Business E-Mail Attachments
What is an e-mail 'attachment'?
An attachment to a business e-mail is something that you're attaching to it. You can attach a picture, a Word document, Excel spreadsheet, PowerPoint, or even an item like a e-mail, or a contact. E-mail attachments are very useful.
What mistakes do people make when sending attachments in a business e-mail?
One of the major challenges with receivers of a business e-mail with an attachment, is that they don't know where in the attachment to go. In other words, a sender will send a business e-mail with a document attached, such as a PowerPoint or an Excel spreadsheet, and ask them to take a look. You then open the spreadsheet, but there might be 16 tabs to a spreadsheet and you're not really sure where to go. The sender knows where they want you to go within the attachment, but that message is not often conveyed within the business e-mail.
How can I avoid confusion when I send a business e-mail with an attachment?
You can avoid confusion when you send a business e-mail with an attachment by making sure than when you attach a document, like Power Point, an Excel spreadsheet, or a Word document, it's often helpful to give some reference to the receiver. Tell them to go to Slide 16 on the Power Point, show them where you have edited; suggest that Tab 13 and 14 of this Excel spreadsheet is where you want them to look. Another option is using a hyper link, and by just simply including a hyper link, reduce the size of the attachment when you're sending a business e-mail with an attachment.
How many attachments can I put onto my business e-mails?
The size of a business e-mail is really dependent upon the size of the recipient's inbox. Most companies limit that to five megs, which means that you can only send an e-mail which is under five megs. If you attach documents to a business email, that can make the size six, seven or ten megs and therefore it's going to get bounced back. It's never going to get to the recipient. Knowing this can save some effort in terms of communicating. Perhaps zipping something up to a smaller file or sending something in a different format to make the size of the business email smaller when it holds lots of attachments.
How large should a picture attachment of a business e-mail be?
The best way to send a large picture attachment in a business e-mail is to be respectful of the size of that inbox. Therefore a lot of programs that come with photo options when you're sending pictures will ask you “are you sending these picture by email?”, and will then convert these to under a hundred ks. These picture attachments almost appear as postage stamps for smaller pictures and therefore can be transmitted quicker and faster because the size of the e-mail is smaller than the large twenty meg photo which you'd probably need for really high quality end resolution printing. This is the best way to send a large picture attachment in a business e-mail.
How do I attach a document to an e-mail?
There are various ways to attach documents to a business e-mail. Some can just be dragged and dropped into the business e-mail, and others you need to click on the attachment icon to go and find that document, perhaps on your hard drive, and then click attach to the business e-mail.
What are some alternatives to sending an attachment?
Some of the alternatives to attaching a document is to create a hyperlink. A hyperlink is great when you're within the same company and on the same server, and by attaching a hyperlink in your business e-mail to a document, it's not actually attaching the document, it's attaching a link to that document. But if you reside in another company, you're not going to be on that same server and have access to it. So hyperlinks only predominantly work within a company and you can save a lot in terms of the size of someone's business e-mail by just attaching a hyperlink to a document, than just the document to the e-mail itself.
