the .xl, .xlc, .xlm, and .xlw extensions.


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## rboklewski (Oct 18, 2006)

yeah i checked those and added the extensions .xls and associated it with excel, but no luck.  I thought that might do it...ARGGGH


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## rboklewski (Oct 18, 2006)

I also did the same thing with word with no luck either.  I wonder if there is a fix or work around with this. You would think so, but then again we are talking office running in classic and our entourage 2004 in osx.  I don't know. I have another problem if any of you guys want to take a stab at it.  I want entourage to read emails from the server, but it looks like it downloads the emails locally, which slows down our macs drastically.  If anyone has that fix for this i would pay you


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## rboklewski (Oct 24, 2006)

Anyone?


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