The Acrobat.com Blog

This entry comes to you while I am on vacation. As I am sure happens to you sometimes, I need to check in occasionally on what is happening back in the office. Broadband internet access is available here, but you have to pay through the nose to get it, as rates are either by the minute or the megabit, and connections are very slow compared to other countries. But I won’t complain about that – as I type, I have a beautiful view of the Mediterranean Sea behind me.

What I wanted to remind everyone of is please be conscious of whom you are sending that large file attachment to and where he or she might be. I had three e-mail messages with 30+MB file attachments in my inbox this week. One of those messages went something like “Oops, ignore that version of the file I sent. Here’s the one I meant to send to you.”

So why make an issue of this? Well, with the connection being relatively slow and expensive where I currently am, it cost quite a bit of pocket money to just download those attachments. As I was using my email client application, it took about 4 hours to get to the other urgent messages I needed to read and reply to. Sure, I could have used browser-based e-mail access, but being away on vacation means my personal e-mail filters wouldn’t have cleared out the hundreds of unnecessary messages I would need to go through.

Instead, the file sender could have simply used their free Acrobat.com account to securely post and share the large files online, and then all that needed to be e-mailed was a link to the file. If the wrong version of the file was uploaded, a new one can be re-uploaded just as easily. Additionally, with Acrobat.com Workspaces, all the files I needed to see could be uploaded into a Shared Workspace, then all that needed to be e-mailed was a message with one link to everything I needed to get to. I could have even previewed the files directly from my Acrobat.com file organizer while I am here, before downloading the files fully when I was back on home ground.

So, please, if you think you will impress that client or coworker by getting their requested files to them ahead of schedule, think again for a moment. Consider that he or she may be somewhere with limited access, and all you might be giving them with large e-mail attachments is a mild headache. Instead, let them get some rest and relaxation knowing that the file they need is available when they return, waiting for them on Acrobat.com.

Enjoy your vacations!