I run the email list for a couple of real life groups. One woman sent round (or tried to send round) a pdf, sized at 750kb, advertising an event. No rush -- she sent it on the day of the event, so it's too late to do anything about it.) Topic totally within the scope of the group, but I think 750kb is a bit large; I say it should be either reduced (can one reduce a pdf?) or she should put it up elsewhere and send around the web address. She's come up with some good questions, based on her own experience. But I'm not sure how common her set-up is. So, my questions to you, especially those of you who are a) on dialup and b) not terribly techie (I.e. similar to most of the rest of the group in question)

When the original comes to me, at what size do I know when a file needs to be reduced? (On my system, this poster did not start to download until I asked it to do so. Then it asks if I want it saved or opened, so it does the trouble-shooting for me.) Could I not warn people not to download a .pdf if they're on dial-up? Can he/she not see the size of the item and take care? And why is a dial-up user stuck with downloading something? Can it not be suspended by using the esc key? Sometimes I receive digital photos which the sender has sent HUGE, too big to see clearly, even. Is that the same sort of prob?

PDFs are like Word docs they expand, if you going to send an email the best option is to provide a link warning the user of the size and the need for Acrobat to open the document or alternatively to compress the PDF and then send it. PDFs can get very large very quickly. The largest accepted email is around 10MB and thats the cap most servers will drop emails that exceed this and if that mail server has a size limit its usually around the 2MB mark. So,

When the original comes to me, at what size do I know when a file needs to be reduced?

If its 500kb + it needs reducing or compressing

Could I not warn people not to download a .pdf if they're on dial-up? Can he/she not see the size of the item and take care?

If you place a link in the email you can warn them of the size and file type the link points too, Yes. No they cannot automatically detect the size of the file, some browsers try to do this but most of the time they are incorrect.

And why is a dial-up user stuck with downloading something? Can it not be suspended by using the esc key?

In general no you cannot use the Esc key to stop a download, however any download should have a dialog of some sort with the option to cancel so its down to the users discretion.

Sometimes I receive digital photos which the sender has sent HUGE, too big to see clearly, even. Is that the same sort of prob?

Its a similar sort of problem yes however Images usually taken on digital cameras are almost always set to ridiculously high sizes, simply resizing the images to an acceptable screen size, height and width will dramatically drop the size of the image file. Not to mention that a lot of people are still in the habit of sending BMP bitmaps which are horrendous, all images should be sent as either GIF or JPEG(JPG).

Yahoo lets you send up two 1 gb in an e-mail (theoreticaly). I sent once over 400kb of JPG's, but took me half an hour to upload them into the attachment. As for the huge resolution of the digital pics, you can resize them.

I haven't heard that myself but even if yahoo lets you send an email that size almost any other email server will drop it on receipt.

Well, I just uploaded the attachment and sent it. I don't know if it reached it's destination.