Reply with attachment

[Ajay]

Is it possible to reply with the attachment you received without
having to find the file in the temp folder, or go through saving it in
a known folder?

I do a lot of editing of files via email. It would be a lot easier to
do the edit, save, then reply without having to hunt down and do the
attachment dance.

The only work around I've found is to use "forward", which makes you
enter the address of the person you are replying to.

I'm sure this is a feature to protect us against our selves - burning
up too much bandwidth and server space by mindlessly replying with
attachments that don't need to be returned to sender, but hey, some of
us can control ourselves.

Is there an add-on or something out there that make this possible?
--
-Ajay
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[William Lefkovics [MVP]]

Those that control themselves tend to use Forward: and just reenter the same
destination address as reply.

By RFC, reply does not maintain the attachment and forward does maintain the
attachment.

 

[Ajay]

Those that control themselves tend to use Forward: and just reenter the same
destination address as reply.

By RFC, reply does not maintain the attachment and forward does maintain the
attachment.

I'm sorry Mr. Lefkovics, I don't know what RFC means. I do know the
best way to return the attachment is to "forward" the same email with
the changed file, which requires the drudgery of entering all of the
addresses that would have been automatically entered if "reply" was
chosen instead. So I can restate my question which may make it more
clear. Is there an "add-in" or macro that would allow for "reply to
all with attachment(s)?
--
-Ajay
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[Brian Tillman]

I'm sorry Mr. Lefkovics, I don't know what RFC means.

"Request for Comment". RFCs are how Internet standards are codified.

I do know the
best way to return the attachment is to "forward" the same email with
the changed file, which requires the drudgery of entering all of the
addresses that would have been automatically entered if "reply" was
chosen instead. So I can restate my question which may make it more
clear. Is there an "add-in" or macro that would allow for "reply to
all with attachment(s)?

If you've change the attachment it's not the same attachment any more, now
is it? You should NEVER change an attachment without saving to disk forst
and cvhanging it there. And then, once you do, it's a new document. So,
click Reply and then drag yuor changed file to the compose window to
reattach it. How simple can it be?

 

[Ajay]

If you've change the attachment it's not the same attachment any more, now
is it? You should NEVER change an attachment without saving to disk forst
and cvhanging it there. And then, once you do, it's a new document. So,
click Reply and then drag yuor changed file to the compose window to
reattach it. How simple can it be?

Hello Mr. Tillman.
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my posting.

To answer your question simply, it can, or rather should, be as simple
as it is to forward the attachment with the addresses automatically
entered.

Your method is simple, and pretty much what I do now. This not as
simple as it could be. I do not know the work environment you are in,
but in mine, hundreds of documents and spreadsheets are sent to me for
review and editing. That's a lot of clicking and dragging for
changing a sentence to read "shall" instead of "will".

As for it being a different file after my changing it and some rule
requiring save to disk first, I sort of am doing that. When it
arrives through the network it is automatically deposited on my hard
disk in a temp directory. This does not require any action on my
part. When I click save after my edit, it's saved with changes in the
same location with the same file name. I have never lost a file, and
if I did, I am very confident the men in black can fish it out of the
back ups. If it was that important - which is unlikely.

Since something is obviously getting lost in trying to convey how much
simpler I want this to be, let's examine the exact steps I currently
practice:

Email arrives with attachment filename editme.doc
Click: open mail
Read: instructions to edit the document and return to forty seven
people in the cc and to lines this was sent to.
Click: open file
Edit: the file editme.doc
Click: save.
Close: document editme.doc
Click: Forward
ENTER FORTY SEVEN ADDRESS <---this is the drudge work
Click: send

Your method, if I understand you correctly, would be:

Email arrives with attachment filename editme.doc
Click: open mail
Read: instructions to edit the document and return to forty seven
people in the cc and to lines this was sent to.
Click: open file
Edit: the file editme.doc
Click: save, to some specific location other than temp file?
Close: document editme.doc
Click(s)?: Navigate to original email
Click: Reply to all
Click(s)?: Navigate to location of file
Click: Select file
Drag: File to email.
Click: send

I think I got that right.

Now, at long last, to answer your question, the simpler method should
be:

Email arrives with attachment filename editme.doc
Click: open mail
Read: instructions to edit the document and return to forty seven
people in the cc and to lines this was sent to.
Click: open file
Edit: the file editme.doc
Click: save
Close: document editme.doc
Click: "REPLY TO ALL WITH ATTACHMENT" <---this eliminates drudge work
Click: send

It is entirely possible I am missing something very fundamental, but
so far no one has explained what it is. If if what I suggest is a
deadly sin, I would like to know why. This would be such a time saver
for me and the others in the office that someone would likely make a
lot of money creating an add-in macro or something (see, there I go
talking about something I know little about) and sell it to folks like
me.

--
-Ajay
PGP key ID = 0xCC93989F
Key can be found on http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/#extract
or
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Post private responses in news group alt.anonymous.messages
with the word "Ajay" in the subject line.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Your method is simple, and pretty much what I do now. This not as
simple as it could be. I do not know the work environment you are in,
but in mine, hundreds of documents and spreadsheets are sent to me for
review and editing. That's a lot of clicking and dragging for
changing a sentence to read "shall" instead of "will".

I suggest, then, that you're not using the most ideal tool for your
environment. There are document handling systems available that would make
your job easier.

As for it being a different file after my changing it and some rule
requiring save to disk first, I sort of am doing that. When it
arrives through the network it is automatically deposited on my hard
disk in a temp directory.

No, it's not. Outlook does not save the attachment to your hard drive until
you open it for the first time.

This does not require any action on my
part. When I click save after my edit, it's saved with changes in the
same location with the same file name. I have never lost a file, and
if I did, I am very confident the men in black can fish it out of the
back ups. If it was that important - which is unlikely.

Note what you said earlier: "in a temp directory". This should be a big
indication to you that you should not rely in any way on the data in that
folder. It's, by its very nature, temporary and Outlook can delete it at
any time so there is a significant chance that no backup procedure could
recover it. In fact, there's a good chance, since it's on your local hard
drive, that the company's backup procedures don't even attempt to back it
up.

Since something is obviously getting lost in trying to convey how much
simpler I want this to be, let's examine the exact steps I currently
practice:

Email arrives with attachment filename editme.doc
Click: open mail
Read: instructions to edit the document and return to forty seven
people in the cc and to lines this was sent to.
Click: open file
Edit: the file editme.doc
Click: save.
Close: document editme.doc
Click: Forward
ENTER FORTY SEVEN ADDRESS <---this is the drudge work
Click: send

If you insist on this and are willing to run the risk of losing your
changes, you can at this point open the original message, click reply,
select the recipient list from that reply and drag it over to your forward
so you don't have to reenter the list again.

Your method, if I understand you correctly, would be:

Email arrives with attachment filename editme.doc
Click: open mail
Read: instructions to edit the document and return to forty seven
people in the cc and to lines this was sent to.
Click: open file
Edit: the file editme.doc
Click: save, to some specific location other than temp file?
Close: document editme.doc
Click(s)?: Navigate to original email
Click: Reply to all
Click(s)?: Navigate to location of file
Click: Select file
Drag: File to email.
Click: send

I think I got that right.

The way I'd do it is this:

Email arrives with editme.doc attachment. I select the message and read the
editing instructions in the Reading Pane.
Drag the attachment to my desktop and double-click it to open it, make the
changes, then close it, which would save it back to my desktop.
In Outlook, click reply, adding any words I wanted to say
Drag the file from my desktop back to the reply's Compose window.
Click Send.
Possibly delete the file from my desktop or file it in some other folder,
the shortcut to which it also on my desktop so I can simply drag the file to
that shortcut.

Now, at long last, to answer your question, the simpler method should
be:

Email arrives with attachment filename editme.doc
Click: open mail
Read: instructions to edit the document and return to forty seven
people in the cc and to lines this was sent to.
Click: open file
Edit: the file editme.doc
Click: save
Close: document editme.doc
Click: "REPLY TO ALL WITH ATTACHMENT" <---this eliminates drudge work

The problem here is that you'd be replying with the original attachment, not
the one you modified. You'd still need a way to get the modified document
reattached to the message. Nowhere in the above have you allowed for that.

It is entirely possible I am missing something very fundamental, but
so far no one has explained what it is. If if what I suggest is a
deadly sin, I would like to know why.

Well, you didn't post your message as a suggestion, so how was anyone
supposed to know? You stared the original message with "Is it possible,"
not, "It would be nice if Microsoft changes Outlook to allow"

This would be such a time saver
for me and the others in the office that someone would likely make a
lot of money creating an add-in macro or something (see, there I go
talking about something I know little about) and sell it to folks like
me.

I think there are simpler ways to accomplish want without disrupting the
integrity of the original message by trying to modify its contents directly.