Sending files from Mac to PC = DAT format? Help!!!

Hey all,

Problem: When I send Word, Excel, jpeg, PDF, Tiff etc...files from my Mac to my friend who has a PC, he can't open anything because it is in dat format.


The strange thing is: He can sometimes open some of the files! The problem is almost always, however the times when he can open a Word file for example is very rare.


What cause file to be converted to .dat format? How can it be prevented?



Thanks!

Hi URFLiX, first of all, welcome to Mac Forums!

Can you describe how you are doing the send? I share these sorts of files all the time with friends and family on PCs, and have not encountered this issue. I use both email (Mac Mail and/or Thunderbird) and FTP (via a shared FTP site).

What email program are you using?

Sounds like it is they way attachments are encoded that is causing the problem

I've heard of Outlook encoding a "winmail.dat" file that only other Outlook users seem to be able to decode without the assistance of a third party app...

I've never heard about any other programs generating these files... Are you using Entourage, maybe? Perhaps Microsoft evil TNEF problem doesn't live only in Outlook?

Try googling "winmail.dat viewer" and see if one of the third party utilities is able to help...

One never knows...

J