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I have a user who is using Thunderbird 24 (via an IMAP account) and Word 2003. When this user had been using Outlook to access her email, she could just drag images from Outlook to Word.
After the upgrade, she cannot drag inline images into a new Word document.
How do I set up Thunderbird and/or Word to allow her to drag images from Thunderbird and drop them into Word?
Rob Gibson
Posted 2013-10-07T18:26:07.373
Reputation: 121
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Direct drag-and-drop out of Thunderbird is broken, and has been for many versions. But the versions that I run allow me to drag the image to the desktop from Thunderbird, and then from the desktop to a Word 2007 document.
Debra
Posted 2013-10-07T18:26:07.373
Reputation: 4 000
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I just did some testing with this.
The problem is that Word does not accept (and translate) an image link from the following format: mailbox:///C:/xxxxx/mailbox?number=1234&part=1.2&filename=image001.gif.
This is a problem with Word because both Wordpad and LibreOffice do translates this correctly (and show the image). Try starting Wordpad and drop an image from Thunderbird. I just noticed even Notepad accepts (and translates) it because you'll see the binary information of the image (and not a link to mailbox:///).
The reason it worked with Outlook is because Outlook does image dragging differently and stores the image temporarily and giving the link. (This is the same as dragging it to the desktop and from the desktop to your application.) Thunderbird gives the location of the image embedded in a local (folder-)file and it's up to the application to extract it from that file. (And like a said, Word is the only text-editor which can't handle that)
BTW Before dropping the image you can see how the application is going to handle it. If it's an icon with a + it's going to copy it, if it's a shortcut-icon (with an arrow) you'll get a (text-)link.
Rik
Posted 2013-10-07T18:26:07.373
Reputation: 11 800
About 1 time in 10, I can drag one image from Thunderbird and drop it into Word, but it only seems to be the first image in the message, and it is nowhere near consistent.
I see the same results you are using. I have also noted the "Paste Special..." solution I have seen elsewhere. I will need to confer with my user if either the paste operation would be useful or using LibreOffice. I would use Wordpad on XP, but I don't want it to pull up Outlook, as I just migrated the user away from Outlook as she has more than 12GB of email, which Outlook 2003 cannot handle via IMAP services. – Rob Gibson – 2013-10-08T18:31:05.623
I have confirmed that I can drag and drop from Thunderbird 24 to Wordpad in Windows 7 and get the image I am looking to see. When I drag from Thunderbird 24 to Wordpad in Windows XP, I get an IMAP:// link instead. – Rob Gibson – 2013-10-08T18:37:29.587
You're right. I didn't try the XP-Thunderbird->Wordpad combo. But I just tried XP-Thunderbird->Notepad however and Notepad does get the image-data (only it's just gibberish) I couldn't get the image in Word (but I used 2007) So I guess the transfer of images via the IMAP:/// or mailbox:/// is spotty at best in XP-Word/Wordpad. Xp-Thunderbird->LibreOffice worked all the time for me. – Rik – 2013-10-08T18:58:19.093
Bug 377621 - Drag and Drop attachments to desktop or folders doesn't work - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=377621
– cweiske – 2016-06-20T07:56:00.283The drag-and-drop out of Thunderbird 24.0 works for me. I just tried dragging an image to LibreOffice Writer. Both an inline image and a linked-image. So I think it must be an Office Word problem. – Rik – 2013-10-08T07:33:16.920