only send a link to the attachment, NOT the whole file

[Travis]

How do you prevent Outlook from attaching the entire file
to an email when you only want to send a shortcut to the
file.
Attempts to attach an existing shortcut ALSO insert the
entire file into the email. This is HIGHLY undesirable as
we are dealing with 30+ MB files.

Thanks,

 

[Dan Williams]

I'm struggling with this, too.

I find that I can create a message in Rich Text mode, and then go to
an existing link-type file and Copy and Paste it into the message,
where it gets pasted as

mydocname.doc.lnk

....which is great, BUT then when the person receiving it does a Save
As to put the link somewhere, THEN Outlook...guess what...pastes the
whole target document there instead! Any other things to try?

Dan W.

 

[Dan Williams]

Oops, THAT DID WORK!

Sorry, my thinking goy muddled. The icon copied by Save As contains
the whole Path of the original document, which means it IS a link to
the original document -- just what we wanted -- not a pasted copy of
it.

So, to repeat:

(1) Go into the folder of the document.

(2) Right-Click on it to create a Shortcut to it.

(3) Copy and paste that Shortcut into a message.

The person receiving the message cannot use the Shortcut from within
the e-mail. They will have to save it to their desktop or somewhere,
either by using Save As or by dragging it.

Dan

P.S. If you want the opposite -- for it to work from in the e-mail
but not be copyable to a place outside the e-mail, you can type it in
as an HTML link, e.g.

file:///h:/sharedirectory/mydocument.doc

(I have not been able to get this to work if the file name has spaces
in it, although I think I've tried all the suggestions about using < >
brackets.)

 

[DDM]

file:///h:/sharedirectory/mydocument.doc

(I have not been able to get this to work if the file name has spaces
in it, although I think I've tried all the suggestions about using < >
brackets.)

Dan, just put the whole thing in double quotes (" "), including the file://
part.

 

[Dan Williams]

Thanks!! I thought I had tried everything. (Actually, it's been so
long since I gave up, I lost track of all the combinations that I had
tried.)

The double quotes work in an HTML-format message. When the text is
converted to a link, the quotes disappear.

For me this does not work directly in a Rich-Text-format message.
However, I CAN paste the HTLM link into the Rich Text message, and
that link works. (When I do that, the Rich Text link now magically
has < > brackets around it.)

Thanks again!

Dan