(First distributed in January, 2006, Title III Tabloid)

Did you ever get an e-mail attachment, double click on it, and get gobbeldy gook, or a big X or worse? Did you ever wonder why? Well then, you're reading the right tip!

In Groupwise, attachments to an e-mail message can be viewed OR they can be opened. So, what's the difference, you ask? Well, grasshopper, it is subtle, yet important.

• When you VIEW an attachment, you are asking the viewing program inside of Groupwise to display the file. This viewer may be out of date, or it may not know as much about the file as it should, so you often see an incomplete display.
• When you OPEN an attachment, you cause the program that is associated with the file to actually run on your machine and then display the file. For example, opening a Word attachment runs Word and then opens the attached file. This ALWAYS results in the best possible display

How do you choose whether to view or open?

1. Right click on the attached file in the message window. This displays the shortcut menu for that attachment
2. Choose the Open command to launch the associated program and then display the file contents (takes longer, surer display) OR Choose the View Attachment command to view the file contents using the Groupwise viewers (fastest, less dependable display)

You can set whether to view or open on a double click from the Groupwise Tools menu | Options command | Environment option | Default Actions tab. If you have never set this up, then a double click on an attachment views the attached file.