Excel mac & win

M

Milton

When I email an excel mac file to my pc at home, it won't
properly open. I get all those little symbols instead of
a spreadsheet. I tried all the suggested remedies, like
saving it in a .txt file, but no luck. Any suggestions?
 
J

JE McGimpsey

First, what versions are you using?

Second, what are "those little symbols"?

I don't know who you're getting suggestions from, but I'd question their
expertise. I email files from my Mac to both Mac and Windows clients
daily, and saving as a .txt file is definitely *not* the approach I'd
use. The file formats for MacXL and WinXL are identical, so something
else is going on. Couple of suggestions:

1) Make sure you add file extensions to your Mac workbooks (e.g., .xls).

2) Make sure your email client's file encoding is AppleDouble, which
should work for both Mac and Windows. If it's already AppleDouble, it
may help to change it to MIME/Base 64 for Windows recipients.

3) Sometimes mail servers (especially Windows mail servers for some
reason - I've never had a problem with UNIX servers) munge emailed XL
files. Try zipping/stuffing your file on the Mac before emailing. If you
use Stuffit, there's a free Windows Stuffit Expander at the Stuffit
website.

4) I've had a couple of clients for whom the above didn't work
(something about their internal networks). For them I uploaded the file
to my ftp site, then emailed them a link to the file. They could then
download it without a problem.
 
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