How to Open Email Attachments on a Blackberry

Viewing email attachments on your Blackberry is a snap, as the device is extremely versatile. Blackberry supports your ability to view Office documents in Word, Excel and Powerpoint formats, PDF files with Adobe Acrobat, text and WordPerfect documents, images in BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG and TIFF formats, compressed ZIP documents and webpages in HTML. However, you will need third-party software to edit or resend documents in many of these formats.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Activated email account and address
• Blackberry

Open Email Attachments on a Blackberry

1. View your message list by using your track-wheel to click on "Messages" from the Home screen.

2. Check to see if an incoming email has an attachment. If so, it will have a paper clip icon next to its listing in your message list.

3. Scroll to an email that has an attachment and press the "ENTER" key to open the email.

4. Press the track-wheel while viewing the open email and select "Open Attachment."

5. Use the "Table of Contents" or "Full Contents" option to allow you to view enough information about the attachment to determine if it is supported by Blackberry. This will help ensure that you wish to retrieve it and that it is not a threat to your Blackberry security.

6. Select the "Full Contents" option and use the track-wheel to click on "Retrieve." Depending on the size and format of your incoming attachment, only part of your document may appear.

7. Scroll through the document to retrieve the rest of it.

8. Return to the main body of your message after viewing an attachment by pressing the "ESC" key. Your Blackberry server generally does not save the attachment to your device unless you have installed third-party software to edit and re-use the attachment.

9. Return to the message list to view other messages and attachments by pressing the "ESC" key again.

Tips & Warnings

• As an immensely popular device with a huge following in the geek world, Blackberry is supported by third-party software and shareware programming that continues to grow explosively. Check BlackberryForums.com and other blogs, as well as the official Blackberry website, for information on programs such as eOffice that can enable you to edit and resend productivity attachments once you have opened them (see Resources below).
• Always handle attachments with care and ensure that they will not threaten your system security before you retrieve them. Unknown email attachments are among the most common carriers of computer viruses, worms and malware.

Resources

• Blackberry website for current info.
• BlackBerryForums.com for blogs.