I often send attachments to Outlook Express users that receive the images as embedded, even thought I send them as attachments. If the user is just viewing the file, this is fine. If a user needs to save the file, it’s another annoying story. Where one should be able to right click the image and choose “Save as”, doing so will often cause an error. The user’s only choice is to copy/paste the image from the 72 dpi screen image and loose any quality you might have needed from the original file.
I’ve been researching and still don’t exactly know why this happens, but I have some ideas. I’ve read it has something to do with Internet Explorer 7. IE7 does something to Outlook that causes this error. It’s some bug, and it needs to be squashed.
In the meantime, I have some tips for sending and receiving those files.
How to extract embedded images:
- Ask the sender to zip the image and resend. That should keep it as an attachment you can save.
- Upgrade to a newer version of Outlook.
- Use another version of Internet Explorer that isn’t 7 after you uninstall IE7. You may need to reinstall Outlook Express again.
- Uninstall Internet Explorer, install Firefox or Safari and use one of those to browse instead. You may need to reinstall Outlook Express again.
- You can also try this handy tip.
- While in Outlook go to: Tools –> Options –> Send.
- Uncheck “Reply to messages in the format in which they were sent.”
- Forward the message to yourself. It should arrive in a format with attachment.
