outlook express

[procket52]

I am trying to help out my father who is using Outlook Express. I have been sending him jpg attachments primarily involving family pictures. However, when he opens the attachments, the pictures do not size to the screen available. In other words, he has to scroll both up and down to view the picture which is a real pain since you never get the full sense of the picture. I thought that perhaps either tools or view on the outlook express toolbar might offer some way to size the picture (jpg file)to the screen. I also looked in the control panel to see if there was any way to fix this but nothing popped out at me. I used the Outlook Express Help Index but that also offered no assistance. I did do away with the preview pane in Express so that now the in box just shows the message list similar to the view I have in my own Outlook. I am at a complete loss as to how to resolve this problem and I am hoping that this terrific forum may come to my assistance. Regards.

[Paul Komski]

Hi. Do you know if these are embedded pics in OE or are the "attachments" being viewed in another application? Most graphic apps have a zoom facility somewhere.

If these show correctly on sending and appear differently on receiving it could be because the screen resolution/monitor sizes of the two relevant pcs are very different. You pop could certainly try increasing his screen resolution to see if this helps.

[Sylvander]

I use “Microsoft Photo Editor” [see it here http://tinyurl.com/g3zp ] to view “.jpg” files.
If they arrive as an attachment I save them to the HDD.
Because “Microsoft Photo Editor” has been installed [as part of MS Office] then “.jpg” files are registered to be opened by this program. You only need to right click on such a file and click “Open” and they will be displayed.
I find that I can only simulate the situation you describe by magnifying the image 200%.
The frame is almost full screen.

Does he have MS Office?
And “Microsoft Photo Editor”?

[sleddog]

Ummmmm... Why don't you crop and resize the photos BEFORE sending them? That would solve the problem and conserve bandwidth.

[procket52]

paul, sylvander and sled-dog, thanks for your quick replies and offer of help. Your assistance is much appreciated. After posting my thread i spent some time surfing some of the outlook problems that have been posted over the past year regarding attachments. i noted that you can change the security setting in tools/options/security and i unchecked the box that was not allowing attachments to be opened. once i applied this change, i was able to view the jpgs in the attachment line in the message. by doubleclicking on the attachment, it opened via software "photoimpact" which seems to be software that was loaded with my father's ulead scanner and i was able to view the picture in its entirety. cumbersome to say the least, but at least workable.

But it still doesn't explain why when i click on the message in the in-box not only do i get the message string, but directly below the message are all the pictures in living 200% sized color as you scroll down through the message. In other words, somehow there is some setting that says not only are we going to allow you to view the message,. we are also automatically opening all of the attachments that are attached to this message and not only are we going to open them, they will be at least 2 x the size of the screen. it just seems very strange to me why his express is doing this. it has always been my experience that when you receive a message with an attachment, you have to click on the attachment (i.e. the paperclip) and then outlook asks if you want to open it or save it. in the case of my father's express it is not asking anything. it is just opening them all in scroll down fashion. Thanks again for your support.

[Paul Komski]

Sounds like the pics are being embedded in the mails. I think OE does this if a pic is either attached or inserted into the body of a mail in html or rtf format - possibly it only does it with insertions.

Before attaching the pic, go to Format and select "Plain Text" and not "Rich Text (HTML)". Then go to Insert and choose Attachment; inseting pictures should now be greyed and inaccessible.

[Sylvander]

See this thread
http://tinyurl.com/g4sp

[Paul Komski]

sylvander your memory is far superior to mine.

It is an OE thing, the only difference being whether the pic is displayed in the body or at the end of the mail.

I so seldom use OE anymore that I probably shouldn't post "solutions". Foxmail, my main mail client nowadays, makes the distinction between an embedded and an attached picture - amongst other features.

[Sylvander]

I hear so much about other Internet clients and e-mail clients being superior to Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, yet I’m reluctant to launch forth and risk a change when I really have no complaints.
Yet I see the advantages of using “Mailwasher” so I’m aware that my reluctance may be misplaced.
Do you recommend I change over?
Why do you recommend it?
What are the superior features?

Yes, it seems some of my faculties are still intact despite advancing years.
[I’m not impressed by the limitations that arrive with increasing age.]
I remembered there had been a discussion about attached image files that were automatically displayed with the text, so I sought and found it.

[Paul Komski]

I wanted a mail client that would be easy to backup (including its address book) for some friends of mine (you just copy/paste the whole folder anywhere and create a new shortcut to the exe, all without the need for a "reinstall"). So this also means it is easy to access from a multi-boot setup. Liked what I saw and began to use it myself.

It has a familiar layout to OE so isn't too daunting for those not liking change.

It has hotmail support (and without provoking msn messenger to appear).

Mails are previewed in Text (by default) and therefore there is no need to disable the previewing area as the security measure recommended for OE. There are toggle buttons above the preview area to view in html or to view in your browser if you want to.

It doesn't use identities as such, but multiple users can password protect their individual accounts.

It is easy to set up additonal pop mail accounts for each user account if one uses multiple eMail addresses.

It has a good remote facility so that one can deal remotely with messages on the server.

SMS support and customizing templates is there - though I have never used these.

Have been using it for nearly a year now with no problems. You can probably tell that I like it - especially for its security features and ease of backup.

;)

PS EDIT
(1) If one tries it out in parallel with OE (or whatever) then one can configure it to leave the mails on the server until one switches over to it as the main client. That way you will still get all your mails on OE in parallel during any trying-out period of this free product.
(2) If one is already using OE, it will import all the settings and so is very easy to set up.

[kayofcircles]

procket52: Another thing to check is resolution on the jpg. A friend has been sending me jpgs in 300 resolution..which means that on screen which is something like 98 resolution in Windows, the pic will display approximately three times bigger and will not "fit" in the window. I can only see a small part of the jpg in OE or in IE's window. For example, say that 300 jpg is 6 inches across. 300 times 6 inches is 1800 pixels, and using the full 800x600 I have my monitor set at, I am still going to "see" less than half the pic. I can open it in PaintShopPro, and all of it will show in the window..but that's because PSP doesn't limit itself to Window's resolution. I think that may be your problem since PhotoImpact would be able to handle the higher resolutions like PSP does.

[procket52]

Paul/Sylvander, your advice was right on. It turns out that the problem resided in the plain text versus (I guess HTML or rich text or whatever). Based on your good suggestions, here is what i did to fix the problem. Went to Tools/Options/Read and clicked the box that asked, "Read All Messages in Plain Text". Did the apply and voila, the scrolling problem with pictures imbedded went away and now the attachment is just presented as an attachment, the standard question comes up do I want to save it or open it and we are off to the races. Thanks again for persevering on the suggested fixes. I could not have done it without your help. I hope that this thread helps other people who might encounter the same type of viewing problem.

Now I need to find a viewer that is less kludgy than this U Lead Photoimpact software that seems to be the default viewer on my father's machine. When you clik on the picture, it comes up in sort of an Adobe format with all sorts of icons etc. that is a little much although I guess I should be grateful that at least I can see the photo in its normal format. I just want to be able to view the picture in a clean view without all the extraneous Adobe like icons. I think I will visit the link you suggested Sylvander re Microsoft Photo Editor and see if that works. I guess I am spoiled using my Outlook at home that just opens the jpg file in its entirety on the screen without any of the editing icons cluttering up the picture.

[Paul Komski]

He He I'm glad that "Read All Messages in Plain Text" worked for you. I couldn't find it on my own OE6 but a bit of Googling shows that it is only included with SP1. Definitely would be using that if I still used OE.