Zip file problem w/Windows users

I've successfully (I thought) used the Compress command to create a .zip file consisting of a Word document, about 15 .jpg files and one .pdf file. When I open the .zip file I created on my Mac, sure enough everything's there. Unfortunately, when I sent the .zip file to correspondents who tried to open it on a Windows machine, they could only see the .pdf file; all the others had weird names and would not open in Windows. Any ideas as to how best to solve the problem?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.1), 2gb RAM

Posted on May 2, 2008 7:19 AM

18 replies

rkdav Author

Level 1

15 points

May 2, 2008 12:32 PM in response to etresoft

Thanks to both Scott and etresoft. I have now sent the .zip file to a Windows-using friend, encoding it for Windows and appending the file extensions (.doc, .jpg, etc.) Still no dice. When received by the Windows user, the zip file opens and has three folders inside but the folders do not contain the documents they should contain. I have no idea how to resolve this now. I think the easiest way is just to send the regular files without zipping them to Windows users. Any further ideas would be much appreciated but I think we've just about struck out.

May 2, 2008 12:39 PM in response to rkdav

I am still willing to examine a test email from you, as stated earlier. Perhaps I can explain what is happening.

Ernie

etresoft

Level 9

56,656 points

May 3, 2008 2:31 PM in response to rkdav

Can you have the recipient send the message back to you. There are some issues with cross-platform zip files (namely with .DStore files and ._ files), but nothing that should cause this. I am thinking it could be entirely on that user's machine and perhaps due to their ISP. Usually, using a Zip file is the solution to problems e-mailing attachments, not the cause.

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Zip file problem w/Windows users