We are an agency with both Mac's and PC's. The Macs currently use
Entourage for email and calendars etc... The PC's use Outlook. The
problem is that when we set up a meeting in Calendar on the PC's and
send out email invites to both Mac and PC users the Mac's can't read
the emails. All the Mac's see is unformated garble - obviously
intended for interpretation on a PC. Is there a trick to solve this,
a plug-in or an upgrade to Entourage? We would LOVE an answer to this
question. With so many agencies running Mac's and PC's I can't
imagine we are the first to experience this issue. Big thanks. David
I believe that Entourage 2004 clients accessing the same Exchange server as
Outlook clients sending invitations should receive email invitations fine.
This was fixed in 2004.
Otherwise (non-Exchange, or different server), using Entourage 2004 or X in
OS X, they should be seeing the invitations as .ics attachments to regular
emails*. The first time these arrive, they would probably have a red iCal
icon. Drag one to the desktop. (If it's actually a .vcs file, change the
extension to .ics.) Control-click (right-click) the file and choose "Get
Info", or press cmd-I to to the same thing. In the Get Info window, select
"Opens With" and select or browse to Entourage. Then click "Change All"
button. The icon will now change to Entourage's. Double-click the file and
it will open as an event window in Entourage, and the event will already be
entered in your Calendar. You don't have the opportunity to Accept, Decline,
etc. as with proper invitations - if you don't want to attend, delete the
event. In future, all .ics attachments will appear with Entourage icons and
you can just double-click them there in the message and they'll open as
events, already entered in the calendar. (If they're .vcs attachments sent
by really old versions of Outlook, you'll have to drag them to desktop and
change the extension to .ics first. This is very rare.)
If you have Entourage 2001 in OS 9 or earlier or Classic, the .ics
attachments may already have Entourage icons and cam open from the message.
If not, drag one to the desktop, double-click it, and tell the File Exchange
dialog that opens that .ics should be opened by Entourage. Or make the
change directly in the File Exchange Control Panel accessed from the Apple
menu (or System/Folder/Extensions/Control Panels).
* If the senders on Outlook send you messages using RTF format, which was
the default before Outlook 2003, you won't see any .ics attachment. As with
every single message from such senders, you'll see only a winmail.dat
attachment, and will have no idea whether there's a real attachment or not
included. You need to get the free "TNEF's Enough" utility from
http://www.versiontracker.com : it has both OS X and Classic versions. It
will open winmail.dat files for you. You should write ALL Outlook
correspondents and request that they send you either Plain Text or HTML
messages in future, not RTF. If they have Outlook 2003, HTML is the default
so you're probably not getting RTF in the first place. Otherwise, for all
versions of Outlook, they can change a setting in the Contact they have for
you that ensures that all messages to you will be in plain text, not RTF.
Then you won't get winmail.dat extensions.
--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <
http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>
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PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.
