When to send files (and when not to)
Many email systems allow you to attach files to your email notes. This
is a handy feature for the sender, but under some circumstances, a pain
in the neck for the receiver, especially if he doesn't have the right tools
to access the file. Even under the best circumstances, reading an email
note, then saving and opening a file takes significantly longer than just
reading an email note. So you should never send a file when a simple
note would do.
An example: Occasionally, I used to receive email notes saying only
"see attachment." The attachment would invariably turn out to be the
word processing file for a paper memo announcing a meeting. It would
have been a lot easier for me -- and everyone else who received the file
-- if the relevant information had simply been copied into the email
note itself. And copying that information into the note would hardly
have taken the sender any longer than sending the file.
On the other hand, the ability to transmit files is a godsend when your
file contains important formatting (boldface, italics, et cetera) or other
non-text information (a spreadsheet, for example). That's because
many email systems allow only ASCII text in their notes, but attached
files can contain any kind of information. You can also send a file that's
too long to paste into an email note.
All these situations are most likely to arise when both you and your
correspondent are working with the files in question. For example, I
sent
Netiquette to my publisher in the form of files rather than email
notes because (1) it contained important formatting information and (2)
it was long.
When you send a file, it's important to make sure that your correspondent has the application software necessary to open the file. If you're
"uuencoding" your file (an Internet standard), make sure your recipient
can "uudecode" it. And check whether her version of the software is
older than yours. There's nothing more frustrating than trying to open
up, say, a PageMaker file, and discovering that your correspondent has
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