Every search I have made on this subject says that this is just a problem between Outlook and Mail. Many forums recommend 3rd party software to open the attachments. You have got to be kidding! We shouldn’t have to be bouncing around with multiple programs just to do something as simple as see an attachment.

Is there a setting I am missing?

Hi Laurie! Nope, you’re not missing anything—and yes, there are occassions when Outlook and the Mac’s Mail app don’t play well together.

Specifically, Outlook has its own, unique method for formatting email messages that many other email clients can’t quite decode.

When that happens, the body of the message turns into an attachment named “winmail.dat”—and no, your Mac can’t open it without help from a third-party program. Annoying, but true.

Too many mail messages arriving as “winmail.dat” attachments? Windows users can set Outlook to disable the culprit: “Rich Text” formatting.

The good news is that your husband can set Outlook to deactivate its so-called “Rich Text Format” (which lets Outlook users compose messages with fancy fonts and other features) when sending messages to non-Outlookers.

Here’s how…

Note: The steps below are for Outlook 2013; the instructions may (and probably will) differ for earlier versions of Outlook.

• Open Outlook, click the File menu, then select Options.
• Click the Mail tab on the left side of the Outlook Options window, find the “Compose messages” section, then change the setting for “Compose messages in this format” from “Rich Text” to “HTML” or “Plain Text.”
• Does your husband want to keep his “Rich Text” setting? If so, he can scroll down to the “Message format” heading, find the “When sending messages in Rich Text format to Internet recipients” setting, then select “Convert to HTML format.”

OK, but what about mail messages you’ve already received with cryptic “winmail.dat” attachments?

Well, there are (as you mentioned) several apps in the Mac App Store that’ll open winmail.dat attachments for you, but they all cost a few bucks.

A highly recommended free option, though, is a program called “TNEF’s Enough.” Just download, install and launch the app, then drag a winmail.dat file onto TNEF’s Enough dock icon to open the attachment.

Looking for more Mac tips? Click here!

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Sure, the ribbon comes in handy when you’re tweaking fonts in Word or tinkering with cell formulas in Excel.

But when it’s finally time to get creative, the ribbon tends to turn into an unwelcome (and kinda ugly) distraction—or at least, it does for me.

The good news, though, is that it’s easy to hide the Office ribbon until you really need it—particularly when it comes to the brand-new Windows version of Office.

Here’s what you do…

Select the “Auto-hide” option to keep the ribbon hidden until you really need it.

Office 2013 for Windows:

• Click the square icon with the upward arrow in the top-right corner of an Office window. When you do, a pull-down menu with three options—Auto-hide Ribbon, Show Tabs, and Show Tabs and Commands—will appear.
• To keep the main headings (such as File, Home, View, and Page Layout) of the Office ribbon visible at all times while hiding everything else, select Show Tabs.
• Want the entire ribbon to disappear so your document fills the screen? Select Auto-hide Ribbon. When you’re ready to peek at the ribbon again, just move your mouse to the top of the screen and click when the shaded stripe appears.

Click the arrow to toggle the ribbon on and off in Office for Mac.

Office for Mac 2011:

• See the little arrow sitting in the top-right corner of any Office windows? Click it to hide or reveal the ribbon.
• There’s no auto-hide option for the ribbon in Office for Mac, but you can turn off the ribbon completely. Open the Word menu, then click Preferences, Ribbon, and uncheck the “Turn of the ribbon” box.
• Here’s one more handy option: You can keep the ribbon hidden by default when you first open an Office document by unchecking the “Expand ribbon when document opens” box.

Bonus tip

You can customize the ribbon to your heart’s content in the Options section of Office 2013 for Windows. Click File, Options, then Customize Ribbon to get started. Be warned, though: there’s a dizzying number of options available.

The ribbon options in Office 2011 for Mac aren’t quite as extensive as they are in Windows, but you can access them by opening the Word menu and clicking Preferences, Ribbon, and heading for the Customize section.

Still have questions? Let me know!

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Hi Christine! So, good news: it’s actually quite easy to convert a Word document into a PDF, and you won’t have to pay a dime to do it.

In fact, here’s the rule of thumb when it comes to turning documents or even web pages into PDFs: if you can print ’em, you can convert ’em.

Mac users are especially lucky in this regard, as the ability to “print” a document to a PDF comes built into the Mac operating system.

Windows, on the other hand, doesn’t have its own, native “print-to-PDF” tool, but never fear—that’s easily fixed.

Let’s get started…

On a Mac:

• So, want to turn a Word document into a PDF? First, open the document, using either Microsoft Word itself or the Mac’s own Preview app.
• Got the document open? Now, click the File menu in the top-left corner of the document window, select Print, then click the “PDF” button in the bottom-left corner of the Print window.
• Next, select an option from the menu, the easiest being “Save as PDF.” If you choose this option, you’ll need to pick a destination for the file (such as the Desktop), then click Save. Your newly converted PDF should appear within moments.
• Among your other choices from the PDF drop-down menu: “Open PDF in Preview” (to convert the document to PDF and then immediately view it in the Preview application), and “Mail PDF” (to attach the PDF to a new email message).
• Last but not least, remember that you can perform the same “print-to-PDF” trick in any program with a Print menu, from Safari and iPhoto to Mail and Messages.

You can choose a virtual PDF printer from the Windows Print menu, but you’ll need to install a third-party PDF converter app first.

On a Windows PC:

• Windows doesn’t come with its own “print-to-PDF” ability, but that’s OK—we still have a few easy options. One is to see if the program you’re using will let you save or “export” a file as a PDF. In the latest version of Microsoft Word, for example, just click File, Export, Create PDF/XPS Document; then, in the “Save as type” pull-down menu, make sure “PDF” selected before clicking the Publish button.
• No “Save as PDF” option in the particular program you’re using? In that case, we’ll have to download and install a third-party app that’ll do the job for us. If you do a Google search, you’ll find dozens of options; I eventually settled on doPDF, a free, no-frills PDF converter.
• Go ahead and install doPDF or a similar program; once you do, the app will create a new, “virtual” printer on your Windows system that can “print” a document to a PDF file.
• Next, open a text document, a web page, or any other file you want to convert into a PDF, then open the Print menu (typically File, Print).
• In the Print window, look for the “Printer” or “Select Printer” setting, then choose your new virtual printer; in my case, I clicked on the printer labeled “doPDF.”
• Click the Print button, select a save location, and voilà: your converted PDF file should be waiting for you within seconds.

Hope that helps, Christine. Still have questions? Let me know!

Update: In my original post, I neglected to mention that Microsoft Word has its own “export-to-PDF” ability. Thanks to the readers who pointed this out, and apologies for the goof!

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Meet Office 365 Home Premium, Microsoft’s bid to get a fresh copy of Office on each of your home PCs—and no, it won’t cost you a king’s ransom, or at least not on Day One.

Now, instead of coughing up $100-plus for a single box of Office CDs, you can buy an annual or even month-to-month Office 365 subscription, good for multiple, downloadable copies of Office on your PCs and Macs.

Office 365 (which has been available for business users for about a year now) could make for a relatively cheap, hassle-free way to dip into the latest versions of Office—provided you’re ready to deal with the new Office, that is.

Here’s five things you need to know about the home version of Office 365, starting with…

1. It includes the latest versions of Office

For Windows users, that means Office 13, a thorough revamp of the venerable office suite that boasts scores of new features—from an easy-on-the-eyes “Read Mode” in Microsoft Word to “Flash Fill” (which supposedly “learns and recognizes” your work and “auto-completes” the data in a given cell) in Excel.

Get ready for the shock of the new when it comes to Office 13.

Office 13 also makes heavy use of “SkyDrive,” Microsoft’s answer to such cloud-based data lockers like Dropbox and Google Drive.

Once you log in to your Microsoft account, you can use SkyDrive to open, edit, or even share your Office documents from anywhere, with anyone.

Last but not least, Office 13 has been optimized for use with touchscreen tablets and PCs.

Be warned, though: if you’re still using Office 2003 or (gulp) Office XP, prepare for a shock once you take your first glimpse of Office 13’s heavily redesigned “ribbon” interface.

You get used to the so-called “ribbon” (which sits along the top of the screen and contains dozens of font, formatting, formula, and other tools and buttons) eventually, of course, but it takes a little getting used to.

Mac users, meanwhile, get Office: Mac 2011, a slightly older (but still “ribbonized”) version of Office that’s a little clunkier when it comes to SkyDrive sharing but still packs in a bewildering number of features.

2. You can (essentially) rent Office rather than buy it outright

A $99 annual Office 365 subscription gets you access to Office 13 or Office: Mac 2011—or, if you’d rather pay a little less up front, you can (as I did) opt for a $9.99/month subscription.

There’s even a free 30-day trial for those who’d rather look before they leap; you can snag it right here.

Not bad, considering that you could essentially get the new Office immediately for as little as $10 up-front.

Over time, of course, you may end up paying more than you would for a single, retail copy of Office, especially if you don’t need such bells and whistles as Microsoft Publisher and Access (which are included in an Office 365 Home subscription, but not in the cheaper, sub-$399 Office stand-alone editions).

Microsoft, though, would argue that you’re getting more bang for your buck with an Office 365 subscription. Take, for example, the fact that…

3. You can install Office on up to five PCs or Macs

One of the beauties of an Office 365 subscription is that it lets you install copies of Office on a generous number of systems—up to five PCs or Macs.

With an Office 365 subscription, you can install Office on up to 5 PCs and Macs.

Once you’ve purchased a subscription, just log into your account, select either the PC or Mac version of Office, and click the Download button.

Installing copies of Office on a Windows 8 PC and an iMac took me a little under an hour (including the software download over my cable modem), and the actual installation process involved only a handful of mouse clicks.

Your Office 365 account keeps track of how many Office installations you have left, and you can always deactivate a copy of Office on an old PC if you want to install Office on a new system.

And here’s another nifty Office 365 perk…

4. You can stream Office from the could

Not sitting at your home PC, but need to dive into Office? No problem.

As an Office 365 subscriber, you can simply log into your account from any Windows 7 or 8 system and launch “Office on Demand,” a full version of the complete Microsoft Office suite that you can stream over the Web. Nice.

You can stream the full version of Office over the web using any Windows 7 or 8 PC.

Office on Demand is a noticeably slower than Office installed on a hard drive, and it demands a relatively speedy Internet connection. You’ll also need to download and install a small plug-in for your web browser.

That said, Office on Demand makes for a great way to get the complete Office experience—including, of course, full access to the Office documents in your SkyDrive account—even when you’re not at your desk.

OK, but what if you’re using an older Windows XP computer, or a Mac? In that case, you can try Office “Web Apps”—a bare-bones but peppy version of Office that offers basic editing tools in practically any web browser.

5. Sure, you can still buy a boxed version of Office

Still rather just own a retail copy Office? You can, with the bare-bones “Home & Student” version of Office 13 going for $139 while a more robust “Home & Business” edition sells for $219.

The top-of-the-line Office “Professional” (which includes all the individual Office components in an Office 365 subscription) costs a whopping $399. (Click here for a full comparison chart.)

Also, keep in mind that the stand-alone versions of Office are only good for one PC each.

Got questions about Office 365, or Office 13 in general? Post ’em below!

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Never fear, I’ll dive into the basic about Google Docs in a future post. (If you’re feeling the itch to give it a try, just click here to get started—and remember, if you have a Gmail account, you already have a Google Docs account.)

For now, though, I thought I’d let you in on five clever tricks that Google Docs has up its sleeves.

1. Edit documents in full-screen mode
Yes, composing a Word document in your web browser can be an odd feeling at first, particularly with the standard Google site navigation peeking out at the top of the browser page. An easy way to make the whole experience a little more natural is to turn on full-screen mode, which removes all the navigation and document rulers, leaving you with nothing but a roomy canvas for your words.

Select "Full screen" from the "View" menu, and look—nothing but you and your words.

To activate full-screen mode, click the View menu (in your browser, not your desktop) and select “Full screen”—simple enough, right? To return the standard view, hit the “Esc” key.

Want to simplify your document view without losing the Google Docs menu, controls, and document rulers? Instead of selecting “Full screen” from the View menu, try “Compact controls,” a mode that may make desktop Office users feel ever more at home in Google Docs.

(By the way, if you’re worried about losing all your work if your browser crashes, don’t; Google Docs saves your changes almost instantly after you’ve added them.)

Just drag photos from your desktop and drop them straight into your web browser. Nice.

2. Drag photos directly into a document
Want to add some images or snapshots to your Google word document? Don’t worry—you won’t have to deal with a tedious Upload page. Instead, just drag an image file directly into your Google doc and drop it wherever you’d like it to go. Once the image is in your document, just grab one of the “handles” along the edges and drag to resize. Neat.

3. Drag a document into a folder
The main Google Docs interface boasts three columns: one that lists your folders (or “collections,” as Google calls them), a second with all your individual Google Doc files, and a third that shows details for any document you select.

Organizing your many Google documents into folders used to be a painful process (well, relatively painful, anyway) of selecting a file and choosing a folder from a pop-up window—and hence, I never bothered with Google Docs folders until recently.

What changed? Well, you can now simply click a document and drag it straight into a collection in the left-hand column. Done (and yes, all my Google documents are now filed neatly away).

4. Share a folder with a friend
One of the beauties of Google Docs is that you can share any given document—or an entire folder—with a friend, colleague, or a group. While sharing a single document is handy, sharing an entire folder is an even more powerful feature. Why? Because once you share a folder, any documents you create or drag into that folder will also be shared automatically. By the same token, any documents you drag out of a folder are instantly un-shared.

To share a folder (or, again, a “collection”), just click on one in the left-hand column in the main Google Docs page, click the little down arrow to the right, and select Share. In the pop-up window that appears, type in the Google IDs or email address of those with which you’d like to share your documents. You’ll also be able to designate whether your collaborators will be able to edit your shared documents or simply view them. (By the way, if you and someone else are editing a Google doc at the same time, you’ll see their real-time edits right there in the browser, and you can even text chat in a pane on the right side of the page. Neat!)

Uploading entire folders of documents into your Google Docs account is pretty much a snap.

5. Upload an entire folder
Not only can you upload individual Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files into Google Docs for online editing, you can also upload entire folders at once, which are instantly organized into a “collection” in your Google Docs account.

To give it a try, click the Upload button in the upper-left corner of the main Google Docs screen, then select “Folder” and select the desktop folder you want to upload from the pop-up window that appears. A second pop-up will ask your permission to convert your Office documents to the necessary Google Docs format (don’t worry, you won’t hurt your original files).

Nice, but there’s one catch: You’ll need to be using Google’s free Chrome web browser to upload an entire folder at once. You can download Chrome right here.

All done? Then check out the Collections column on the left side of the main Google Docs page: all your uploaded documents should be sitting right there.

Stay tuned for a full-on Google Docs beginner’s guide in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, have any random Google Docs questions? Let me know.

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