Tip 670: Reply with attachment

Earlier this week, the question was about how to send a message to a group of people but only send the attachment to the recipients in the To line. This brings up a related question:

How can I easily send to the original sender an Office document that was attached to an email I received and revised by me. Right now, I need to save the document with my comments, reply to the email and attach the revised document.

Newer versions of Office support ‘send for revisions’ but it only works with an Office document.

If you follow these specific steps, you can edit any file type then return the edited copy to the sender, without saving the edited copy to My Documents.

Open the message, then the attachment. This step is important, not only because opening attachment from the reading pane creates read-only attachments, but also because it’s too easy to view another message, calendar etc. while the attachment is open.
Edit then save the attachment.
Do not close the message before you save and close the attachment! As long as the message is open there is a pointer between it and the attachment and changes will be saved to the document and the temp copy in the securetemp folder will be deleted when the message is closed.
Forward the message or hit reply and drag the attachment from the old message to the new.
You can now close the message. Outlook will ask if you want to save it, click Yes to save if you want the edited document to replace the original document in the message, choose No to keep the original. For insurance against an “oops” moment, make a copy of the message before editing the document. Select it, press Ctrl+C, V to make a copy in place. Open one of the messages and edit the document. After sending the edited document you can delete the open message.

Published October 24, 2009. Last updated on May 18, 2011.