Attaching Word Documents to Mail

What do you mean by "it never leaves the computer?"

Any file you attach to an email is essentially copied from the original file. Say you have a word doc on the desktop and drag it to an email, the file on the desktop will not go anywhere. What goes with the email is a copy of that file on the desktop.

The only time an ISP has any effect on attachments is when the attachment is too big. Many ISP's have a maximum file size limit that they will transfer via email. My ISP has a very large limit of around 10MB (I think) but I can still have issues with large email attachments due to the recipient's ISP might not like a large attachment. (don't forget the email could go through a few stages in its journey where attachment size limits could be applied).

Usually if there is a problem the ISP will reject (ie "bounce back") the email altogether and you will receive in return an email pointing this out.

As far as I understand things, attachments in emails are wholly part of the email, not separate entities, when the email is being delivered. The email and attachment make up just one file, when in transit, so its not like the attachment can just get "lost" or un-attached along the way. The email "file" would have to be analyzed and intentionally changed somewhere along the line for the attachment to be lost.

Emails are often "analyzed", of course, for viruses - but if a virus is found the whole email, with all attachments is quarantined, so again, I can't see this being the explanation to your missing Word docs.

Have you tried sending word attachments to yourself? If you can replicate the problem this way then it rules out any problems the recipient may have. When there is an email issue like this its easy to assume its the senders fault when sometimes its the fault of the recipient. For eg its not your fault if the recipient has some over enthusiastic spam/virus filters that remove your attachments.

Also, have you looked in your "Sent" email folder? Do your emails and attached word docs appear in there once they are sent?

I assume you are not sending mail through some sort of corporate email system or running your own email server etc. (?)

It sounds to me like the problem is not mail but the ISP you use to send mail. It is quite common to have numerous email accounts with different suppliers, but to use just the one server to send emails. I am guessing you are using smtp? This can found in Mail -> preferences -> accounts and click through your various accounts in the left hand pane to see what "outgoing mail server" is being used. I'm just suspecting a problem with the outgoing mail server.

Its still freaking weird though! I am struggling to see why the sort of file you attach could make any difference. The size of the file might though. All any mail server sees is an email - it shouldn't notice what sort of attachment is in place. I can only think that some sort of virus checker might be finding some issue! Does your email provider have these in place and switched on?

Just to be totally clear: you save your word doc on the desktop, then drag it to an open new mail message window. You type the address, subject etc and click send ... and the result is no mail for the recipient - including yourself!

Can ask how big your typical word docs are? (control -click the wrd file and select "get info"), and the ISP/email supplier you use to send the problem emails?

I have to admit I am kind of brainstorming here - I'm surprised no one else has chipped in yet!

To be honest I'm a bit stumped by this one Blinky.

You could try "zipping" the word file before you attach it (control click the word doc and select "make archive". This would not only make the file smaller but it would change the file type to a .zip from a .doc.

The other thing to do is to make the Word file into a PDF. For what its worth, I always use PDF when I send Word type documents to people. Although in practise Word docs are a pretty universal format, the format was never really designed to be a used for file sharing. PDF was specifically designed for this job. Indeed I always recommend folk to use PDF when sending text based documents.

If you find out what's going on with the word docs do post back here.

Hopefully, someone else will post with a fix.