Strange attachment + Word problems

Question

I've had this problem since I first got my Mac a few months ago. Whenever I send a Word attachment from Mail and the recipient (whether Mac or PC-user) opens said attachment, the Word doc has somehow been magically transformed into the original mail message.
Reading over that, it seems a little unclear, but it's pretty confusing. For instance, I sent a paper to one of my professors. When she opened the .doc, instead of finding my paper inside, it was the text from the email conversation where the attachment had originally been enclosed. It was sent as a Windows-friendly attachment, but even fellow Mac users have reported this same phenomenon with my emails.
Any ideas? Suggestions? This is really annoying, since as a college student I have to be able to reliably send .doc files from my computer.

Answer 1

Are you including the .doc extension with all Word attachments?<</div>
Yes, and the .doc never changes on my hard drive. It appears as it was when I saved it, just something funny happens during sending apparently.
Are you adding attachments below all message text including your Signature if one is used?<</div>
Unfortunately, yes - I thought that might be the problem, too, so I made sure that I stuck it at the end. No dice, though.
If you are using RTF for message composition, try using Plain Text instead<</div>
I'll have to try that next time, I hadn't considered that being a problem. Maybe that'll solve it!
P.S. My Mother, older sister and her family live in Knoxville (Farragut) and I spent this past Christmas there. Visited the Apple Store at the Mall to buy my niece some iPod accessories.<<</div>
It's a small world, eh? I didn't even think about visiting the Apple Store. They've always been helpful before, so if Plain Text doesn't solve it, I'll take it there and see what they have to say.