On 12/17/01 8:30 AM, "Steve Sell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 12/17/01 11:24 AM, "Bill Cameron" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> I received an email from a client this morning with an attachment called >> "winmail.dat". It was supposed to contain 5 HTML documents. What can I do to >> see inside this winmail file, if anything? The client is out of reach and >> the files need to be posted! >> >> Thanks! >> >> -Bill Cameron >> > > > It's what happens when people who use Outlook on the PC have their client > set to format their mail in the (Microsoft proprietary) rich text format. > They can correct this by setting their mail format to HTML or plain text. > This of course assumes that their outlook server isn't set to override this > setting. > > There is a utility that someone wrote to decode the winmail.dat files. If > you go to http://www.versiontracker.com/ and search for "TNEF", you should > find it. The utility is called "TNEF's Enough." > The issue is a little complicated by the fact that 95% of the time the winmail.dat files contain nothing but the rich text version of the message - no genuine attachments at all. Thus senders get very confused when you ask them to resend the attachments - there weren't any. But in the other 5%, like here, the same winmail.dat will also contain the real attachments too. Most of the time, the Outlook sender doesn't even know what format he's sending in - RTF is the default. They usually don't want to change their default. He or she can set individual users (like you, if you ask) in their Address Book to be sent plain text, but not HTML. (Ask for that.) If they are sending from work with Outlook in corporate mode, the Exchange Server there can remove the winmail.dat business as the message leaves, I'm told, but it doesn't often seem to be set that way. -- Paul Berkowitz -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To search the archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
