The following question came from one of our teachers participating in the E3Link Project that connects students in Algeria with students in the United States. It is applicable to anyone that has tried to send a large attachment through email only to have it bounce back or the person not receive it.
Question: I am unable send the PowerPoint presentation to you via email. It gives me an error message saying that the file attachment is too large for your mailbox. Is there another way that I can send this presentation to you?
Answer: Unfortunately many email programs have a limit on the file size of an attachment that is either sent or received. This can be frustrating when you are trying to send a person an attachment for a required project. In addition, when adding photos, audio or video to PowerPoint presentations they can become quite large. Below are two suggestions with short tutorials to accompany them.
Compress Pictures in a Document or Presentation
In order to view the size of a document or presentation, open it up. Go to File and then Properties. In the dialog box that appears be sure the General tab is selected. Once the General tab is selected you can view the size of your file. If you file is over 10 MB (some emails the limit is even less) you will want to try to compress the file before sending it through email. If after compression your file size is still over 10 MB than you should upload your file to a web server and provide the person you are sending it to a link to access it. (See Uploading a File to MediaFire.com)
In Word and Microsoft PowerPoint there is a easy way to compress the pictures that are included in the document. Open the document or presentation and double click on any of the pictures. A dialog box will appear. Click on the Compress button at the bottom of the box. A second dialog box will appear. Choose All Pictures in document, Web/Screen and click on the Ok button. Another dialog box will appear asking if you want to apply picture optimization. Click the Apply button. Depending on the number of pictures you have it may take a few seconds to apply. Once it is done compressing click on the Ok button on the original dialog box.
If you go to File, Properties once again, you should notice a large difference in the file size of your document or presentation if it included a lot of pictures.
Uploading a file to MediaFire.com
If compressing your file does not bring the file size down enough, you do not have access to a web server and you find that you are unable to email an attachment, you can use several free file transfer services that are on the web. I will provide instructions for the one we are using for the e3Link Project called MediaFire.com. Other services include Files-upload.com, GigaSize.com, Pando.com and Xdrive.com.
MediaFire.com is a free file transfer service that allows you to upload a file to their web server, store it there and send it to someone else by sending them a link to the file. Per the MediaFire.com website you can :
- Share files with all of your friends and upload them only once
- Link to files from your MySpace page, your blog, or forums
- Keep frequently used documents online for easy access from any computer
Currently there is an unlimited disk space, no time limits on the files being stored, and you can upload up to 100 MB per file. All of this for FREE!
Visit Using MediaFire.com to Upload Large Files to open a short tutorial on how to upload and email a file to someone.
–Carrie Albin, Outreach Coordinator and Co-Editor