Why do people put images in word documents to send them via email?

Best one i had so far was a powerpoint presentation that was being reused and edited to update pictures...........so they were putting each new picture over the top of the old one. Each slide was just an image, no text.

350mb (it was something silly like that) power points don't run too great on celeron laptops with only 1gb ram!

Had them complain that it was taking ages to change slides and their audio was out of sync with what they had set. Proper facepalm when i moved one picture.
 
Well it's not always a stupid idea, it's one way of getting around limits on image size attachments in mail systems (ie: ones that strip images > a certain size). That's about the only sane reason I can think of, though.
 
I get this loads in work.

Usually to the extent of....

Me: Can I get a screenshot of the error you are getting please, just reply to the email I sent you with the print screen

*5 minutes passes*

Them: Right Ive eventually got this into a word document, saved it and attached it.

Me: You do realise in Outlook that MS Word is your email editor, thus you could have just pasted straight into the mail and saved us both a load of time.

Them: Derp...
 
I think people do this simply because they're familiar with Word and know nothing of using an image editor, even Paint. I haven't used Word in a long time but I believe once you hit Print Screen you can just right click and paste into the document as an image element? Even if something like Outlook or other e-mail client can do the same they most likely won't know that. It's stupid but then it works and is simple to do so people will keep doing it.

At least it's not as bad as taking a photo of the monitor.
 
Rozzy85 said:
At least it's not as bad as taking a photo of the monitor.
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Hehe, not had that one yet. Did have a user knock a 17" CRT out of a window once. Support guy attended the user's desk to find it dangling 4 floors up by a VGA cable.

That's one picture I would have happily accepted in a word document.
 
I've taken pics of the monitor before. You tell me how to take a pic/screenshot/record of a BSOD in order to google it after :p
 
Andre said:
Worst I've got is an "expert" who insists on opening Word to use as a file explorer (Word -> Open -> look for file -> Select document....damn Word doesn't open pdf/exe/...)....right-click->Open)
Problem is, she infects others with this feature and I keep on being asked why Word won't let them edit their picture (or whatever)

I've shown them what to use many many times, just I'm not there all the time so they ask the office "expert".
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Aarrrrgghh my boss does this.

I say "I've put that XYZ on the shared drive", and she will proceed to open Word and use the open file dialog to search for it. Why?!! :confused:

Loads of times I've hinted to just use windows explorer as Word won't see non-Word documents (unless you specifically say all files).
 
LordSplodge said:
CMD + SHIFT + 4 (or 3 if to want the full screen) works much better. Straight to a file, no need to launch any app.

You do, however, need to be running OS X. :D
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Cmd + shift + 4.. Then press spacebar to switch it to the window-only mode.

I've found it better than manually drawing a selection :cool:
 
Haircut said:
Well technically you can send and receive mail to/from people in your company without an internet connection, assuming you have a mail server on the network.
You'd be hard pressed to receive a mail from someone external without it though!
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Actually, your MAIL server needs the internet connection, not the workstation ;)

Plenty of workstations at work that have no internet access, but can send and receive external email just fine.
 
ajf said:
Indeed.
Isn't it best practice to add anything other than basic text as an attachment purely for this reason, and cross platform use?
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If you create an HTML e-mail with a picture pasted straight in, you can still send it to anyone else regardless of the format they are using. If they are on plain text they'll just receive it as an attachment rather than embedded in the e-mail.
 
I thought someone might say that, but in our place some people set their clients to plain text specifically so that wouldn't work.

I generally copy/paste those emails into a new HTML mail just to be annoying.
 
I had an email from a client at work once asking for my mobile number so they could text me a picture of their screen. When I declined they suggested they send be it on facebook.

Jesus wept!

/Salsa
 
I know valid reason for this :)

In my office the exchange scans images for skin tone'd if you have to many the email is blocked, not really usefully when you consider its social housing and most peoples wall'd are Maggie and some lighting it can look skin tone in shade, stick it in word problem solved.
 
mrbell1984 said:
It's the only way they understand how to send pictures. If someone educated them instead of calling them names they might have a better understanding.
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True, fair point well made.

We do have a better way now they've started rolling Lync out, shadowing the user's session and watching them recreate the fault is considerably less painless and more often than not you can tell what the user is doing wrong as they're doing it.
 
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