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rb
@70.125.16.x

rb

Anon

open pdf attachment on Android phone

Recently acquired an Android phone running 4.1.2...

Created a pop3 email acct....I receive and send messages fine so its setup correctly.

I however cannot open a pdf email attachment. When I tap Show Attachment I see winmail.com with the choices to OPEN or SAVE. If I tap OPEN I get Unable to find Viewer to Open. I tried SAVE, then went to MyFiles and tried to open the document there...same result, Unable to find Viewer toOpen.

How do you open pdf email attachments on an Android OS Phone?

Are there different steps to follow? Do I need to Install an app? Is there an app that works in the background that when you click on a pdf email attachment it automatically opens?

GeekNJ
Premium Member
join:2000-09-23
Waldwick, NJ

GeekNJ

Premium Member

Unless your phone came with some pre-installed reader you do need some app to display PDFs. I don't think there's anything native in base Android. If you don't have anything, you can download the Adobe Reader from the Play store.

Typically winmail.dat is an attachment of an email message vs a file. I could be mistaken.

Typical behavior in Android would it would "download" the file and show the download in the top status. Clicking it would prompt to open and select an app that can open that file type.

rb
@70.125.16.x

rb

Anon

So when I Tap Open Attachment and I see winmail.dat it is not the pdf attachment....but that's all I see? When I tap SAVE, go to myfile,I tap on the file I saved it willnot open.....

beck
MVM
join:2002-01-29
On The Road

beck to rb

MVM

to rb
Download Adobe reader from google play. Save the attachment. Open Adobe Reader. Open the file.

GeekNJ
Premium Member
join:2000-09-23
Waldwick, NJ

GeekNJ to rb

Premium Member

to rb
You should see a PDF attachment.

Can you open the same email message on your computer? Does it show a PDF attachment or winmail.dat?

If you want, send me a private message here with your email and I'll send an email with just a PDF attached.
said by rb :

So when I Tap Open Attachment and I see winmail.dat it is not the pdf attachment....but that's all I see?


rb
@70.125.16.x

rb

Anon

I sent the same email with the same attachment to the same email......as long as I fetch it from my phone 1st its still available to my PC....

On my phone when I click SHOW ATTACHMENT all I get is the winmail.dat.....and when I click on that I get unable to find Viewer to open.......from another thread here, I now understand this winmail.dat is the email message\file....not the attachment.

When I open the same attachment on my PC, the pdf file opens fine.......
rb

rb

Anon

Sent a Pic....(jpg)....to same email.....when I open that on the phone I see the Attachment.....I even see it in a small preview....when I Tap it to View I get the choice to open with Gallery or Photos....I select either and the Picture opens......

So the mystery is, why doesn't the pdf attachment come in and show as a pdf file.....all I see in the winmail.dat.......and that file type can't be opened

Alpha Phoenix
Premium Member
join:2001-06-15
Brooklyn, NY

Alpha Phoenix

Premium Member

Did you download Adobe Reader? You keep complaining about this issue, but haven't responded to the suggestions everyone in here is giving you to download that PDF reader.

Lone Wolf
Retired
Premium Member
join:2001-12-30
USA

Lone Wolf to rb

Premium Member

to rb
Winmail.dat is an Outlook file that Android has difficulty opening.

You could ask the sender to change the format or download the following from the Play store.

»play.google.com/store/ap ··· il&hl=en

I guess many of us have already stumbled over "winmail.dat" or "attxxxx.dat" attachments in our Android email clients.

These attachment names usually occour, when somebody who is using a Microsoft Outlook EMail client sends you an certain RTF (rich text format) email with attachments. MS Outlook then packs these attachments into a TNEF (Transport-Neutral Encapsulation Format) envelope. Other MS Outlook Clients can deal with this format, but, however, most of the other email clients cannot! They will receive instead an attachment with the above mentioned naming and can basically do nothing with it.

While this is a well known (and annoying) circumstance there are already plug-ins for many open email clients such as Mozilla Thunderbird. For Android however there seemed to be nothing (and I have been doing quite some research on it).

So I finally decided to write my own app to deal with TNEF attachments. Luckily there was already an existing Java package which could do the extraction job so that I "only" had to create the Android app around it and do some debugging on the original code. My kudos here go to Amichai Rothman for his Java TNEF package (»www.freeutils.net/source ··· tnef/)!!


rb
@70.125.9.x

rb

Anon

Sorry; I overlooked the Adobe reader response, yes, I did download Adobe Reader. It did not resolve the issue
rb

rb to Lone Wolf

Anon

to Lone Wolf
I was going to Install Winmail.dat Extractor Free app when I read this

"The only system privileges that the app acquires upon installation are to be able to write to the external storage (sdcard) and to read from Google Mail."

I have K-9 installed and it fetches mail for my NetZero and a Gmail accts; netzero is my primary acct........

Winmail.dat will only work with Gmail accts?

Alpha Phoenix
Premium Member
join:2001-06-15
Brooklyn, NY

1 recommendation

Alpha Phoenix

Premium Member

Gmail ftw.

rb
@70.125.9.x

rb

Anon

ftw???

Are you just advising go with a gmail acct? Gmail accts on an Android phone does not actually download anything to the Phone? Correct?

When you open gmail on your Android phone you are viewing all mail at the Gmail website? Your phone is just looking at the website and accessing and opening mail at the website.....correct?

Alpha Phoenix
Premium Member
join:2001-06-15
Brooklyn, NY

Alpha Phoenix

Premium Member

(ftw = For the win)

Incorrect. Gmail has a Gmail app that your mail is opened up in, and you can download and/or preview attachments right on your phone. You are not accessing it through the website.

Check it out here: »play.google.com/store/ap ··· gm&hl=en

If you have an Android phone, you had to create a Google account anyway, so you already have a Gmail account.

rb
@70.125.9.x

rb

Anon

I have been working with gmail acct...

Does Gmail have a Frequency to Check for Mail? If so I have not found the setting in its setup in my Android Phone. Or, as new mail is received you receive a Notification on your Android Phone? If that is so, isn't gmail constantly using the battery because it is always checking the server for new mail. Other emails I have tried had a setting for Frequency to check mail.

Koil
Premium Member
join:2002-09-10
Irmo, SC

1 edit

Koil

Premium Member

Gmail uses push tech, I believe, meaning that it only updates when there is something new and then pushes it out, otherwise it may spot check, but doesn't constantly keep an open pipe looking for mail.

Read more here: »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_email

Alpha Phoenix
Premium Member
join:2001-06-15
Brooklyn, NY

Alpha Phoenix to rb

Premium Member

to rb
It works the same way a BlackBerry does. When you get a new email, it hits the Gmail servers and is automatically pushed to your phone. I posted the link to the app. Did you read the description and check out the videos?

rb
@70.125.9.x

rb

Anon

The Link you provided took me to the Google Playstore...and the Gmail App...which I reviewed. I saw no Video's. The Android phone came with this App Pre-installed.

It seems my issue is my NetZero email acct which I have been using for over 20 years just does not play well with the Android App. I can retrieve my NetZero messages, but when I retrieve them with my Home desktop...which is set Not to leave a Copy.....those messages than disappear from my Android Phone. The Stock email app on the Android phone does not have a way to create another folder to save messages. I have tried K-9, the NetZero messages do not disappear, but, Attachments have been an issue. I will get the Attachment is corrupted and can't be open, but yet when I open it on my desktop its fine...so I am on the fence with K-9.

Its like if you could somehow take the best of several apps and put them all in one it would perform the way you want it to.......

Alpha Phoenix
Premium Member
join:2001-06-15
Brooklyn, NY

Alpha Phoenix

Premium Member

Try the Gmail app.

rb
@70.125.9.x

rb

Anon

I do have that app setup and working. I could Forward NetZero messages to my gmail acct......my only hold back is the battery usage of Gmails' Push mail. I have read articles regarding whether PUSH Mail, or, Fetch Mail(where you set the acct to check for messages at timed intervals).....uses more battery. Seems from what I have read Fetching uses less depending on Fetch frequency and number of new emails retrieved.

Plus, I am not paranoid.. really, but Google does track and collect a lot of personal information.....that is one reason they give gmail acct out for free.

Hayward0
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium Member
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL

1 recommendation

Hayward0

Premium Member

said by rb :

Plus, I am not paranoid.. really, but Google does track and collect a lot of personal information.....that is one reason they give gmail acct out for free.

And what exactly makes you think Net Zero doesn't? Just because you remove them from the server doesn't mean they were never seen.
And those that do collect data (unless NSA) its not contents just header info,