When opening an email attachment it generally displays in complete gobbily-goop, such as: ?%PDF-1.5 %”?”? 1534 0 obj<>stream x”?”??FE_”?”S”?”M? “5″1″?”?Z”?”?…”. How can I open these attachments correctly” The computer is running Windows 98.

The reason the email attachments appear as garbage is the computer is opening the email attachments in a text-based editor, so you are seeing all the code behind the file (or more correctly, the best interpretation of the code which the text editor can provide, which is why it does not make any sense). In the case of the file you have given above, this is a PDF file as indicated by the ?PDF-1.5? tag at the beginning of the code. So, you will need to use a PDF viewer (such as Adobe Acrobat Reader) to view this file correctly. Visit www.adobe.com and click the button to download Acrobat Reader. Once downloaded and installed, restart the computer and then check whether the problem continues. If so, the file association for PDF files may be incorrect. This means that when you attempt to open PDF files they open in the wrong application (e.g. Notepad) as they have not correctly been associated to open in the correct application (Adobe Acrobat Reader). To fix this problem, instead of opening the file through your email client, save the PDF file to the Windows Desktop. Then, hold down the SHIFT key and right-click on the PDF file on the Desktop. In the context-menu that appears, click “Open With”. In the list of applications that appear, find and select the entry for Acrobat Reader (it may not be listed with its full name, but instead with an abbreviation such as “Acrord32″). Once selected, tick “Always use this program to open this type of file” and click OK. This will create a file association so all PDF files always open using Adobe Acrobat Reader. Now, try double-clicking on the PDF file on the Desktop, and it should open in Acrobat Reader. Finally, restart your email client and try opening a PDF attachment, which should also open using Acrobat Reader.