Article ID: 198577 - Last Review: November 19, 2003 - Revision: 3.0

Only Some E-mail Attachments Can Be Faxed from Outlook to SBS

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SYMPTOMS

Mail messages with attachments are successfully sent from Microsoft Outlook to the Small Business Server (SBS) fax service. However, some attachments are successfully faxed, while others are not.

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CAUSE

This problem occurs because the MAPI spooler cannot print the attachment to the fax printer.

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RESOLUTION

The MAPI spooler will only print an attachment to the fax printer if two conditions exist.

First, the attachment must be an associated file type (for example, if you double-click the attachment it would start the application used to create or view it). If the file is not already an associated file type, double click on the file and select a program to associate the file with.
Second, the associated program must understand the "print to" command. For example, Notepad prints to the default printer, so text files cannot be faxed as attachments from Outlook. Microsoft Word can understand the "print to" command, so text files should either be sent from Word, or resaved as Word documents and attached to mail messages.

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