Emailing Attachments   E-mail attachments are the busy person's dream come true. These days all your documents begin electronically anyway, and everybody has an e-mail address. You can attach any kind of document to an e-mail faster than printing something and locating a fax machine and waiting for your pages to crawl through. You may never send a fax or overnight document again. E-mailing attachments is not always instantaneous as they are larger than a text-only e-mail. If you are sending a message to an address outside the VA there may be a delay depending on server traffic on your end or theirs. Attachments are limited in size by the e-mail system on either end. If you have to send a file over a megabyte or two, you may find you cannot send it, or your recipient can not receive your attachment. This rule may also apply to attaching several smaller files. Can your recipient open your attachment? They need not only the same program used to create the document, but usually also the same version. Luckily, many of the more popular document creation programs have free downloadable "reader" counterparts. If you have multiple documents to attach, don't add them one at a time, try dragging them all together. First, minimize your message window so you can see the disk containing icons for the attachments you wish to send. Next, multiple select by clicking on the several items to attach while holding down the Cmd key. Then click and drag one of the items over to your message window; all the documents are copied over. Wading through your Inbox for an e-mail containing an attachment? Some e-mail programs will identify messages containing attachments in your Inbox by a icon next to the Subject. For attachments you know you will need to find again consider creating an Attachments folder or other filing system on your disk drive. Having one place to put these items means less time spent searching in the future. As you delete old messages you will not need again, remember this applies especially to messages containing attachments. They take up more space than text only messages. The most rampant computer viruses these days take advantage of our love of e-mail: they are distributed as attachments to messages. If you don't know the sender of the message, you may not want to open their attachment. Attachments can be a hindrance to communication. Remember your readers have to go through an extra step to open and read your attachment. If you can instead put the contents of your attachment into the actual message you will improve your readership. Back to Tip of the Month

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