Most of us have to attach files to our e-mails on a regular basis. This generally means that we have to
search for Files on SharePoint,BaseCamp, SalesForce, NetSuite or other web based tools, download it on our machines and then go about to find those files
and attach them to our e-mail. Except that normally we need to actually view the files using Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Acrobat PDF Reader and Image
Viewer or other tools before attaching to our e-mail.
The process of attaching files to an Email therefore becomes a bit different. We first find the File,
then we temporarily download the file (by opening the file). The file gets opened by a Software such as Acrobat PDF Reader. Subsequently we choose the Save-As Option in the Software that was used to open the file to
save a copy of the file into the Documents, Videos or Pictures Folders on our PC (Device) File System. Only then we can proceed to our e-mail Client (outlook, gmail,
Yahoo, hotmail) and attach the file.
Wouldn’t it be nicer if the Operating System (Windows, Mac, iOs, Android, Linux, …) provided a quick and easy way to have the Application copy it’s open
files (content) into the System Clipboard. If it was that possible all software could easily implement a mechanism to allow for dragging and dropping
files from them over to our email or just the file system.
Figure 1: The Most common work-flow for finding and attaching a file to Email.
