Receivers can't read my Word attachments

W

wemdu2

When I attach a Word file to an email, many recipients can't read them --
they come up as gibberish. With the help of my email recipients, I have
identified the problem - the file type is identified as an
application/applefile (i.e., a file from a Mac), rather than as an
application/word (a file generated from Word). However, I have not been able
to stop this from happening. I have tried reinstalling word, I have tried
re-registering Word and it continues to happen. I am using Office XP.
 
G

Guest

If it is only SOME and not ALL of the recipients, then it has nothing to do
with Word. This is nearly always an overzealous Anti-Virus scanner (usually
the ISP's service) that is killing the documents.

When the recipients receive the attachments, do they still have the .doc
extension? Have you tried zipping the document (using WinZip or similar
utility) and then sending it?
 
T

Tony Jollans

Are you sending from a Mac? This sounds like the Mac equivalent of the
winmail.dat problem. If it is, then the reason is to do with Outlook
bundling HTML mail and attachments into a single file which only Outlook
(well not quite only Outlook - but most other mail clients fail) can
understand. To solve - either Google for an unscrambler or make sure you
send the mail as Plain Text.
 
W

wemdu2

No I am not sending from a Mac. That is why this is weird. I am sending from
a PC and have no Mac software. And I am not sending from Outlook - it happens
when I send from both Yahoo and AOL.com.

I called Microsoft support and they had me reset the default programs on my
Internet Explorer and that temporarily solved the problem (don't know why),
but the next day I sent another file and its filetype was identified as
application/octetstream rather than application/msword. (Previously the
filetype was changing from application/msword to application/applefile)

And in response to the previous answer, would someone's anti-virus software
change the filetype from application/msword (what I'm actually sending) to
application/applefile (which is not what I'm sending)? THat appears to change
whether the person can read it or not. For example, if I send a document from
my AOL to my Yahoo account, I can pick up the document, but it's identified
as application/applefile.
 
T

Tony Jollans

I could easily get out of my depth here but I'm not sure the
application/applefile type is relevant. What is the extension (the
characters after the final dot in the filename) of the file?

Does this only happen with Word files sent as attachments? Are Excel files,
or PDFs or zip files received correctly?

To be honest I'm surprised you got anything out of Microsoft support if the
problem occurs when you use AOL. I could easily believe that this is being
caused by AOL who may be able to help you but, first, have you tried sending
the mail as plain text?
 
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