Client Services > How to Send Files

When transmitting electronic files to Burton & Mayer, the user has a couple of options to choose from; E-mail or FTP. Choosing correctly can save you considerable time in transmission. The most frequently used medium of electronic exchange is e-mail. Although different e-mail software vendors offer different features, most programs are similar in the fact that they allow you to "attach" files to messages.

The ability to forward these "attachments" is a very powerful tool, but knowing how to prepare the files prior to transfer is imperative to a successful delivery of that file. The following instructions assume that you understand basic Windows or Mac operations and the basics of your e-mail system.

Attaching Files to Email

You can attach files to a message any time before sending it. Open the Attachments dialog by clicking the Attachments button, which you'll see just below the Subject field. You may also click the Attach button on the message composition window's toolbar. Once you've actually selected the file, you now have a decision to make:

You may want to have your browser code and transmit true binary files like a spreadsheet or a compressed archive using MIME rendering. Make sure the browser does so by highlighting the name of the file in the Attachments dialog and clicking the As Is button. Most e-mail software available automatically decodes and stores the attachment when it arrives on the receiving end.

You may want to transmit ASCII text files, such as those created with Wordpad or Simple Text, into the body of your the message itself. You do this by clicking the Convert to Plain Text button. The browser always adds the new text to the bottom of the message.

Using FTP

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a different way of exchanging electronic files across the Internet. FTP sites generally resemble directory hierarchies. When you access an FTP site, you are presented with a no-nonsense non-graphical representation of folders which resemble the Windows Explorer "details view" or the Macintosh "view by name" directory structure.

Using FTP allows the user to transfer large files without worrying about size or speed limitations imposed by Internet Service Providers' E-mail servers. Direct folder-to-folder transfers are possible, increasing productivity when "time" is a critical factor governing files "having to be there now".

Binhex explained (Macintosh only)

All Macintosh files have 2 distinct structures which are transparent to the MAC user, but the electronic transfer of each MAC file in its native format can (and often does) corrupt the file while in transit. Macintosh files have various "attributes" (ie: icons, creator code, type code) which are stored in a "resource fork". This fork is bound to the actual "data fork" which contains file information.

Since the backbone of the Internet is UNIX based, transmission protocols do not fully support the Macintosh file structures, and more often than not, the "resource fork" gets separated from the "data fork" thereby rendering the file unreadable (corrupt) upon finish of transfer.

Binhex (binary hexadecimal) is a text encoder application which generates a text-type file out of any file for the MAC. It rewrites the file using only the 7-bit ASCII character set. This allows it to be safely sent through virtually any gateway on virtually any platform, without corruption. It reduces the MAC files to their most basic components (0,1). the resource and data forks become 1 encoded file preserving file integrity as the file is traveling through cyberspace.

Binhex utilities add on an .hqx extension (suffix) to the file. Once received, the file now needs to be reconstructed (usually an automatic function of the browser) by a utility program which decodes .hqx files.

Decoding files after receipt

Once the file is received from the Internet, there are a couple of options to employ to decode the file(s) successfully. If the file(s) were encoded with binhex, a Macintosh utility called Stuffit Expander will usually execute and automatically decode the .hqx file restoring the resource fork with the data fork. Stuffit Expander comes with Stuffit Deluxe, a compression utility made by Aladdin Systems, Inc.

If a PC was used to receive the transmission, WinZip (a Windows X utility made by Nico Mak Computing, Inc.) will decode the .hqx file. Either way, the original file structure is preserved and reconstructed in full. Using Binhex or Win Zip is a bullet-proof method of transferring files with guaranteed results!