Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Communications Microsoft

Grassroots Response to .doc E-mail Attachments? 149

Posted by Cliff from the please-resend-in-a-format-that-I-can-read dept.
LurkingAbout asks: "Maybe it's just me, but it feels like people are sending Word .doc files as attachments more then ever. Typically it's a friendly acquaintance who doesn't realize that .doc is one of Microsoft's ploys to force the few remaining holdouts, like me, to shell out for a copy of Word (or better yet Office). This morning it was the director of my daughter's preschool with the monthly parent newsletter. I've taken to responding with a polite-but-educational message requesting that the sender save the file as RTF or HTML and resend. If I'm feeling long winded I sometimes go into a diatribe about the Evil Empire. Today I started thinking that maybe there's an opportunity for some grassroots organization here. Maybe a concise well-written boilerplate paragraph for just this situation? Or a link to a web page to help educate the masses who think .doc is like air. What do other Slashdot readers do in this situation?"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Grassroots Response to .doc E-mail Attachments? More

Grassroots Response to .doc E-mail Attachments?

Comments Filter:

  • It's been done already (Score:5, Insightful)

    by titaniam ( 635291 ) * <slashdot@drpa.us> on Friday April 16, 2004 @10:36PM (#8888810) Homepage Journal
    See this [gnu.org] or this [cs.uit.no]. RMS and many others [google.com] are all over it.

    • See this or this. RMS and many others are all over it.

      From my alma mater:

      The Department of Systems and Computer Engineering [carleton.ca], the one faculty which should know better is the only faculty at the school where I've seen course notes in Word and PowerPoint. Everyone else does HTML and PDF. Assignments have to be submitted with a Windows binary called "submit.exe". And, most ironically, for a Java programming class, at that. What fscking idiots.

      Makes me so proud.

  • Don't you think that you are over reacting?
    • Yes, he is overreacting. You will not get the world to bend to your idiologies. Simply use OpenOffice. I really don't understand the point of crying over .doc(s). As an IT director, I have learned not to try to press my views on customers/business associates. You learn to adapt. There are perfectly suitable software suites available to handle .doc(s) without using a MS app. Get over it, the sheep will come home in good time. Just be prepared to offer a hand during their transition. Make a point of illustrat

      • Re:Over Reacting? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by tdemark ( 512406 )
        Mac OS X has made it incredibly simple to send documents in an open format with the "Save as PDF" function that is available any time you print.

        This feature is part of the system install and not an add-on.

        Now that people can create PDFs the same way they print, I am seeing a lot less of the ".doc-type" documents flying around as attachments.

        Instead of running up the anti-MS flag, I usually take the tack of telling them that I got the file, but it looks all messed up on my screen. This is using the fact t
        • That seems like a good policy.

          What a lot of people don't seem to get is that there are really two use cases for sending documents by e-mail:

          1. The document does not need to be modified by the recipient(s).
          2. The document is part of a working relationship and will be modified, returned and/or sent on.

          In case 1, PDF should be the be-all and end-all. It displays and prints perfectly on virtually any platform.

          In case 2, there should be an agreed format for sending. Something like DOC may be acceptable, but

    • not over the top (Score:3, Insightful)

      by poptones ( 653660 )
      DOC files are a stupid security risk. And no, they ain't free. Here's what I suggest: take that DOC file, open it, and edit it. Put some stupid or even overtly offensive remarks under the school's letterhead, then return it to the sender. Explain how easy it is for anyone to edit a DOC file and how much they potentially risk by making their official letterhead a format owned by the company that filled the world with the least secure computers since the VIC20. If you're really feeling adventurous check out
  • But the quickest solution to ridding .doc documents is not to switch software tools, operating systems, and retrain users. Why not just rename .doc to .renamethisbacktodotdoc before sending it out, thus saving humanity from the hell that is anything microsoft hasn't touched yet?
    • > But the quickest solution to ridding .doc documents is not to switch software tools, operating systems, and retrain users. Why not just rename .doc to .renamethisbacktodotdoc before sending it out, thus saving humanity from the hell that is anything microsoft hasn't touched yet?

      Geek: "I can't read .doc files. Please use a non-proprietary format."

      Luser: "What's a .doc file? I dragged an icon labeled '2004 annual report' and you tell me you can't read it?"

  • Give up (Score:3, Informative)

    by lambent ( 234167 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @10:49PM (#8888879)
    I tried. Many times, with many people. Some converted, some ignored me.

    I don't bother anymore for just casual acquaintances i'll never speak to again. I just run it through antiword (http://www.winfield.demon.nl).

    Am I a traitor? Meh. Preaching to the choir, as well as the deaf (whether purposefully so, or they're just too belligerently stupid to bother paying attention) is a waste of my time as well as theirs.

    I recently trolled my old high school's website. Most of all their information to parents and students, including forms neccessary for graduation, are .DOC files.

    At any rate, remember: revision tracking is good for a quick laugh when you've got the proprietary-file-format blues.

    • Re:Give up (Score:2, Interesting)

      by BrokenHalo ( 565198 )
      No need to give up - just set up a proforma "bounce" message claiming (it doesn't have to be for real) that the message has been rejected as being in an unacceptable proprietary format and to please resend as text, rtf, html or pdf.

      If they don't resend the document, you'll know it wasn't important anyway. :-)

  • You know it depends (Score:4, Interesting)

    by KingOfBLASH ( 620432 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @10:51PM (#8888885) Journal

    For me at least, it depends. On the one hand, many people I work with distribute things in Word format because it's the standard in the organization. I usually just open the files in OpenOffice, and although every once in a while some complex formatting makes a document illegible, it is rare enough that I don't worry about it.

    For people who are not in a position to force me to accept their acceptance of Microsoft, I try my best to educate them. The trick is to be polite about it. Most people don't understand, and quite a few will jump at the chance to save $300 by using OpenOffice. The trick is to find their "button".

    • About OOo... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jtheory ( 626492 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @12:43AM (#8889430) Homepage Journal
      This is tricky, because they need to learn more before they try OpenOffice, or they'll be turned off right away.

      Before the education process, the trouble with OpenOffice is simple -- as long as they're using Word, they can save a document and most people will be able to read it.

      But when they start using OpenOffice, they'll find that when they save a document now almost NO ONE can use it.

      Then they see all those choices in the "save as type" dialog and say "whoa, don't want to touch that". Even saving in Word format has 3 choices. They won't know instinctively that HTML or RTF is "better" than, say, "StarWriter 3.0 Template". Both sound equally foreign (though html maybe rings a bell... but no, wait -- that probably won't work unless I start up the internet first). Let's say they crossed their fingers and went with RTF after an email from a /. reader.... Boom! Disaster strikes:
      "Saving in external formats may have caused information loss." Boy, that message frustrates me, because I know how most people read it (I remember switching my wife over to OO - she panicked at that dialog). They imagine whole paragraphs excised, pages gone poof. And worse -- why should they know how programs handle "files"? As far as they know, the original document (before the Save As) is also trashed now. "Information loss" is why they aren't supposed to open attachments anymore at work. Of course that looks bad.

      This may all be easier a few generations from now, when the basic protocol of a computer program is taught in school and understood from an early age. For now, though, the education process is slow for most people... partly our fault, because we don't understand that new computer users are missing the basic assumptions that seem obvious to us. And also because there *are* huge pitfalls that aren't obvious. Driving a car is complicated and dangerous, but the big dangers are obvious at a basic level. Stay on the road, and don't hit other cars (or get in their way). On a computer, the catastrophes are subtle and don't feel any different from doing things right. You open an attachment from someone you know. You accidentally delete half your paper while placing the cursor and typing... then hit Save and close the word processor (recycle bin won't help you now!). Your finger presses the mouse button by accident while you're moving the mouse and drag some important system folders into another folder. Where did they go? Was that bad? Not until you reboot. You don't understand the choices on a dialog, and click the wrong button. Your DSL provider only mentioned "firewall software" somewhere in the install booklet, and you didn't know what that meant so you skipped it (my parents just got cable broadband, and I asked my Mom about this -- she'd never heard the term before).

      The frustrating thing is that using a computer *could* be so much easier and safer... ah, well. What was my point here again? Oh, yeah -- education required. More than most people think.
      • > Before the education process, the trouble with OpenOffice is simple -- as long as they're using Word, they can save a document and most people will be able to read it.

        > But when they start using OpenOffice, they'll find that when they save a document now almost NO ONE can use it.

        Three words: Export as PDF

        Unless you're telling me they are emailing docs that both parties are adding to?!

        --
        The Bible is infallable or perfect!? Right, which *version* would that be now? Better yet, let's consider the s

        • Still going on about the Bible? That's so Nineteenth Century, you must live somewhere pretty primitive.

        • Three words: Export as PDF

          Unless you're telling me they are emailing docs that both parties are adding to?!

          That's a big part of my point -- you're assuming all kinds of knowledge they simply don't have until taught. It's not instinctive in any way. Why would they choose PDF over any other format available? How are they going to know the pros and cons of each? How they heck are they going to keep all of those meaningless acronyms straight? PDF, RTF, HTTP, WWW, it's all just a jumble of letters. Supp
      • You know, I agree with you about how education is necessary. However, I run Slackware, and after a few months of instruction my girlfriend (a non-techie) could navigate around KDE and do anything she might need when she was over (like use OpenOffice to open and edit a document), surf the net, and even mount a CDRom drive and eject it from the command line. (Although she tells me it's a silly security precaution and she prefers CDs to just be there when she inserts the CD). However, she is proof that the
        • Yeah, I'm with you.

          The thing to remember about your girlfriend on Slackware, though, is that it'd be a totally different story if you weren't right there, giving her pointers. She knows you can be trusted, and so she learns the steps by rote (even using the command line isn't too hard, if you know exactly what to type), and she feels safe doing them. She's got you as a safety net, too - if something "doesn't look right" she can just ask

          Most people don't have such reliable sources of help, alas. Especia
          • Well, I think in the beginning, you're right about the safety net. If I weren't there I am not sure she would have been able to learn. However, there comes a point when she can stand on her own, esp. on an easier to use distro like Mandrake. But, it's a slow process. She will teach others, and they will teach even others, until we take over the world.

      • "Saving in external formats may have caused information loss." Boy, that message frustrates me, because I know how most people read it (I remember switching my wife over to OO - she panicked at that dialog). They imagine whole paragraphs excised, pages gone poof. And worse -- why should they know how programs handle "files"? As far as they know, the original document (before the Save As) is also trashed now. "Information loss" is why they aren't supposed to open attachments anymore at work. Of course that

  • here's the problem (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nuggetman ( 242645 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @10:51PM (#8888887) Homepage
    the problem is people don't care. joe average seriously does not give a rat's ass if software is proprietary or not. i've given up trying to tell people why (pick one: comet cursor/word/kazaa regular/etc) is bad because they just don't care. it works for them and that's all they care about.
  • "Dear Sir or Madam,

    Recently you sent an email containing a Microsoft Word/Excel/Powerpoint Document. Due to security and virus concerns [our company] cannot accept those attachments.

    Please use HTML, RTF, PDF, or regular text to transmit future documents to me. It will be necessary for you to retransmit this document in an acceptable format.

    If the need is urgent and you are unable to convert it to an acceptable format please fax short documents to xxx-yyy-zzzz. Please call for arrangements to transmit documents with more than 20 pages.

    Thank you for your time.

    -Adam"
    • I do the same, although I'm not in a company so I don't make it sound as official. I usually respond with a blurb either saying that I don't have Word so I can't read their documents and explaining how to save in a different format (most my Windows-using friends aren't really even clueful enough to know that RTF exists, let alone how to choose formats in Word).

      If I feel like taking more time, I explain that I don't use Word documents because they are a known vector for virus transfer and encourage so-and-
    • .DOC files are fine by themselves as long as you have a good virus scanner and have macros turned off. There's always the possibility of a trojan horse being in a .DOC file so it's not a bad idea to have a trojan scanner. But just about any file type could have a trojan in it. Chances are, if it's a virus, it's going to be .doc.pif.

    • Re:It's easy to make them paranoid about using DOC (Score:4, Informative)

      by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @06:19AM (#8890595) Journal

      Thing is, if the person who sent it to you *does* know about computers, they will know you are a tool.

      Try and convince me that there have _never_ been exploits via html & pdf.

      Here's the latest PDF one [net-security.org].

      Did you know that Melissa [cert.org] and Goga [com.com] were originally delivered via RTF [informationweek.com] ?

      • So what if there have been exploits using HTML or PDF? They are still far less common than exploits using Word and Excel macros, so a security policy that prohibits these formats still has some validity.

        More likely the recipient who does know about computers will realise that you hate Microsoft-specific attachments and are using the security excuse to persuade the general public.

        K

  • Only if you wanna be ignored (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @10:55PM (#8888910) Homepage Journal
    "If I'm feeling long winded I sometimes go into a diatribe about the Evil Empire. Today I started thinking that maybe there's an opportunity for some grassroots organization here. Maybe a concise well-written boilerplate paragraph for just this situation?"

    If I got an email telling me how using a .DOC file to transmit data was being used to promote a monopoly by an 'evil empire', I'd tell you to take it and stick it up your butt. Sorry to be blunt, but you're going to get a lot of other responses like that. Don't make global issues out of the private use a file format. Microsoft has a .DOC monopoly whether you or anybody else you know uses that file or not. That's how everybody's going to see it. So why make them sound like the bad guy?

    Instead, appeal to a more urgent need. "Doh, I can't read this .DOC file. Can you resend it as .RTF?" Easy. Believable. And it won't make you look like you're making a mountain of a mole-hill.

    • Bullshit. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jotaeleemeese ( 303437 )
      A polite reply saying "I don't have Word, please send in X format" is enough.

      Nobody is under any obligation to buy MS products to communicate with other people.

    • Instead, appeal to a more urgent need. "Doh, I can't read this .DOC file. Can you resend it as .RTF?" Easy. Believable. And it won't make you look like you're making a mountain of a mole-hill.

      I agree completely with everything that you've said... except the mountain out of a molehill part. It's already a mountain; it's not an exaggeration of the problem.

  • open the file in TextEdit and deal with it.

    I'm all for open standards and whatnot, but non-technical people (professors, friends, family) don't really want (nor, in my opinion, need) to hear about how evil .doc is.

  • heh ? get over it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kayen_telva ( 676872 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @10:59PM (#8888931)
    I dont like the "Evil empire" any more than you do, but get over it.
    It is as ubiquitous as PDF. Why are you not raving about PDF ??

    You can get a free DOC viewer here [microsoft.com] or use OO.

    Personally I use OO and it rocks.
    If I resend a document I always convert it to rtf, txt, pdf, or another format to kind of send a hint.

    • Re:heh ? get over it (Score:2, Informative)

      by Curtman ( 556920 )
      It is as ubiquitous as PDF. Why are you not raving about PDF ??

      The problem isn't that .doc is ubiquitous, its that its obfuscated. The PDF format isn't a secret, the documentation [adobe.com] for it is massive. There's no secrets there.
    • PDF is a (relatively) open standard - you can get white papers from Adobe describing how to read/encode PDF files for free and build your own reader/writer if you're enclined.

      Notice the lack of any white papers from Microsoft descibing the Word 10.0 format.

      And hell, PDF files are *so* much more consistent across PC's - the old "word-repaginate-to-a-different-printer-page-size" has bitten a few of my workmates, let alone the font problems we have between PC's.
      • *sigh*
        Nowhere in the question does he mention the word open or standard.
        In fact, his complaint seems primarily to be cost:

        force the few remaining holdouts, like me, to shell out for a copy of Word

        I pointed him to a freely available MS program to read word files.
        The MS equivalent to Adobe Reader if you will.

        Kind of eliminates the need for his/her question really, since the "open standard"
        issue is some slashdot borg's personal soapbox and does not relate to the question at all.

        If he/she is on a unix
    • because Acrobat Reader is free.
      • so is the ms word reader.
        • so is the ms word reader.

          Yeah, because I'm sure that Microsoft makes it available for the same platforms as Adobe....
        • I'm having difficulty finding a binary for my Linux x86-64 system, or source code that I can compile.

          Please post a link to one or the other.

          Alternately, please post a link to the official, complete specifications for the current word document format so I or someone else can implement a good free reader that is usable on non-supported systems.

          Oh wait, you can't, because none of these exist for this proprietary document format.
    • Quoting:

      "Word 97/2000 Viewer (Windows 95/98/NT/2000)"

      I will not tell you which OS I am running but have a guess....
    • Why are you not raving about PDF ??

      Well, I've never had any problem either reading a PDF created with third-party tools in Acrobat Reader or reading a PDF created with Acrobat with various third party readers.

      I can't say the same about most of the MS Office formats. If you create a DOC file in Open-Office, it may not display properly in Word, or vice-versa.

  • Arrrrghh! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by moosesocks ( 264553 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @11:01PM (#8888940) Homepage
    Doesn't this sound a bit rude?

    Sure, I wish everyone used RTF. Fact is, they don't. Deal with it. If they sent it in HTML, you'd be complaining about how word mauls the HTML code.

    OpenOffice opens .doc. Wordpad opens .doc. Microsoft provides a free viewer for word documents - I think it runs in WINE. OS X's TextEdit opens .doc as well. If that's not universally accepted, I don't know what is.

    I'd REALLY like to see PDF universally supported, but it just hasn't happened - until windows ships with native pdf support built-in - both viewing and creating, it will remain a format unusable to AOL users and computer-wielding grandmothers

    Now, if you want to complain about people sending out 25mb powerpoint attachments, I definitely understand. But this is just silly and doesn't help push forward the OSS movement. If just makes you look like a jerk.

    • Re:Arrrrghh! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by lambent ( 234167 )
      I recall in some of my CS classes in college, how some TAs and profs were militantly anti-MS. The students, for the most part, went along with it because it was hip to do so ("look at me, i'm a revolutionary!")

      Funny thing was, i remember one upper-level class where the staff refused to distribute any handouts (like practice exams, HW assignments, project descriptions) in anything except post script.

      Man, the newsgroups and e-mail lists were choked with people asking what to do with these 'PS' files ...

      Po
      • Everything in POSTSCRIPT? Why not PDF? Almost everyone's got Acrobat^WAdobe Viewer...

      • Re:CS majors amaze me (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Bastian ( 66383 )
        How in the world can someone make it to an upper-level CS class and still not have the basic skills it takes to discover what format a file extension stands for and go about finding an application that will open it?

        Reminds me of when I was a TA in the CS dept. at my college. Students would regularly come to the help sessions with programs that wouldn't compile so I could more or less read the compiler's error and warning messages to them verbatim.

        Student: "Why won't this compile?"
        TA: "Well, let's try to

    • Re:Arrrrghh! (Score:5, Informative)

      by jc42 ( 318812 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @12:25AM (#8889348) Homepage Journal
      Doesn't this sound a bit rude? ... Deal with it.

      It could be a lot more serious than that. Here's a reply that I've found fairly effective in a few such cases:

      You have sent a document in Microsoft's Word format. Such
      documents may now contain text encoded in forms that are
      patented by Microsoft. Decoding and reading such a document
      on a non-Microsoft system or with non-Microsoft software
      may subject the reader to criminal charges and/or large
      fines for patent enfringement.

      Please re-send the document in a format that won't result
      in such criminal charges and/or fines if I read it.

      This isn't a joke. Decoding proprietary formats can land you in serious trouble in the US and a number of other countries, if the format's owner decides to enforce the laws.

      Maybe the courts wouldn't enforce such things. Do you really want to be a test case? If you do, well, I'll cheer you on.


      • If you sent that in a reply to me, I'd think you were a dickhead, and not very professional.

        Just say that you aren't able to read Word documents and could you please resend it in one of the following formats.

  • People understand the value of money (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ptaff ( 165113 ) on Friday April 16, 2004 @11:01PM (#8888943) Homepage
    Just tell offenders "If you don't send me in .doc format, I won't be forced to buy MSWord to read it."

    It's simple, and effective. People are not educated about freedom as speech yet, don't even mention open file formats, but they can understand what a couple of hundred bucks mean.

  • "What do other Slashdot readers do in this situation?"

    That you should stop whining and go download Microsoft's free Word Viewer [microsoft.com], or any number of other free programs that can view word documents. Nobody is forcing you to use Microsoft Word, every word processor on the market today supports the format. Get used to it.
  • save as html

    what's worse.. .doc or html mail?

  • For personal emails I accept plain text emails only, any thing else I just delete. If it is important enough they'll get back to me.

  • If it's your boss or client, then accept the Word document. After all, you're being paid to do so.

    But a principle of a school is another matter. Don't tell him your politics. Don't try to convert him to your religion. In other words, don't tell him he's going to go to Hell for assuming you use Windows. Send him a quick note along the lines of "I"m sorry, but I use [name-of-OS] and am unable to read your Microsoft Word document. Could you please send it to me in a public format? PDF or HTML would be fine. T
    • "If it's your boss or client, then accept the Word document. After all, you're being paid to do so."

      If it is work related you should be provided with the necessary tools to do your work.

      If I get a document in a propietary format for which I don't have a tool, even my boss gets a reply requesting the correct tool to read the software.

      Since this means a complete computer system (I don't use MS stuff at home) i get documents back in a format I can use (normaly text or variations).
      • Most employees will already be provided with the "necessary tools" they need. Many companies, mine included, will also provide these "necessary tools" to their telecommuting employees. If you've taken the company provided Windows machine and made it a dual-boot Linux machine, blame yourself before you blame your boss when you encounter incompatibilities.

        For example, I made my company provided desktop dual boot to FreeBSD. Once in a while I will encounter a Word document that OpenOffice won't handle. I have

  • Why not "optimize" these files upon receipt... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bergeron76 ( 176351 ) * on Friday April 16, 2004 @11:24PM (#8889053) Homepage
    Why not "upgrade" these virii-venerable files at the [mail] server level? When a .DOC file is received at the mail server, it should be converted into a better "more harmless" format - like .TIFF or .SXC or something.

    Inform your users about the change. Send them a .TIFF image in thier email message instead of the .DOC file. If they need to make changes to the document, you can virus-scan it on a case-by-case basis or whatever.

    Now obviously, this probably wouldn't work at a Law Firm or some other HIGH-VOLUME document facility, but it's a start and I think it would work fine in many small business scenarios.

    • That'll be interesting... In which cell is the text stored? All in A1? Does it seperate the file and logically throw it in cells? I mean, I know what'll happen with .sxw, but .sxc would be interesting to convert a .doc file to. Hint: .sxw = Writer, .sxc = Calc
    • Because as a user, I don't want my email service to be taking initative to change the content of my emails to be "safer". Guess what, I run Windows. I have Office. I use .doc files. I don't run OpenOffice, and I don't need my email provider giving me an .SXC instead, thank you very much. And I sure as hell don't want my text documents made into an image format.

      In the position of an email provider, I sure as hell wouldn't want to be responsible for ensuring that all emails were "cleansed".

      You don't want .d
      • I have replied to .xls files with OO files before it Getts resistance but at least they get to feal the frustration some of us feel.

        (its not just the .Doc its all kinds of closed systems that frustrate, notably Active-X, & IM protocals)

        then they might not like it but they will understand.

  • There is a free word viewer [microsoft.com] or a free version of Open Office [openoffice.org] will do the trick.
  • OOo does a better job of reading the latest Word format than earlier versions of Word.
  • If you have a customer, and you depend on their money for your livelyhood, you WILL find a way to open their documents without going on a tirade.

    maybe later after you have been working with them a few years you can have the opportunity to help them "see the light"

    • If you have a customer, and you depend on their money for your livelyhood, you WILL find a way to open their documents without going on a tirade.

      Of course, it's the golden rule - those who have the gold make the rules.
      If I want your money, you decide the format for our correspondence.
      If you want my money, I decide the format for our correspondence.

      Even if there's no client/vendor relationship, then there may be some other I-want/need-something/you-have-something relationship, in which case the person who

  • come up with a little more diplomatic request (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I remember when I was that conceited. Then I realized, these people are just doing their fuckin' JOBS. They don't care about file formats or free software or Jesus H. Stallman.

    So the line I use is "Hey, can you re-send that message after saving it as .TXT? It's easier for my email program to search it."

    Which is true. And business-goal-oriented. In fact once a couple co-workers figure out that you can in fact search your email folders for words and pull up old documents, they'll start sending .TXT pretty m
  • Why not just set your system to automatically use OpenOffice to open them? You don't have to buy M$ products.
  • Just ask if they could please send it in a format which isn't likely to carry a virus, eg ascii, rtf, html, pdf.

    re: HTML, if you allow your mail reader to do anything but render a HTML document that someone else has sent you, then you're an idiot :p)

    But that being said, it is theoretically possible that anything requiring any amount of processing to render could potentially contain a buffer overflow exploit...
  • Oh for God's sake, put your tin foil hat away and give it up. DOC is a ubiquitos standard just as much as Windows is a standard, and its well past the point where other options might replace it.

    And why you might ask? Well say what you will about the bloat of Word 2003 or how much you hate Microsoft, but back in the early 90's when there were DOZENS of different word processors to choose from and Windows was far from the standard, MS Word took the cake. Microsoft did a better job on Word than the other c
  • RTF is a horrible, wretched standard. And it's proprietary, to boot. (Don't believe me? Point me to the standard.)

    HTML is an OK format--but, aside from size and some annoying conversion errors, DOC is good enough, too.

    My preferred collaborative document exchange format is OOo's file format. The program's free, the file size is small, and it's editable. (For "I'm sending you this file", PDFs work rather nicely.)

    However, when OOo files don't work, DOC works just fine.

  • Send as MS Works documents. (Score:3, Funny)

    by jptechnical ( 644454 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @01:27AM (#8889628) Homepage
    Then you can be sure noone can open it!
  • There are several free PDF-creation tools out there. At least two of them are dead easy for even the most inept user to install -- I know, because I've told a few of those inept users to install 'em, and they succeeded.

    PDF isn't a cure-all, but it's "good enough". Good enough presentation, good enough file size, good enough security, good enough compatibility between systems.

    I find that most people actually *want* to send PDF: they know it's what the pros would do, and they know it's better than sending

  • My e-mail sig (Score:2, Informative)

    by PeekabooCaribou ( 544905 )
    My signature on all outgoing mails is my name, e-mail address, some info from uname, and a link to Jeff Goldberg's "MS-Word is Not a document exchange format [goldmark.org]." I don't know how many people actually read it, but at least it's something.
  • I just reply and ask if they can send it in a different format. This does the same thing you're suggesting by the same method that Microsoft is trying to employ. It makes it an inconvenience for them to have to use something that is closed and not used by everyone. If this happens enough, a person will either suffer, send in several formats at once or send in a format that nobody has a problem with.

    As a "reason," I might state that I don't run Windows. This enough is a brain-jarrer. "What? There are

  • keep it simple (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hak1du ( 761835 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @04:33AM (#8890372) Journal
    Just say "Although the file arrived undamaged, I'm afraid I couldn't read your attachment. You could perhaps send it again in PDF or plain text format."

    If you want to be more specific, you can say "I can't get Microsoft Word for my machine and therefore can't your attachment. Could you please send it in PDF or plain text format?"

    Long-winded talk of "monopolies" and "politics" are unlikely to be any more effective and will only make you look unprofessional to many people.
  • Reply saying that you found the "hidden" information in the Word document (SCO and many others can attest to this feature).

    Ask if they would not prefer to send documents in the future using a different document format that does not dsitribute their personal information.

    Two law firms I was in touch with changed to mostly plain text just for this comment of mine....
  • I open it in OpenOffice.org

    make what ever corrections are needed to it, save it and send it back as an OpenOffice native XML format.

    What usually happens is they get pissed cause they can't open it.....it helps them experiance the frustration people can have with non open systems....

    when and if they bitch.... I suggest maybe we can agree on a propper Documnet exchange format.

    usually RTF, CSV, PDF, or HTML

  • It's the way windows works (Score:3, Informative)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @10:41AM (#8891320) Homepage Journal
    The reason folks use DOC is because of the way Windows works.

    Case in point:

    I am working with a customer who is having problems interfacing to our equipment over GPIB. He is having a problem, and is running the GPIB logger program to see what is going on.

    So, he gets the fault on screen. He wants to send me the info. Rather than a) telling GPIBSpy to save the log data as text, or b) marking the text in the GPIBSpy window, then pasting it into the email message, he does things "The Windows Way" - he does an ALT-PRINTSCREEN, then opens Word, then does a paste, then File->Email. Boom - what should be a simple 5K file is now a 100K BMP inside a 200K Word document. And of course, now when I want to copy and paste the section of transaction that has a problem I cannot because it is no longer text but a BMP.

    Ditto with our physical plant manager (the guy who's department changes the lights, moves the desks, and so on.) Everytime he wants to send a memo, what does he do - open email client, compose email, send?

    NO. He does things "The Windows Way": Start Word. Open Template->Standard memo (which has a company logo graphic, so it will be large). Write memo (Please don't park in the west parking lot tomorrow - we will be spraying for weeds and we don't want to screw up the paint on your car). File->Email. Subject: Memo. Mail text: Please read the attached memo. Send to all users.

    Microsoft has made it very easy to start all documents in Word. In a way, this is good - it makes it easier for the users. However, it also makes it HARDER to work with any document that is NOT a Word document. It also means that users are trained that all the world is a nail, since they are using the hammer of Word.

  • Open office Coup (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Craig Maloney ( 1104 ) * on Saturday April 17, 2004 @12:19PM (#8891812) Homepage
    I tried posting a story earlier this year on Slashdot about starting an OpenOffice Coup. The idea would be to start sending out OpenOffice documents to people instead of .doc and .xls files. When they complain, just tell them that OpenOffice is freely available, and they should download it to read your document/spreadsheet. Might be something to try in the future. Honestly, though, I'm tired of people sending me .doc files when a .pdf would convery the information just fine. :)

  • Take my domain www.no-doc.org (Score:4, Informative)

    by Florian ( 2471 ) <cantsin@zedat.fu-berlin.de> on Saturday April 17, 2004 @02:01PM (#8892436) Homepage
    Several years ago, I wanted to start a grassroots campaign against MS Word as an exchange document format as well and registered the domain no-doc.org for that purpose. My idea was to gather wide-ranging support not only from computer programmers, but also from non-technical people like professional writers, and spread a "no-doc.org" logo (perhaps with a crossed-out Microsoft Word file icon) as a popular image on stickers, t-shirts, website banners etc..

    However, I gave up on that project simply because, unlike for example in the case of gif vs. png images, there is no easy replacement to be advertised and offered to non-technical people:

    • RTF is nothing but .doc in ASCII encoding, but otherwise it's also a format defined and controlled by Microsoft (and whose newer versions I believe are undocumented).
    • .swx, the OpenOffice/StarOffice format is currently not supported by any other program.
    • HTML doesn't preserve important formatting information like footnotes and is too inconsistently implemented across applications
    • DocBook and LaTeX are semantically structured formats and hence not capable enough of supporting documents formatted with no structured semantics; you can use them to create output in other formats, but you can't automatically transform arbitrary formatting into them.
    • PDF is a write-only format
    • plain ASCII text offers not no formatting at all and is incompatible across platform/language-specific special character and CR/LF encoding

    In other words, a format that is open across applications and platforms, sufficiently powerful in its encoding both of typographic (font settings etc.) and structural (footnotes etc.) layout and widely supported by mainstream word processors (and be it only everything but MS Word) doesn't exist. As long as this doesn't change, for example with OASIS' current efforts to standardize an open office document format or large cross-application support for the OpenOffice file format, any "no-doc" advocacy is elitist and doomed to alienate even people who might be sympathetic for political reasons.

    But if anyone wants to seriously do a grassroots campaign against using Microsoft's proprietary file formats, I am happy to transfer the no-doc.org domain to them for free.

  • I wrote an article [sungate.co.uk] a while ago about why Microsoft Word may be bad for your health. It was originally aimed at academics, but any 'intelligent' user should be able to grasp the main concepts.

  • Is when somebody emails me a word document that is full of... text

    Yes, that's right, no fancy formatting, no special fonts, just text. In fact, this happens rather regularly in many organizations... as a simple bulletin is mailed as a .DOC because it was also printed from word for the old nailing-to-wall method.

    CTRL+A, CTRL+C, CTRL+V... paste it into an email and save the recipients a little confusion. Word documents (or other attachments) just take up space and mail email that much less searchable. Fin

  • I have lamented about this for many years.

    I've generally caved to ignorance of the masses, but only partially.

    I used to ask people to resend those attachments as PDF files so I could read them, and I still do that to some extent (most people, even oblivious users of Windows boxes, understand that Word is not Word is not Word, that different versions of Word, Macs etc., can all affect how a a document appears). More now, if I have to view it, I just open it up in Open Office and create my own PDF.

    Otherwi

Slashdot Top Deals

fortune: cpu time/usefulness ratio too high -- core dumped.

Close