On 9/18/10 8:15 AM, "Hendrik Velthuis" <[email protected]> wrote:
> I thought Macs were going to be easy! This is hell! We have deadlines and > simple .xls can't even be received properly! That's more than 90% of the > business world we can no longer interact with! Ridiculous! > > H When there are "universal standards" but the 900 pound Gorilla in the room (in this case Microsoft) flaunts those standards, you're absolutely correct; the 10% of the world (thankfully, increasing) that doesn't use Windows must adapt. I know you're frustrated and think this is an Apple problem, but let me give you an example of why we all benefit from those standards. I work as an informal consultant with a midsized healthcare company. I use their web-based electronic medical record every day. Because "everyone" uses Windows and "everyone uses IE," they built this product using Microsoft Visual Studio and made no attempts to make it compatible with other browsers, whether or not those potential users were running Windows, Mac OS X, or some other flavor of UNIX. Won't run properly in Firefox for Windows, CERTAINLY won't run properly on any browser in the Mac OS. They developed it when the IE of the moment was IE5. Many formatting elements and scripts broke when Microsoft released IE6, others broke with the release of IE7, and a few when MS released IE8. So, even the 90% of the world that follows the MS Windows path suffered (well, actually the tiny portion of the 90% that use this product, but I'll wager many others who are constrained to use "IE-only" products have suffered the same inconveniences. I'm a bit curious about your first post. You say you're "POP"ing messages into Entourage or Apple Mail from Gmail. Were those messages originally COMPOSED in Gmail? And does anyone here know if Gmail has an option to send in (Microsoft Proprietary) RTF format? In Outlook 2007, if one composes a message and selects "Format as Rich Text" a warning pops up that says the message will only be readable by Outlook or Exchange users. So, if I read what others here have said correctly, the messages MUST have been composed originally in Outlook or Exchange. I just did a little test. I composed a message in Windows Outlook 2007, added an Excel file (.xlsx), and emailed it to a POP account on my Mac. It came to me just fine. I did it again, this time using Outlook as an Exchange Server client using Outlook Web Access (which, probably fortunately, cannot create messages in Rich Text Format). Once again, no problem receiving the message. Third test: back in the Windows Office Outlook 2007 client, compose a message in Rich Text Format, add the Excel file, send it to a POP account in Entourage: this time, the Excel file appears as an icon in the body of the message, and when it arrives to be read in Entourage, THE EXCEL FILE IS LISTED AS AN ATTACHMENT AND OPENS JUST FINE! (I had expected a winmail.dat file). Where the outgoing message had an Excel document in the body of the message, the message as it arrived in Entourage contained a line displaying the following characters: <<...>> So, it there are still some curiosities here. Microsoft claims I shouldn't be able to parse the attachment except in Outlook or if I'm connected to an Exchange Server (at the moment, within Entourage 2008, I'm not), but it comes to me just fine. Then there's the issue of the source of your messages, which you say is Gmail. Anyone get any "lightbulb moments" from this? Jim Robertson -- -- YouTalk mailing list List information: http://www.entourage.mvps.org/support_options/list.html List moderator: [email protected], [email protected] To unsubscribe: mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe
