winmail attachments

B

b veghte

I receive winmail.dat attachments which I cannot open .all applications I try
give me error messages saying it is either not decoded properly or is
corrupted.thank you
 
D

Dave Cortright

I receive winmail.dat attachments which I cannot open .all applications I try
give me error messages saying it is either not decoded properly or is
corrupted.thank you
Click to expand...

Tell the people sending you these mails *NOT* to send you RTF formatted
mails, send them as HTML. You can also use TNEF's Enough if you want to
decode them.
 
G

Guest

....so no microsoft attachment files can be opened or converted on my
computer (!)?
 
P

Paul Berkowitz

It's not "any microsoft attachment files".

All messages sent from Microsoft Outlook (ONLY - not Outlook Express) in
"RTF" (Rich Text Format) mode have these winmail.dat attachments (unless
their Exchange Server has been programmed to strip it out) - even if there
was no real attachment sent - when received by other email clients,
including all Mac email readers. 95% of the time they contain nothing (just
the formatting for the message which you will get in plain text instead).
The trouble is that the other 5% of the time they also contain real
attachments. If you get any of these, you _can_ open them with a utility
"TNEF's Enuf" from www.versiontracker.com.

The best thing to do is what Dave said - ask your correspondents sending
these to send you messages in HTML (if they want to format them) or plain
text, NOT in RTF. In all earlier versions of Outlook, RTF was unfortunately
the default format. Even there, your regular correspondents can set you in
their Contacts folder (Address Book) to always get plain text by default,
and you won't have this problem, if they're not going to remember to change
messages to you to HTML or plain. Fortunately in the newest version of
Outlook - 2003 - HTML is now the default. So this problem will eventually
fade away, but not for a while.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - **2004**, X
or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.
 
B

Barry Wainwright

I receive winmail.dat attachments which I cannot open .all applications I try
give me error messages saying it is either not decoded properly or is
corrupted.thank you
Click to expand...

Winmail.dat and/or application/ms-tnef files are sent by Windows users of
Outlook or Exchange who have their mail clients set up to use ŒRTF¹ instead
of plain text or HTML.

Usually they only contain a styled text version of the message you have just
read in plain text, but they can contain encoded attachments that you can¹t
usually get to.

Fortunately, there is an excellent little application that lets you read
these files and extract the attachments, called ³TNEF¹s Enough², by Josh
Jacob. Here¹s a link that should let you find it on VersionTracker:

<http://www.versiontracker.com/mp/new_search.m?productDB=mac&mode=Quick&OS_F
ilter=MacOSX&search=tnef& ;x=14&y=8

Better still, contact you correspondent and ask them to reset their mail
client prefs to use plain text, or at worst, HTML.
 
G

Gordon Murphy

"81) What are winmail.dat files?

Winmail.dat and/or application/ms-tnef files are sent by Windows users of
Outlook or Exchange who have their mail clients set up to use ŒRTF¹ instead
of plain text or HTML.

Usually they only contain a styled text version of the message you have just
read in plain text, but they can contain encoded attachments that you can¹t
usually get to.

TNEF¹s Enough, by Josh Jacob, allows you to extract and read these files and
attachments.

Better still, contact your correspondent and ask them to reset their mail
format from the (MS proprietary) "Rich Text" to either "Plain Text" or
"HTML. If they have you in their Outlook Address Book they can make a
setting to always send you Plain Text automatically."
 
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