Save or Open

[rmockler]

When I receive an email using web mail in Firefox containing an attachment which is a .jpg, .pdf, .pps, or .wmv, I always get the option to either open the attachment with the appropriate program or save it to my hard drive. This choice does not appear whenever the attachment is a .doc file, only the save option is displayed. This is bizarre behavior, could someone please assist me in correcting this strange situation? I am using Point Linux Mate Full 2.2-32.
Thank you, Richard Mockler

[Pry]

Hello, Richard!

I'm trying to reproduce it. Your e-mail client is Thunderbird?

[jordan]

When I receive an email using web mail in Firefox containing an attachment which is a .jpg, .pdf, .pps, or .wmv, I always get the option to either open the attachment with the appropriate program or save it to my hard drive. This choice does not appear whenever the attachment is a .doc file, only the save option is displayed. This is bizarre behavior, could someone please assist me in correcting this strange situation? I am using Point Linux Mate Full 2.2-32.
Thank you, Richard Mockler

Richard,

In Firefox, go to Preferences, Applications, locate .doc in the Content column and then choose the appropriate action in the Action column such as Always Ask or Use Other in which case you can choose the application you want to open the .doc file with.

Hope this helps.

Jordan

[rmockler]

@Pry: To answer your question, I have a Thunderbird account (which works fine, NO problems), but I also have two web mail accounts (Gmail and AOL), and neither one will handle the problem that I have described, because they are accessed with Firefox, and I believe that is the source of the problem.

[rmockler]

@Jordan: Thanks for your suggestion. I followed your instructions, both ways to the letter, and NO success. Stubborn problem!

[jordan]

@Pry: To answer your question, I have a Thunderbird account (which works fine, NO problems), but I also have two web mail accounts (Gmail and AOL), and neither one will handle the problem that I have described, because they are accessed with Firefox, and I believe that is the source of the problem.

Richard - I sent a .doc file to my Gmail account and I also do NOT get the option to open it using an application of my choosing. I believe this is a security feature Google builds into Gmail (the doc file is scanned for malware and then downloaded) and the only way around it is to use a third party mail client such as TB.

[rmockler]

@Jordan: You are so right in that observation about Gmail. In fact, the entire Google experience is at a different level than I have worked with. I have a couple of friends who ventured in the Chromebook arena, and after gaining some experience with it, they both say they will never go back to their original ways of doing things with the computer. They are entirely Google Drive and Google Docs driven, along with all the other Google goodies. Oh well, maybe some day I'll give it a serious try.
Richard

[rmockler]

I'd like to add that I am now certain that the trouble is Firefox related. I just cranked up the Chromium browser, opened the problem web mail, and it worked perfectly! So, now that I have isolated the cause, maybe I or someone else can follow that direction to find exactly how to fix it.
Richard

[jordan]

I'd like to add that I am now certain that the trouble is Firefox related. I just cranked up the Chromium browser, opened the problem web mail, and it worked perfectly! So, now that I have isolated the cause, maybe I or someone else can follow that direction to find exactly how to fix it.
Richard

Richard - In Firefox, I can right click the doc attachment in Gmail, choose Open Link in New Tab and I am presented with options for what I want to do with the attachment (Open it with a specific app is one of my options). I haven't yet tried opening a doc file in Chromium.

[rmockler]

@Jordan: Thanks for checking that out. Gmail would be a satisfactory solution for me in Firefox, and Chromium works fine with either AOL mail or Gmail, but my preference is Firefox with AOL mail. To compound the problem, my wife uses a Yahoo web mail account, and I have been unable to convince her to switch to Gmail. The situation with open/save attachments containing .doc files is exactly the same in Yahoo as with AOL - bad. Only Gmail works satisfactorily, and my wife will not move away from Yahoo mail. Hopefully this will be resolved to work the way it should.
I guess my best hope for an answer is to find someone using the same environment that I am - Firefox, web mail of either AOL or Yahoo. Then I can at least confirm that the problem is universal or just something hosed in my system.