PDF Woes

David Hooton david at PLATFORMHOSTING.COM
Fri May 28 10:11:01 IST 2004


I've just emailed a link to Julian for PDF that we have this issue with
(some PDF's don't do it, others do).

Regards,
 
David Hooton
Senior Partner
Platform Networks
www.platformnetworks.net

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MailScanner mailing list [mailto:MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On
> Behalf Of Karl Bailey
> Sent: Friday, 28 May 2004 7:06 PM
> To: MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
> Subject: Re: PDF Woes
> 
> This is totally repeatable using mutt from command line, the client
> receiving doesn't matter, mutt does the same thing from the command line,
> it always sends pdf's as quoted printable. If you want a PDF that is
> guaranteed to break I can supply, it is 2MBytes though...
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MailScanner mailing list [mailto:MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On
> Behalf Of Julian Field
> Sent: 27 May 2004 16:49
> To: MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
> Subject: Re: PDF Woes
> 
> At 09:22 27/05/2004, you wrote:
> >Karl Bailey wrote:
> > > Guys,
> > >
> > > I'm having a very frustrating problem. We run a production process
> > > that uses mutt to mail PDF's to customers. Now I know mutt has some
> > > known issues with PDF's, but, the problems introduced are compounded
> > > by adding a signature to the email after scanning using MailScanner.
> > > The footer seems to cause the PDF to corrupt to the point it is
> > > unusable in SOME CASES. I know this is to do with the fact that mutt
> > > uses quoted-printable content transfer encoding cos if I use mutt
> > > interactivly & force the encoding type to base64 then everything
> > > works.. attach from the command line & it all corrupts.
> > >
> >
> >Below is information Julian posted after I found out our pdf's were
> >getting mangled after passing through MailScanner. This problem is a
> >quoted-printable/signing messages problem. In our case MS Exchange
> >incorrectly decides to encode some binary pdf's as quoted-printable,
> >which in turn is corrupted when MailScanner signs them. Base64 always
> >passes through correctly. We took the view of always zipping up pdf's
> >which gets around the problem. Another thing to note is that I found
> >pdf's created in different software are treated differently when being
> >encoded in MS Exchange, so it seems that the pdf file version is also
> >taken into consideration when the message is created.
> >
> >Hope this helps
> >
> >Dean Plant
> >
> >Previous post from Julian.
> >
> >Dean has kindly sent me the qf+df files from a message containing a PDF
> >file that is corrupted. He has also sent me the original untouched PDF
> >file to compare with the df file.
> >
> >Well, whatever generated the original quoted-printable message
> >          X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) did it wrong.
> >
> >If you do an "od -c" on the test1.pdf file you get this:
> >0000000   %   P   D   F   -   1   .   2  \r   %   â   ã   Ï   Ó  \r  \n
> >0000020   6   3   2   6       0       o   b   j  \r   <   <      \r   /
> >Note the \r\n at the end of the first line, just before the 6326.
> >
> >but if you do an "od -c" of the quoted-printable message contents (so
> >you can see any embedded newline characters and so on), you get this:
> >0000000   %   P   D   F   -   1   .   2   =   0   D   %   =   E   2   =
> >0000020   E   3   =   C   F   =   D   3  \n   6   3   2   6       0
> >0000040   o   b   j   =   0   D   <   <       =   0   D   /
> >Now look what has happened to the data just before the 6326. It has
> >been squashed into 1 \n character, thereby destroying the \r in the
> original.
> >
> >I can only imagine that Outlook/Exchange saw the \r\n sequence near the
> >start of the file, and concluded that it was a text-based file. It
> >therefore saw nothing wrong in squashing \r\n into just \n, which would
> >work fine on a text file. Unfortunately its original decision about the
> >file was wrong in this case :-(
> >
> >This makes it
> >a) Microsoft's fault
> >and
> >b) Not a problem I can work around, as their software has destroyed
> >data that I cannot reconstruct.
> >
> >Outlook XP always appears to use Base64, so I suspect the problem may
> >just exist in Exchange 5.5 and/or Outlook 97. Don't know about Outlook
> 2000.
> >
> >Whether Acrobat Reader (on some platforms) will continue to be able to
> >use the damaged file is another matter entirely, something over which I
> >have no control.
> >
> >All I can suggest is you request people using the particular
> >troublesome versions always zip their PDF files to stop Outlook
> destroying them.
> >
> >If anyone has any ideas about a software workaround I could implement,
> >please let me know as I can't think of any way of doing it right now.
> 
> I have just tried it with a new PDF file from Acrobat 6, sent using
> Outlook 2003, and it sent it as Base64 so I can't even investigate the
> problem any more :-( And the PDF file I was using before (which Outlook
> 2003 sent as
> quoted-printable) turns out to be broken from the start, so I couldn't get
> any version to work.
> I need a PDF file which was generated with Acrobat 5 which Outlook 2003
> will send as quoted-printable.
> Then I stand a chance of being able to test it.
> 
> One thought I had was to traverse the MIME tree looking for quoted-
> printable sections and change them to Base64 (or even just do it to PDF
> attachments). Doing it to everything would make the message bigger and is
> probably unnecessary, it's just PDF which is the problem.
> --
> Julian Field
> www.MailScanner.info
> MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support
> 
> PGP footprint: EE81 D763 3DB0 0BFD E1DC 7222 11F6 5947 1415 B654
> 
> -------------------------- MailScanner list ----------------------
> To leave, send    leave mailscanner    to jiscmail at jiscmail.ac.uk
> Before posting, please see the Most Asked Questions at
> http://www.mailscanner.biz/maq/     and the archives at
> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/mailscanner.html
> 
> 
> 
> ====================================================================
> This e-mail and any attachments may be confidential and/or legally
> privileged. If you have received this e-mail and you are not a named
> addressee, please inform Landmark Information Group on 01392 441700
> and then delete the e-mail from your system. If you are not a named
> addressee you must not use, disclose, distribute, copy, print or rely
> on this e-mail. This email and any attachments have been scanned for
> viruses and to the best of our knowledge are clean. To ensure
> regulatory compliance and for the protection of our clients and
> business, we may monitor and read e-mails sent to and from our
> servers.
> 
> -------------------------- MailScanner list ----------------------
> To leave, send    leave mailscanner    to jiscmail at jiscmail.ac.uk
> Before posting, please see the Most Asked Questions at
> http://www.mailscanner.biz/maq/     and the archives at
> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/mailscanner.html
> 
> ========================================================================
>  Pain free spam & virus protection by:          www.mailsecurity.net.au
>  Forward undetected SPAM to:                   spam at mailsecurity.net.au
> ========================================================================


========================================================================
 Pain free spam & virus protection by:          www.mailsecurity.net.au
 Forward undetected SPAM to:                   spam at mailsecurity.net.au
========================================================================

-------------------------- MailScanner list ----------------------
To leave, send    leave mailscanner    to jiscmail at jiscmail.ac.uk
Before posting, please see the Most Asked Questions at
http://www.mailscanner.biz/maq/     and the archives at
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/mailscanner.html




More information about the MailScanner mailing list