[P1] .art file?

[Mary C. Youra]

On Monday, August 11, 2003, at 02:44  AM,  Kim Gammelg wrote:

>
> On 01/08/03 21:31, "Brian Olesky" <brian4 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>> Kim,
>>
>> Actually they are with AOL. I thought zipping files just made them 
>> small
>> enough to email. Do you mean if they zip the file, when I unzip it 
>> it'll
>> turn into something other than this mysterious .art file?
>
> Hi Brian,
>
> I was hoping someone else would jump in, as I have no real experience 
> with
> AOL - One of the good things about being in Denmark ;-)
>
> My guess is that zipping the pictures before mailing them with AOL 
> will keep
> them in whatever format the PC is using (BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG or 
> whatever),
> even though it is transferred  through their obscure mail system that
> apparently makes pictures into .art-files.

Not exactly. I haven't used AOL regularly for some time, but what I 
remember about .art files is that  _very early_ versions of Graphic 
Converter could open them, but newer versions can't. The version I 
currently have (4.4.4, not the newest) also cannot. Images downloaded 
from the web while using AOL convert to .art, although this can be 
changed if the AOL user changes his preferences, un-checking the box 
that says something like "Use compressed images." If I recall 
correctly, images inserted in AOL mail (as opposed to attached as 
files) also convert to .art, and I can't receive them using Mail.app, 
regardless of the sender's platform, Mac or PC.

Standard advice on the AOL Mac Help boards for sending images Mac to PC 
used to be to send one at a time, and attached as a separate file, not 
embedded in the email. I used to be able to put multiple images in a 
file, zip the file, attach that to the email, and that would work. But, 
zipping doesn't change the image format, per se. Sometimes, AOL's awful 
email system does weird things with MIME encoding, but that's a 
separate issue.

Mary Clark