Dynamics Community Forum Thread Details

E-Mail Attachment doesn´t open, saved PDF is actually Word-File

Hi Experts,

we recently updated our CRM from version 2013 to 2016, 8.2.2.112 on premise and we are facing a problem, we couldn´t find a solution or even someone with a similar problem yet. Unfortunately we didn´t discover that problem while testing the system and now we have to try to solve it ourselves…

To generate quotes we use a Word Add-In, which exports the quote in a Word Template where you can finalize it and do some editing. When you close the Word-File a pop-up asks you, if you want to send the document as an E-Mail-Activity. If you choose that option, a new E-Mail-Activities opens and the quote is already attached as a PDF-File. You can send the E-Mail to your customer and the attachment will open without problems (in the sent E-Mail and if you open the attachment from your E-Mail-Activities yourself).

But, here´s the thing: In our old version the sent quote was also attached directly to the Entity as a docx-file, in case you wanted to open it again and make additional changes. The file still gets attached to the Entity, but with the file-extension .pdf. But what´s even worse, if you want to open the file, you get an error, that the file was corrupted.

I figured this out: if you save the file to your hard drive instead of just opening it, then change the extension from .pdf to .docx it will open as a perfectly fine Word-Document. I was very proud to find this, but, as you can imagine, the users aren´t quite happy with that workaround, they want the system to work as it always did. And I even have to agree with them in that matter.

I´m not a developer myself, but to me it seems as if the file is already saved to the entity as a Word-file and only given a wrong extension, but I couldn´t find a script that says “attach E-Mail Attachment to entity” or something similar.

Is anyone familiar with a problem like this or has an idea where what the problem could be?

Thank you!

Hello Marleen,

I understood that the problem is regarding the file type/extension when it is PDF so it is corrupted but by download it physically and converting to word document it is working.

If it is possible to clarify what is word add-in as this is not a clear part for me.

On the other hand I have a suggestion to make a plugin that will update mimetype of the attachment record in the CRM directly after being attached so you users then can see it as a word inside the attachments and being able to view it. but you will need to check the value of mime for a record as a sample inside the DB and also the name , as maybe the name contains the file extension as well.

docs.microsoft.com/.../annotation

docs.microsoft.com/.../activitymimeattachment

Please let me know what do you think about this and also share with me more details if possible about the backend process with the word add-in.

Thanks,

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