Abstract: A process is set forth for previewing a table attachment on a mobile communication device, and upon identifying table content of interest viewing and/or retrieving the entire table from an attachment server. In one embodiment, a small 4×4 row/column preview is presented on the device of every table found in a document attachment, with the cell content textual information limited to the requesting device display capabilities. This limitation avoids any requirement to download large amounts of individual cell content to the device. Thus, the user is able to quickly identify which tables are of interest and then request a full table download from the attachment server in an on-demand fashion. In this regard, the preview table itself preferably also functions as a link to the full table stored at the server to facilitate easy retrieval to the device for viewing in a spreadsheet view.

Abstract: A server find process by which a user enters a search term for a document attachment into his/her mobile communication device. If no occurrences of the term are found on the device, the device then prompts the user to initiate a server side search. If the user accepts, then the server searches the document attachment and returns the first section of text that contains the search term to the device for viewing by the user. This process can then be repeated until the server find feature reports that no further instances of the search string have been found on the server.