.wmz file?

ratintrap · April 20, 2009, 08:08:27 AM

Does anyone know what a .wmz file is? I did a quick search online and came up with two conflicting answers.

We had someone email us pics for an ad and amongst the images was the .wmz file, there also was a oledata.mso file. I've tried everything I can think of to open it including changing the file extension to JPG.

I'm having our sales person ask them to resend it, I was just wondering if anyone knew how to deal with this type of file for future reference.

The person who sent it to us sends their ad layouts as 72 ppi Jpegs so I imagine this thing is a real work of art.

jimking · April 20, 2009, 08:14:33 AM

Sounds like a Zipped metafile. Or a zipped Word Metafile or WFZ. Try unzipping on the pc.
http://filext.com/file-extension/WMZ

Joe · April 20, 2009, 09:08:14 AM

Quote from: ratintrap on April 20, 2009, 08:08:27 AMDoes anyone know what a .wmz file is? I did a quick search online and came up with two conflicting answers.

We had someone email us pics for an ad and amongst the images was the .wmz file, there also was a oledata.mso file. I've tried everything I can think of to open it including changing the file extension to JPG.

I'm having our sales person ask them to resend it, I was just wondering if anyone knew how to deal with this type of file for future reference.

The person who sent it to us sends their ad layouts as 72 ppi Jpegs so I imagine this thing is a real work of art.

Sounds like a mess to me. I don't know about the .wmz file but the oledata.mso has something to do with Microsoft's Object Linking and Embedding (OLE). Good call on having them resend it. :wink:

Possum · April 20, 2009, 10:10:21 AM

That sounds like an old Windows format. Did you try to import the file into any program to see if you could resave or export?

ratintrap · April 20, 2009, 10:15:20 AM

Quote from: jimking on April 20, 2009, 08:14:33 AMSounds like a Zipped metafile. Or a zipped Word Metafile or WFZ. Try unzipping on the pc.
http://filext.com/file-extension/WMZ

If it was a zipped metafile, would that be an image? I'm hoping that it's just something that got messed up when it was emailed and hopefully the resend will be OK.

The email had a png, a gif and a jpg attached besides the oddball files I mentioned. One of the images is a photo of the logo that's on the door of his car (low resolution) that he either wants us to use in the ad as is or have us match it as closely as possible.

We deal with so many computer illiterate people that I'm never sure whether the problems are because they've done something weird by accident or if some sort of computer glitch caused the problem. :undecided:

This guy is the kind of person who likes to complain too.

ratintrap · April 20, 2009, 10:20:33 AM

Quote from: Possum on April 20, 2009, 10:10:21 AMThat sounds like an old Windows format. Did you try to import the file into any program to see if you could resave or export?

The only program I could get it to open with was Text Edit, it was just a bunch of garbled text. I tried to unzip it and that didn't work either.

Joe · April 20, 2009, 10:37:13 AM

Quote from: ratintrap on April 20, 2009, 10:15:20 AM
Quote from: jimking on April 20, 2009, 08:14:33 AMSounds like a Zipped metafile. Or a zipped Word Metafile or WFZ. Try unzipping on the pc.
http://filext.com/file-extension/WMZ

If it was a zipped metafile, would that be an image? I'm hoping that it's just something that got messed up when it was emailed and hopefully the resend will be OK.

The email had a png, a gif and a jpg attached besides the oddball files I mentioned. One of the images is a photo of the logo that's on the door of his car (low resolution) that he either wants us to use in the ad as is or have us match it as closely as possible.

We deal with so many computer illiterate people that I'm never sure whether the problems are because they've done something weird by accident or if some sort of computer glitch caused the problem. :undecided:

This guy is the kind of person who likes to complain too.

The info I find either says it is a compressed Windows Metafile or a Windows Media Player skin file. My guess is the former and if so you should be able to un-compress it with a ZIP utility. Once un-compressed the best thing I've found to do with Windows Metafiles is to place them into PageMaker, select all, copy. Open new document in Illustrator and paste. Check your strokes if you get this far. Sometimes they tend to almost disappear because they can get really, really thin during the conversion. Then "Save As" an EPS file and continue on.

ratintrap · April 20, 2009, 10:53:43 AM

Hmmm, he usually sends us the mock ups for his ads as a 72 ppi low res jpg so I'd be surprised if it was anything that complex. :undecided:

I'll give it a try a little later though.

Possum · April 20, 2009, 11:31:54 AM

I used to have a clip art CD set in which the art was in two formats, one of which was wmz. Try to import it into Photoshop, not open.

ratintrap · April 20, 2009, 01:11:40 PM

Couldn't get it to work. I'm hoping the resend will work out better.

ratintrap · April 20, 2009, 03:34:45 PM

I got it to work, I'll post details tomorrow. :wink:

ratintrap · April 21, 2009, 07:27:02 AM

I ran the wmz file through the Stuffit Expander and then changed the extension to jpg. I still couldn't open it in Photoshop but I was able to place it into InDesign and export it as an eps. I wasn't able to Edit Original in InDesign because I got an error when it tried to open into Photoshop. It was just a drawing (not vector) so I opened the eps in Photoshop and I'm good to go.

(I know, it sounds like a blood sausage routine to me too.)

I have to go now, I have an ad that someone sent in Power Point to attend to.

ninjaPB_43 · April 21, 2009, 08:22:45 AM

send it to Gnub, she uses a PC...

gnubler · April 21, 2009, 08:39:12 AM

Quote from: ninjaPB_43 on April 21, 2009, 08:22:45 AMsend it to Gnub, she uses a PC...

You know, this is exactly the type of shit that drives prepressers to drink. Meanwhile, the customer becomes exasperated because we can't work with his mysterious bullshit files. Elite moronic bastards.

ratintrap · April 21, 2009, 10:10:06 AM

Yeah, the customer ends up thinking we're a bunch of unprofessional idiots because our professional software can't open their wacko file.

(I know I'm basically just repeating what gnub said but she's right and deserves a second.)

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.wmz file?