Word attachments
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Word attachments are e-mail attachments in Microsoft Word format.
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[edit] Advantages
Provided both sender and recipient use the same operating system, and use the same version of Word, and have the same fonts installed on their machines, the document will look the same on both machine. This allows for easy collaboration on a project, and preserves document formatting.
[edit] Disadvantages
- When a text is saved as a Word document, additional information is added to the file describing the font, text size, paper size, margin dimensions, and so on. This information, invisible to the Word user, makes a Word document very much longer than the plain text of its content, and so it takes longer to download.
- Since Word format is proprietary, and protected by Microsoft, the only program that a user can be certain will display it properly is the same version of Microsoft Word. Users who do not own Microsoft Word will not be able to view the content properly, or even at all. There are even incompatibilities between documents created with newer versions of Word being read by older versions, even relatively recent ones. Microsoft sought to address this by making available free "Word Viewers" which can read documents of whatever version of Word format is current, as well as previous versions, but these viewers are not available for every operating system or for every device capable of displaying plain text e-mails, nor will the latest viewers work on older machines still used in developing countries and by some cash-strapped non-profit organisations.
- Word documents have been successfully used by virus writers as a means of carrying viruses between machines, due to the power of WordBasic, the Word macro language which has grown in power to have capabilities similar to Visual Basic. Many users keep their WordBasic interpreters turned off by default to eliminate this possibility.
- If the recipient is using a different version of Word to the sender, or does not have all the fonts used in the document, it will not display on the recipient's machine as the sender intends, nor print correctly.
- Word documents can contain hidden information about the author, and fragments of deleted text, invisible to the casual user but easily read by those with the know-how. This can prove embarrassing to the sender. This is a particular problem if the Word 'Rapid Save' feature is turned on, as this saves time by not compacting the document (i.e. physically deleting from the file extraneous information deleted from the text) before saving the file to disk. It also results in longer files, as discussed above.
[edit] Etiquette
[edit] Overview
It is always wise to make sure, before sending a Word attachment, that your recipient uses the same version of Word, and that you have used fonts that are installed on their machine as well as on yours.
Many exponents of free software, as well as those who simply do not own Microsoft Word, consider the routine use of the proprietary Word format for exchanging documents to be an unsociable activity, since it makes life difficult for those who can't afford Microsoft Word or who choose to use a different word processing program.
A person who receives an unsolicited Word attachment can find it a frustrating experience for any one of a number of reasons:
- They don't own Word, and so can't read the attachment.
- They live in a developing country and must retrieve their e-mail by means of a slow, expensive dial-up connection, and discover that the content of the long attachment would have lost nothing by being sent as a brief, quickly-retrieved plain text e-mail.
- They have been a victim of a virus conveyed through a Word attachment.
- They access their e-mail through a mobile phone (cellphone) or handheld device such as a PDA, and resent using expensive wireless airtime to retrieve a long attachment when a plain text e-mail would have sufficed.
[edit] Responses to unsolicited Word attachments
[edit] Signature files
Some users add a line or two to their e-mail signature to indicate that they can not (or choose not to) accept Word attachments.
[edit] Example
-- Please do not send me Word attachments; I cannot be sure of reading them. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_attachments for more information.
[edit] Standard response mail
Some users send, either automatically or manually, a standard e-mail in response to people who send them Word attachments.
[edit] Examples
- Sample responses by
- Templates by Richard Stallman
[edit] Alternatives
[edit] Overview
- If a message can be understood by means of its words alone, then typing or pasting it into a plain text e-mail with no attachment will ensure it can be viewed with any competent e-mail program on any device on any operating system. In some e-mail programs, especially those made by Microsoft, it is often necessary to adjust a user preference to ensure that e-mails are sent in plain text format.
- If an attachment is necessary, the use of a plain text file will ensure maximum compatibility.
- If formatting such as italics and bold is essential to understanding the content, or if complex formulae or tables are present which cannot be rendered in plain text, consider using Rich Text Format.
- If layout is of prime importance, consider using an attachment in HTML or PDF format. Both these formats are viewable on a wide range of devices using free software, and PDF format is especially good at preserving the layout of a document.
[edit] Preserving emphasis
There are conventions for indicating emphasis and delineating titles when sending information in plain text format.
Emphasise words like this: it's *very* easy.
Cite references like this: Joseph Heller, _Catch 22_.
