So you want to share some really neat pictures with family or friends?  How about all that data you just found on the internet that proves you are really related to Julius Caesar?  Most likely you’ll write an email to your friends and then attach whatever it is to the email.

Be careful what you attach.  If you’ve taken a picture with a digital camera, most likely it’s a really big picture.  Use your camera photo-editing software to make the picture smaller.  Some email clients will ask you how large to make the attachment.  Take a minute to consider just how the person who receives the mail will use what you are sending them.

If the recipient is just supposed to look at the picture, then you can resize it to about 3″ x 5″ or so.  Don’t worry about the quality. A photo of that size will display just fine.  A computer only displays a resolution of 72 dpi.  So sharing a picture of higher resolution is a waste of time.

Printing is another matter.  To print a quality picture, it will need to be a much higher quality. In Windows 7 and 8, if you right-click on the picture you wish to send and chose to send it to an email recipient, you’ll be asked what size you want.  Just choose the smaller size to make it faster.

For text, you could copy it and paste it in the mail.  For a lot of text, just attach the document you created.  But think first.  Are you using something like MS Word 7 or later?  Remember that many people can’t read that document. So, first save it as a MS Word 97-2003 document and you will probably make the recipient much happier.

Remember, too—not everyone has a fast internet connection.  Large files can take forever to download if you have a slow (or, heaven forbid, dial-up) connection.