Evening all,

We have a MAC at work running Leopard which one of the designers uses - still a bit new to it tbh as the majority of the machines are Windows based.

When jpgs are transfered from the MAC to a machine running Windows XP and Office 2007 the image can be displayed. If Win XP and Office 2003, the associated program opens but the image is not displayed.

Any ideas be appreciated

Could be that...

The Mac has two files for each image; the image itself & a data file that the Mac 'hides' from the user.

When you transfer files to a Windows machine, the Windows machine displays both files. If you try to open the data files, you will see nothing.

You could try emailing the files from the Mac to the PC & tick the 'Send Windows-Friendly attachments' box. Or don't try opening the really small files.

Or it could be something else completely...

Thanks Ors - I wasn't aware of the 'Send Windows-Friendly attachments' box! I'll try this tomorrow.

The file that is being transfered has the correct .jpg extension but I'm still confused as to why it will open in Office 2007 and not 2003 - I guess M$ improved the compatibility for the newer version so might be a patch or fix for Office 2003?

it could be something to do with office 2007 if you saved it though office rather than just closing. Office 2007 uses different file coding to office 2003 and you need to select a office 2003 compatible file when saving.

JPEG is a standard format, it'll be the program you're using on the PC that's not opening it correctly. Try using Paint or a dedicated image program on the PC. If in doubt just open it using Internet Explorer and it'll let you know if the file is corrupt or not.

I've been transferring JPEGs between Macs and PC's for 17 years and never had any problem with them.

Thanks for the replies. I originally thought that this was due to the MAC we have onsite but after a quick chat with colleagues it's only a problem when we receive jpegs from one external source ( a MAC user). I'll follow this up with the source.

Mort: The jpeg won't even open in Paint nor any other Windows program even though I've installed all of the latest M$ patches. The error is 'this is not a recognised file type or not supported. It must be a compatibility issue somewhere but the last thing I want to do is to start upgrading Office.

The error is 'this is not a recognised file type or not supported.

I think you may be trying to open a Mac resource fork. Check the size of the file. Ask the guy how many .JPEG's he sent. If you seem to have received twice as many as this; ditch the half that are really small files.

HTH

I think you may be trying to open a Mac resource fork. Check the size of the file. Ask the guy how many .JPEG's he sent. If you seem to have received twice as many as this; ditch the half that are really small files.

HTH

Will do, thanks again.

An excellent freeware image viewer / browser which may be of help

FastStone Image Viewer - Powerful and Intuitive Photo Viewer, Editor and Batch Converter

The problem is office 2003 combined with XP. When you install office 2003 it install an application with a name like microsoft photo editor, and switches the default jpg application to this program. However this program is not completely compatible with XP and the image will either crash the program or open as a blank image. What we have to do at work to get around this, is save a jpg to the desktop and then hold down the shift key, right click and then select open with > choose program. Then from the list select windows picture and fax viewer, and tick always use this program. Job done and images open every time.

An excellent freeware image viewer / browser which may be of help

FastStone Image Viewer - Powerful and Intuitive Photo Viewer, Editor and Batch Converter

Thanks for this.

The problem is office 2003 combined with XP. When you install office 2003 it install an application with a name like microsoft photo editor, and switches the default jpg application to this program. However this program is not completely compatible with XP and the image will either crash the program or open as a blank image. What we have to do at work to get around this, is save a jpg to the desktop and then hold down the shift key, right click and then select open with > choose program. Then from the list select windows picture and fax viewer, and tick always use this program. Job done and images open every time.

Thanks for your commet - I've tried opening the jpeg with every Windows app I can think of and still have the same result.

is the file actually a jpeg, it might have a jpg or jpeg extension but that does not mean its a jpeg.

Can you open the offending file in an advanced text or hex editor and look at the 1st few lines - should see JFIF and Exif II somewhere there if it is a JPEG.

Hexeditor (freeware) will do this -

HexEdit.