Emailing JPEGs to Windows users

[thomasp]

I'm having problems e-mailing image files (specifically JPEGs - mainly ones I create/edit in Photoshop) from Mail.app on OSX 10.4.8 to Windows users who have Photoshop installed.

If I just attach the file to an e-mail, the Windows user often gets a message saying "Unable to open due to unknown or invalid jpeg marker type found" when they try and open the JPEG in Photoshop (they haven't tried it elsewhere). But, I saved it as a JPEG in Photoshop on my mac!

This isn't just my computer, as I've heard of others with this problem.


The only way around it is to click the "Send as Windows Friendly Attachment", but the Help pages advise against doing this for Mac users. I don't want to have to e-mail people and ask them "Do you have a Mac or a Windows-based computer?" before I send them a file.

Am I doing something wrong in Photoshop that's preventing Windows users from opening my files?

 

[wordmunger]

How are you creating the jpeg? Are you using the "save for web" feature? If not, try that.

I suppose you could open and resave the image in preview before sending; that might help.

What extension are you using? If you used .jpg instead of .jpeg, that might be more PC-friendly.

 

[mkrishnan]

Just turn on the "windows friendly attachments." It doesn't do any harm. It's been on all the time constantly in my Mail.app and I never thought about turning it off. You really don't need to turn it off for Mac users.

 

[thomasp]

Thanks for the replies

How are you creating the jpeg? Are you using the "save for web" feature? If not, try that.

Will try that.

I suppose you could open and resave the image in preview before sending; that might help.

While that is an option, it's quite time-consuming for a large number of files

What extension are you using? If you used .jpg instead of .jpeg, that might be more PC-friendly.

I always use .jpg - I don't think I've ever used .jpeg!

Just turn on the "windows friendly attachments." It doesn't do any harm. It's been on all the time constantly in my Mail.app and I never thought about turning it off. You really don't need to turn it off for Mac users.

What does the Windows Friendly Attachments thingy do? I didn't really understand the help file on that topic.


Also, I'm sure I've sent JPEGs saved in Photoshop to other Windows users fine before, but one person (who has PS installed on their PC) always gets the same error from all Mac users who send them JPEGs - could it be a problem at their end?

 

[mkrishnan]

Basically, Windows Friendly has to do with something called forks in OS X. Files in OS X can have two "forks" -- a "resource" fork that contains metadata and other things like this about a file, and a "data" fork that contains the actual data. The "data" fork of a Mac document file is essentially equivalent to the full file on Windows, which doesn't have forks.

For documents, the only things you might lose when you strip the resource fork are things like spotlight comments or custom icons you added to the file. For binaries and other more complex things, it's a different story.

But basically, almost every Mac app has been designed to create document files interchangeable with Windows, and so they do not put anything terribly crucial in the resource fork of documents. So stripping it on file transfer is a pretty innocuous thing.

And so, most users set Mail to send Windows Friendly Attachments and Always Use File Extensions, and then promptly forget that these two settings even exist.

 

[heehee]

Do you have a friend or co-worker that uses a PC? Try sending the file to them and see if they can open it. If they work, it's the other guys problem.

 

[zakatov]

if it's from Photoshop, make sure that this setting is set to always append. Otherwise PS will make a JPEG that only OSX sees as JPED without the extention, PCs woun't.

 

[thefunkymunky]

Ironically. When I turn on the "Send as Windows Friendly Attachment" in Mail my PC friends cant read any files I send them. When I turn that feature off. Everything works.