How to make sure image file can be seen by others

  • Thread starter Thread starter Don W
  • Start date Start date
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Don W

My QUESTION is ... is there anything I can do to increase the
chances of the recipient being able to see the image file I send
with my emails?

Sometimes the image of a document which I email from my Eudora
cannot be seen by the recipient.


THE DETAILS ARE AS FOLLOWS.

The recipient of my image file *may* be in a local authority or
hospital or other organisation where they're probably using a PC
with a restricted version of Win2000 or WinXP which is supplied by
a central computer department. I would hazard a guess that
they're using an emailler like Outlook or Outlook Express or
Exchange.

I send GIFs or JPGs because they're common formats and they're
sutable enough for creating an image of a paper document. (TIFF
seems a bit unusual and BMP creates too big a file.)

So why might the recipient not be able to see these images?

Is Microsoft Fax And Picture Viewer something which comes with all
Win2000 and WinXP systems? I can't really send them a basic
viewer because they probably do not have system rights to install
or run it.

Could zooming the image to read the text be a problem for the
inexperienced recipient?

Could the way my Eudora emailler attaches files be awkward. I
have set it to use MIME.

What is the best approach?
 
Don said:
My QUESTION is ... is there anything I can do to increase the
chances of the recipient being able to see the image file I send
with my emails?

Sometimes the image of a document which I email from my Eudora
cannot be seen by the recipient.


THE DETAILS ARE AS FOLLOWS.

The recipient of my image file *may* be in a local authority or
hospital or other organisation where they're probably using a PC
with a restricted version of Win2000 or WinXP which is supplied by
a central computer department. I would hazard a guess that
they're using an emailler like Outlook or Outlook Express or
Exchange.

I send GIFs or JPGs because they're common formats and they're
sutable enough for creating an image of a paper document. (TIFF
seems a bit unusual and BMP creates too big a file.)

So why might the recipient not be able to see these images?

Is Microsoft Fax And Picture Viewer something which comes with all
Win2000 and WinXP systems? I can't really send them a basic
viewer because they probably do not have system rights to install
or run it.

Could zooming the image to read the text be a problem for the
inexperienced recipient?

Could the way my Eudora emailler attaches files be awkward. I
have set it to use MIME.

What is the best approach?
Click to expand...

It depends on what you are trying to do. Are these image files for
business purposes or are you a home user wanting to share photos of
your grandchild? It makes a difference.

If you are trying to send a product manual or catalogue for instance,
you'd be better off creating a .pdf file which can be read on most
platforms.

Many corporate mail servers strip out certain attachments and opening
attachments is bad practice anyway. If you tell us your end goal with
these images, perhaps we can suggest a better way of getting the
information to your recipients.

Malke
 
The said:
A 100% reliable way is sending your image as *file* attachment and
make sure your mail in plain text format.
Click to expand...

Bad advice. Windows users should *not* be opening attachments unless
they are expecting one. Even then they should be careful.

And if you want to include your homepage in your posts, put it in your
signature. Otherwise it just looks like you are a spammer (see my
previous post to you). See these links for correct Usenet procedures:

http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm


Malke
 
It depends on what you are trying to do. Are these image files
for business purposes or are you a home user wanting to share
photos of your grandchild? It makes a difference.

If you are trying to send a product manual or catalogue for
instance, you'd be better off creating a .pdf file which can be
read on most platforms.

Many corporate mail servers strip out certain attachments and
opening attachments is bad practice anyway. If you tell us your
end goal with these images, perhaps we can suggest a better way
of getting the information to your recipients.

Malke
Click to expand...


Hi Maulke,


=DOCUMENTS=
I would be sending images of documents which I have created myself by
scanning at home. I might get a letter which I want them to see. So
I scan it into a GIF (or JPG) and send that to the other person. As
I said before, they often say they can't see it.

-=USE EMAILER TO SEE IMAGE=-
You mention later in this thread that Windows users should not be
opening attachments and I suspect that that may be part of the
problem.

In other words, my recipients have to see the image within the frame
or page of the email. So maybe they never get to see my image in
even the most basic graphics viewer.

-=USE OF BROWSER=-
Do you think I could somehow send the file in a way which would allow
the recipient to see it in his browser? He is likely, for better or
for worse, to be using Internet Explorer and that helps to
standardise the viewer. I could in a worsst case post the document
to some webspace and send a link though I don't like that.

-=PROBLEM=-
However AFAICT Internet Explorer does not allow the user to zoom an
image. And I find it nearly impossible to resize/resample images to
get them to the right size. In fact I would have to make an
assumption about screen resultion aalthough I suspect 1024 x 768 is
probably safe enough.

Does anyone have any good ideas on how to approach this?
 
Don said:
=DOCUMENTS=
I would be sending images of documents which I have created myself by
scanning at home. I might get a letter which I want them to see. So
I scan it into a GIF (or JPG) and send that to the other person. As
I said before, they often say they can't see it.

-=USE EMAILER TO SEE IMAGE=-
You mention later in this thread that Windows users should not be
opening attachments and I suspect that that may be part of the
problem.

In other words, my recipients have to see the image within the frame
or page of the email. So maybe they never get to see my image in
even the most basic graphics viewer.

-=USE OF BROWSER=-
Do you think I could somehow send the file in a way which would allow
the recipient to see it in his browser? He is likely, for better or
for worse, to be using Internet Explorer and that helps to
standardise the viewer. I could in a worsst case post the document
to some webspace and send a link though I don't like that.

-=PROBLEM=-
However AFAICT Internet Explorer does not allow the user to zoom an
image. And I find it nearly impossible to resize/resample images to
get them to the right size. In fact I would have to make an
assumption about screen resultion aalthough I suspect 1024 x 768 is
probably safe enough.

Does anyone have any good ideas on how to approach this?
Click to expand...

OK, first of all if you are scanning in documents the file size will be
quite large. That in itself could be a deterrent to successfully
sending the images. If your recipients are on dialup, you're not doing
them any favors and also most ISPs limit the size of an attachment to
(in some cases) 1 or 1.5MB. A scanned image can easily be twice that.
You can use the Image Resizer power toy from Microsoft or Irfanview
(both free) to resize the images.

For documents, you might want to create the documents in a PDF creator
and that way you don't need to worry about what operating system or
browser the recipient is using. Acrobat Standard is quite expensive,
but I believe that you can create .pdf files in OpenOffice (free) and
the most recent of MS Word might have a .pdf creator in it (you'd have
to check). With .pdf files, all the recipient needs is a free viewer,
although .pdf files can be large, too.

Depending on what you want to share, the "homepage" type website or
Flickr-type photo sharing sites are a good solution. That way people
can see what you want to share and only download what they want. Most
of these sites allow you to create a "members only" webpage.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
http://www.irfanview.com

Malke
 
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