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Many of the companies that design mail software haven't a clue.
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Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

How to view images that come in the mail on Windows PCs and Macs


Nov. 20, 2002


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2002, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2002, The Post-Standard

   In the good old days, when Aunt Martha sent pictures of her new poodle, she mailed a few 4-by-6-inch prints. But now Aunt Martha and everybody else in your family probably sends images a faster way. Pictures arrive in your e-mail program.
   That's fine when everything works right. But sometimes you're stuck with attachments your software can't decipher. Try as you might, you simply can't figure out what came in the mail.
   This week, in the last installment of our series on dealing with e-mail attachments, we'll find ways to view images that arrive as attachments on both Windows and Macintosh computers.
   Most images that are sent in e-mail are JPEGs ("jay-pegs"), also called JPGs. They have a huge advantage over most other image formats: JPEG pictures can be quite large and detailed without taking up much space in the attachment. (Smaller files get sent much more quickly.)
   Inexplicably, many of the companies that design mail software haven't a clue when it comes to the way most of us use e-mail. Until recently, most e-mail software wasn't able to show JPEG images. When you got a letter with a JPEG attachment, most programs treated it as a foreign object. The situation was even worse when someone sent an image that wasn't a JPEG. (There are dozens of ways to store an image in a file, and just as many ways to mess up when you want to view them.)
   No-brain mail software is still a major problem on both Windows and Macs. So my first recommendation for everyone who can't seem to view image attachments is simply to get better e-mail software. It might not won't help for images that are attached to non-HTML or non-rich-text mail -- I'll leave the explanation for another time -- but newer software could be a boon otherwise.
   Outlook Express, the e-mail program Microsoft supplies with Windows, usually shows attached JPEGs fine, so Windows users probably have what they need in they're using either Outlook Express or its much more powerful cousin, Outlook. If you have Windows and therefore Outlook Express but still can't view some images, stick around. I'll explain what you can do shortly.
   Users of the old Mac operating system, Mac OS, can install the Mac version of Outlook Express. It's free. Go to www.microsoft.com/mac/download/ and look for the link.
   Displaying JPEGs in your e-mail software probably isn't enough if you do more than a small amount of e-mail. You almost surely need a genuine image viewer. (I've explained why most computer users need an image viewer in a previous article. Go to my Web site's image section and look for an article titled, "Dealing with digital images, Part 2: Why you need a good viewer.")
   Windows users can get Irfan View, a very good image viewer, free from www.irfanview.com. Set it up to handle ALL images. That way, an image of any kind that you get as an attachment will be shown if you simply double click on the attached file. (Run Irfan View. Click the Options Menu. Click "Set File Associations." Click "Images Only." Click the "OK" button.)
   If you have an older Macintosh with Mac OS, you need a good viewer, too. An outstanding viewer is Goldberg, from http://opus.funstaff.ch. It's free.
   If you have a newer Mac with OS X, you have a great viewer already. It's the built-in Preview program. You also have iPhoto, which comes free with modern Macs.
   This is only part of the answer. A problem all of us have now and then is trying to figure out what kind of image the attachment contains. You have to outfox the software in such cases.
   First, save the attachment. You should see one or more files where you saved the stuff. Then run your image editor. In Windows, drag the image file to the title bar of the running image editor and drop it there. If the image editor can figure out what the file is, it will show it. On a modern Mac, hold down Option and Cmd and drag the image file to the viewer's icon in the dock. If the viewer can show it, it will.
   Once you have the mystery image in your viewer, use the "Save As" menu option in the File menu (or the "Export" option if that's what it's called) and save the image as a BMP (in Windows) or PNG (in Windows or Mac). Both file types store images without altering them in any way. --- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.419 / Virus Database: 235 - Release Date: 11/13/2002