Attachments and documents

Nixt Mail opens the files people send you in its own editors, inside the app, rather than handing them to another program. You can read and change a Word document, an Excel workbook, a PowerPoint presentation or a PDF, save it, and send the changed copy back to the person who sent it.

This page covers opening, saving and sending files back from Mail. For the Documents view, which lists every file in your mail in one place, see The Documents view. Detailed guides to the editing tools themselves are in the documentation for Nixt Writer, Nixt Sheets, Nixt Slides and Nixt PDF.

Which files open where

Nixt Mail checks what a file really is, not only what its name says. If a file named .xlsx is really a Word document, it opens in the document editor, and the status bar at the bottom says This file is named “xlsx” but its contents are a document. Nixt Mail has opened it as what it actually is. An Office-named file that is really a PDF opens in the PDF viewer. A file named .pdf that is not a PDF is handed to your computer instead.

Files in other formats

From a message, these files are saved and handed to your computer. Opened with Open a file… in Documents, they show a Cannot open file name dialog with the reason and the suggestion.

Open an attachment from a message

1. Open the message.
2. Under 1 attachment or N attachments, click the file’s card.

What the card does:

1. It downloads the file and saves it — to your Downloads folder, or to a folder you choose, depending on Settings › Reading › Where attachments are saved (Save to Downloads, the default, or Ask where to put it).
2. It opens the saved copy in the matching editor.

Clicking the card again opens the saved copy without downloading it a second time.

The line under the file name on the card shows:

Attachments up to 100 MB can be downloaded and opened in Nixt Mail.

The document, spreadsheet and presentation editors

The three editors open over the whole window and share the same frame.

The title bar

Under the title bar is a ribbon of tabs, and at the bottom a status bar showing a summary of the file — such as a word count — and the result of the last action.

Reply with this file… appears for a file opened from the Documents view, when the message it came with has a sender to reply to. See Send the edited file back.

Save

Press ⌘S (Ctrl+S on Windows and Linux), or click Save.

Saving never changes the attachment in the original message.

If saving fails, the status bar says Could not save: and the reason.

Save a copy in another format

1. Click the download icon, Save a copy as.
2. Choose a format.
3. Choose where to save it and click Save.

• Saving a copy in the file’s own format makes that copy the file you are editing: later saves go to it.
• Saving in another format writes that file and leaves you editing the original.
• A spreadsheet saved as .csv or .tsv contains the sheet you are on.

The status bar says Saved file name when it is done.

Print

Choose More › Print… in the document editor. Nixt Mail makes a PDF of the document as it would print and opens it in your computer’s PDF viewer, where you choose the printer. The status bar says Opened in your PDF viewer — print from there.

Close with unsaved changes

When you close a file with unsaved changes, a dialog asks Save changes to file name**?** — Your changes will be lost if you close without saving.

• Save saves, then closes.
• Don’t save closes without saving.
• Cancel keeps the file open.

The PDF viewer

A PDF from a message opens in the Nixt PDF viewer. You can read it, search it, mark it up, redact it, fill in forms, and change its pages.

The Document menu:

For a PDF opened from a message’s attachment card, Save writes to the attachment saved in Downloads or the folder you chose.

Redact removes the text under the box from the document rather than covering it. Before it does, it asks Remove this text permanently?, explaining that the words cannot be recovered and that redacting clears the undo history. After redacting, the status line says how many characters were removed and reminds you to save.

Keyboard shortcuts in the PDF viewer:

For the full PDF tools, see Nixt PDF.

Send the edited file back

Reply with this file… starts a reply to the person who sent the file, with your edited copy attached.

1. In the editor, choose More › Reply with this file…, or in the PDF viewer, Document › Reply with this file….
2. The editor closes and the compose window opens with:
   • To: the sender,
   • Subject: Re: and the original subject,
   • the body Here’s file name with my changes. — or Here’s file name back. if you did not change it,
   • the file attached, exactly as it is in the editor, including changes you have not saved.
3. Edit the message and click Send.

For a PDF, the attached copy is the one in the viewer, so redactions, filled fields and marks are included even if you have not pressed Save.

If a message is already being written, a dialog asks Replace the message you are writing? — A draft is already open. Attaching this file would start a new reply and discard it. Choose Replace it, or Keep my draft; the editor then says Left your draft alone.

The command is offered for a PDF opened from its attachment card in a message, and for any file opened from the Documents view. If the message has no sender address, the command is not offered; in the PDF viewer it says There is no sender to reply to for this file.

Messages about attachments