10 Minute Guide to Lotus Notes Mail 4.5 - 13 - Attaching Files In this lesson, you learn how to create and manage file attachments. You'll also learn how to detach and launch file attachments. Understanding Attachments There may be times when you want to send a file to someone through e-mail. That file might be a Lotus Notes database, a spreadsheet, a word processing document, a compressed file, a graphic file, or a scanned photograph of your grandchildren-- just about any type of file. In Lotus Notes, you can attach an entire file within the rich text field, or body, of your mail message and send it. The file you attach is a copy, so your original stays intact on your computer. The user who receives your mail can detach your file and save it. If the recipient has the same application program in which the file was created, she can launch the application. Launching opens the file in its native application. Attachments can only be placed in rich text fields and the body of the mail message is the only rich text field in the Mail Message form. Creating Attachments To attach a file to a Lotus Notes mail message: 1. Create the mail message. Make sure your insertion point (cursor) is in the message body at the exact point where you want the attachment to appear. 2. Choose File, Attach, or click the File Attach SmartIcon. The Create Attachments dialog box appears as shown in Figure 13.1. Figure 13.1 The Create Attachments dialog box. 3. In the Create Attachments dialog box, enter the name of the file you want to attach in the File name box and then specify its location by choosing the correct drive and directory, or folder. Or specify the location first and then select the file name from the list. 4. The compress file box is enabled by default. You should leave this box checked. Timesaver Tip: Compressed files will transfer faster than those that are not compressed. However, it might take a little longer to attach the file to your message because Notes compresses the file during the attachment process. A compressed file will also take up less disk space on the server. 5. Click the Create button. The attached file appears as an icon within the body of your mail message. Timesaver Tip: Click and Drag Attachments In Windows 3.1, you can attach a file using the File Manager; in Windows 95, you use the Windows Explorer. Simply set up your desktop so you can see two windows at once (choose Windows, Tile in Windows 3.1; click the right mouse button on the taskbar in Windows 95 and select Tile Vertically or Tile Horizontally). Create the mail message in the Lotus Notes window. Then drag the File icon from the File Manager or Windows Explorer window into your Lotus Notes window and drop it into your document. The appearance of the icon depends on the type of file it represents and whether or not you have the original software that this file was created in installed on your PC. If you are attaching a Lotus 1-2-3 file, you'll see a Lotus 1-2-3 icon in your mail message. If the file is a Microsoft Word file, you see a Microsoft Word icon in your mail message. If you don't have native software installed for that file, you see a generic document icon. When you receive mail that has an attachment, a Paper Clip icon appears next to the mail message in your Inbox. (See Figure 13.2.) Figure 13.2 A Paper Clip icon in the Inbox shows a mail message with an attachment. Viewing, Detaching, or Launching an Attachment When you receive an attached file, you can view the file to see what it is, even if you don't have the application that runs it. Open the mail message, double-click the attachment icon, and click the View button in the Properties box (see Figure 13.3). Be aware that when you view the file this way, the files you see are unformatted; they're straight text only. Once you finish looking at the file, press Esc to get out of the view. Figure 13.3 The Attachment Properties box. Panic Button: You Can't View the Lotus WordPro Document Attachment? WordPro is one exception; you must have WordPro installed in order to view a WordPro document. The Properties box also gives you information about the attached file: its name, the size of the file, and the date and time it was last modified. If you want to look at an attached file in the application in which it was created, you can launch the application from within mail, or detach it. 1. Double-click the File icon. 2. Click the Detach button on the Properties box. 3. In the Save Attachment dialog box (see Figure 13.4), specify the file name you want to give the detached file, and the drive and directory (or folder) where you want to store it. Figure 13.4 The Save Attachment dialog box. 4. Click the Detach button in the Save Attachment dialog box; close the Properties box. To detach more than one file, select the file icons of the files you want to detach (hold down the Shift key and click each icon). Then choose Attachment, Detach All Selected. Or to detach all the attached files, choose Attachment, Detach All. The Save Attachments dialog box appears as shown in Figure 13.5. Specify the drive and directory, or folder, where you want to save the files. Click OK. Figure 13.5 The Save Attachments to dialog box. To launch an attachment, double-click the attachment icon and then click the Launch button on the Properties box. You can then view the document and/or make changes. You can save it or print it from the application. You can close the application when you finish with the file. Lotus Notes and your mail message remain open the entire time you are working in the other application. Panic Button: Out for Launch If you can't launch the attachment, it's probably because you don't have that application installed on your computer. A little giveaway is the icon representing the attachment. If the icon is plain and gray, there's a good chance that you don't have the application in which the attachment was originally created. You can still use the View option as described in the beginning of this lesson to see the unformatted contents of the attachment. Printing the Attachment Printing the attachment is not a problem when you have the application program installed on your computer. You can print it from that program. You can still print the attachment if you don't have the application program. 1. Double-click the attachment icon to open the file. 2. Click the View button on the Properties box. 3. Choose File, Print. The File Print dialog box appears (see Figure 13.6). Figure 13.6 The File Print dialog box. 4. (Optional) The default setting in the File Print dialog box is to print all of the document. If you only want to print a portion of the attachment, highlight that segment before you choose File, Print. Then after you open the File Print dialog box, choose Selection under Print Range. 5. Click OK to print the document. There is one more thing to remember when working with attachments. When you launch an attachment, Windows creates a temporary file for you to work in. If you look at the title bar of a launched attachment (no matter which application it's in), you see a series of numbers, not the original file name of the attachment sent to you. If you decide to make changes to that file and save it again, you should use the Save As command to give it a name you'll remember. Also, saving changes this way does not affect the original attachment sent to you. If someone sends you an attachment for you to make changes to and return back to them, first detach the file. Then open it in its original application, make your changes, save the file, and create a new mail message, attaching the changed file to return back to the sender. Send the file back with a slightly modified file name, maybe with an R at the end of the file name so the recipient knows that you have made revisions and doesn't overwrite his original with your revised file. For files that you'll be editing and returning, you might want to consider linking or embedding as covered in Lesson 15. In this lesson, you learned how to create, launch, detach, and print attachments. In the next lesson, you learn how to create Lotus Notes links and Pop-Ups.

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