RMS: Putting an End to Word Attachments

sombragris writes "I've spotted in NewsForge a very interesting editorial by none other than RMS himself on the subject of getting rid of those annoying MS Word attachment that people send. The essay is worth thinking and doubtless worth implementing." I've found that KWord and Abiword both did a fine job of reading Word files - it's the being able to Save As Word where things get messy.

Comments

unfortunate ?

[hogsback]

Most computer users use Microsoft Word. That is unfortunate for them, because Word is proprietary software, denying its users the freedom to study, change, copy, and redistribute it

Most Word users, I expect, want to write letters to their mothers, not recompile the application.

Re:unfortunate ?

[Sloppy]

Most Word users, I expect, want to write letters to their mothers, not recompile the application.

I would think that most Word users don't want their mother to catch a bunch of viruses. What kind of scumbag would train their mother to accept Word documents?!

Re:unfortunate ?

[Tackhead]

> Most Word users, I expect, want to write letters to their mothers, not recompile the application.

And while we're at it. Stallman's solution is " All we have to do is ask each person who sends us a Word file to reconsider that way of doing things."

Sure. Why don't we "ask" them to stop top-posting, sending HTML mail, and clicking on "snow_white.txt.vbs".

(I've been saying "Sorry, I don't do Windows" to .DOC files for years. It hasn't stopped the lusers yet. The worst time was when someone sent me a list of names in .DOC, and then resent it as a column of cells in an Excel spreadsheet. No, they weren't being sarcastic, they were just. that. dumb. To this luser, Word and Excel were the only applications on their computer.)

Re:unfortunate ?

[Tackhead]

> Both Word and Excel have extensive "Save As..." features. These dumb users that you complain about don't need to install a copy of EMACS to send you a plain text file.

True -- but the point was that when asked not to send it in Word format, the user didn't think "Oh, SaveAs->.TXT", they thought "Oh, they must want it in .XLS, because that's the only other way I know to enter data." (Don't forget, with file extensions hidden, there's no way for them to tell the difference between "List of names.txt" and "List of names.doc")

> And by telling them you "don't do Windows" instead of explaining the real problem -

Sorry, I wasn't being clear. The actual request was more along the lines of "My workstation runs Solaris, not Windows; there are no applications on it that can read Word documents [well, it was true at the time this happened!] Could you please re-send the list of names in a non-proprietary format so I can read it? Thanx!"

The result was a .XLS file, containing a list of 200 names, one per cell, in the leftmost column.

Only after walking over to the (l)user's desk and asking for a hardcopy did I realize why I'd gotten a .XLS file -- the user basically said "Well, you said you didn't want it in Word format, so I made it in Excel."

A little further usability analysis revealed the (sad) underlying cause -- the person had no notion of the distinction between "operating system" and "application". They thought a "computer" was what you bought to run Office, and that Windows was just another application like Office, and that every computer came with all of the above.

In its own way, that's not a terribly inaccurate model -- from the user's viewpoint, the "office" (businessplace) "ran" (functioned, relied-upon) on "Office" (the productivity suite), and "Windows" (the OS) was merely "part of" (something everyone used, just like they use Word or Excel) the "computer" (thing on the desktop).

The notion that any computer could exist without Windows, Word, or Excel was inconceivable, because every computer the user had ever seen had always used all three.

Re:unfortunate ?

[SCHecklerX]

Wait a second.... How is my mother going to get a Macro Virus when I send her the letter I wrote in MS Word, printed out, put in an envelope and mailed to her?

I'd be pretty hurt if I were your mother. Having a son who is too lazy to hand-write a letter to mom.

.doc is a de facto standard

[s20451]

Whatever you think of microsoft, .doc has become a de facto document standard, like .pdf. Pitting open source software against .doc risks marginalization. Maybe the effort should go into producing a good, free implementation of a document editor to produce .doc documents, thereby using .doc against microsoft?

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[Buck2]

Open-source is already marginalized.

Word documents, along with other proprietary formats, especially ones which may or may not be able to be opened with future software, are a bad idea for information transfer.

It's a stupid, terrible, dumb standard which Microsoft revels in because it helps to ensure their position and sales.

It behooves everyone who uses computers to compose documents and share information to break the current standard ... not just Open Source advocates.

This, I believe, is RMS's point. The fact that he has Open Source advocates' ears is a fact of reality, not the ideal.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[hyphen_holt]

I don't know how many times I've heard this argument. I remember when Word Perfect was the standard. And there were others before that.
No matter how much it may seem that .doc is the standard, (and it may very well be at this time), it will lose it's glory. And other formats will go on to replace it.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[Eimi Metamorphoumai]

.doc isn't a single format, though. If .doc were what it were as of WinWord 2.0, we'd have no problems by now. But every version the .doc format changes, and everyone runs around trying to reverse engineer it YET AGAIN. And if you finish that, they'll do it again. I have nothing against de facto standards, but a "standard" that can be changed at any arbitrary point, by a single company (and frequently is) isn't much of a standard at all.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[Sloppy]

No.

RMS' main problem with Word format is that it is non-standard, and most people probably don't care. But that isn't the only problem that format has. The other major problem it has is the same thing you'll find in most MS formats: it contains too much power. In order to support Word format in a Word-compatable way, you have to support the scripting language and virus capability too.

And that is a Bad Thing, even if you don't give a damn about open vs closed formats. Getting people off Word format is a good idea for everyone except for anti-virus software vendors.

So if RMS' goal seems unrealistic because it's too idealistic, by all means, just be pragmatic instead. And the pragmatic thing to do is say goodbye to MS Word's file format.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[MCZapf]

It may be a de facto standard, but it is a closed standard. Being closed makes it hard to be useful as a standard, don't you think? AFAIK, everyone else who uses the Word .doc format(s) in an application had to reverse-engineer the .doc format first. And no one has reverse-engineered it all yet.

I don't much care if Word is closed-source or not. But I sure think it would be nice if the file format were an open format. If that were the case, other applications could easily be written to use it.

Even better would be if Microsoft used an open format that was agreed upon by some standards-making body - instead of constantly changing its own "standard" to try and stay ahead of the competition.

And as long as I'm dreaming, I'd like a million dollars.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[MikeTheYak]

How can it be a standard when nobody knows what it is and it keeps changing? If it were a standard, then there would already be "good, free implementations." Instead, software developers, open source and otherwise, have to keep writing almost-good-enough filters to load and save the documents. While RMS' political arguments typically make my eyes glaze over, it's stupid to author a document without taking into consideration whether the recipient can read it.

While the premise of your argument may be unfortunately true, the suggestion simply won't work because Microsoft won't let it work. That's why they keep changing the format and don't publish the spec in the first place.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[SoftwareJuggler]

At the risk of being accused of being a company shill...

Adobe has a little advertised web service that will convert a variety of documents formats, including MS Office, to PDF files. Cost is 9.95 a month, but the 5 conversion freebie trial which is controlled by email address.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[zmooc]

The problem with that is that there IS no .doc standard; they change it over and over, thereby forcing it's users to continuously buy new versions of an incredibly expensive product that only runs on incredibly expensive platforms. It also keeps any other players away from the market and that abridges our freedom to choose our own software to an unacceptable extent; I don't want to spend more than 1000 EURO on software so I can read/write an occasional document. And I only see these prices go up so if we don't take action now, in a few years we may well be spending a lot more money every year just to type a few lousy documents in a word-processor that has 10 times more features than the average user will ever use but which every user has to pay for over and over and over and....

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[Ranger Rick]

The difference is, PDF is perfectly readable with a number of tools, free and Free and not, without issues.

Unless things have changed, nothing reads word docs correctly all of the time...

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[bfree]

Which version of .doc is a standard? Word95/97/2000/2002 (never minds the earlier ones)

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[Soko]

Great. So you're just willing to hand Microsoft control over a de facto standard? What if Word 2003 adds ROT13 to the default format, they claim it's "encrypted" and use the DCMA against anyone who tries to "reverse engineer" thier format?

This is what scares me about any company having thier Intellectual Propertey declared a de facto standard - they can hold my data hostage. I'm hoping that some one somewhere will fully reverse engineer the .doc format, so I can get at my data no matter what. I don't have the technical chops to do this myself and am therefore vulnerable to being (in this case) Microsoft's bitch.

It's not about proprietay vs. Open Source, it's about one being in control of one's own information.

Soko

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[drix]

That is completely incorrect. The Microsoft Word document format has remained the same since the Office 97 suite. Word 97 can read files saved by Word XP or Word 2000. Their respective feature sets differ, so Word 97 isn't going to pick up on newfangled things like "table styles" that were introduced in later versions. But for plain old text and tables, they are all interoperable. In fact, in a specific attempt to make the different versions interoperate, Microsoft added a feature in Word XP entitled "Disable features not available in Word 97". It's under Tool->Options->Save if you're interested.

And by the way, you shouldn't be so quick to underestimate Microsoft's morals/motives. They're monopolistic and nosy and untrustworthy, granted, but they do make good products that are easy to use and featureful. It's naive to believe that they are into just screwing the customer over with every successful revision. If they really were that stupid and antipathetic towards the people paying the bills, I doubt they'd be the largest software company in the entire world.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[Thagg]

As I understand it, .doc is considerably more than a file format, it contains hooks into the Windows operating system and other Office applications; in such a way that it is impossible to convert it completely to another file format.

It is even conceivable that this impossiblity was not the intent; conceivable by people with better imaginations than me.

thad

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[sheldon]

Word is very all encompassing. Yes, if you embed an Excel spreadsheet into a Word document you will have problems trying to convert that on another platform.

That functionality is not used all that often, however. Most people just use Word to write documents with pretty fonts and layout which can be easily converted.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[jarnot]

Hang on a sec. There are two different types of "standards":

1. Standards composed by standards bodies (e.g. HTML).
2. Standards which become standards due to their wide acceptance (e.g. PDF).

MS's DOC format is the latter type of standard. Many many MANY people use this format daily, and it's not going away any time soon.

As much as I'd rather have the world distribute formatted docs in HTML (or better yet XML + XSL), it's not going to happen. Trying to get people to distribute formatted docs as PDF files (which can be read on almost all graphical interfaces) is also a non-starter, as Acrobat is an add-on, and you can't simply save to PDF format. It's too much work for "normal" computer users to save to PDF (or RTF or even ASCII).

As much as we all hate to admit it, the problem being addressed in this forum is only a problem to a small percentage of email users. Most email users are running MS Office on Windows 98 or 2000, and they're not having any problems with the attachments.

We'll just need to bite the bullet and either read the Word docs with Open Source applications like AbiWord, or do as I do, which is to either run Windows (and MS Office) on a second machine or in VMWare.

Trying to get the vast majority of email users to change their habits because of a few people is most likely a waste of time.

Then again, how many of us actually do receive Word docs as attachments on a regular basis? Outside of a work environment (where Windows is the standard platform), I'd bet very few.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[LinuxGeek8]

So you explicity tell it to save it as a Word 97 file. Well, then it does what it says it does, you can open it in Word 97 because it's a Word 97 file then.
Try saving it as a Word 2000 file, and then open it in Word 97.
Can it still read it?
Is it still interoperable?

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[drix]

I think you've missed the point. There is no such thing as "Save As" Word 97 or "Save As" Word 2000 because it's all the same format. You can "Save As" Word 95, because that was that last version using a different format. Otherwise, they're all the same.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[Chris Burke]

It's naive to believe that they are into just screwing the customer over with every successful revision. If they really were that stupid and antipathetic towards the people paying the bills, I doubt they'd be the largest software company in the entire world.

To quote the Princess Bride... "You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it does."

It is not naive to think they are screwing over the customer with every successful revision. That's cynical, the (approximate) opposite of naive.

For an example of naivete, you only have to look at the next sentence you typed. Microsoft got to be the largest software company in the world precisely by screwing over the customer, locking them into their proprietary formats, and putting them on a useless upgrade treadmill (which they are trying to force everyone into with the XP licensing) where the price increases every iteration.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[LinuxGeek8]

I don't think I missed the point.
You said you can set it to disable features not available in Word 97.
The way I read that is that it doesn't even "save as" Word 97, but even "edit as" Word 97.
So how can you still call it a Word 2000 file and call it interoperable.

The way Wordperfect did this was not to to have some sort of global default of disabling features.
In WordPerfect 2000 you can just use all the features. Only when you read it in WordPerfect 6, 7 or 8 those features are disabled, simply because that version of WordPerfect can't read those specific features.
I'm not really sure though, but I would expect that you can save that file again in WordPerfect 6, 7, or 8 and just get the 2000 version features used in the document show up again.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[drix]

Well, probably because Wordpad cannot save files in the current .doc format and has never been able to (makes sense to me, why cut into the Word market?) It can only write out files in RTF or text format, or in some versions old .doc formats (like Word 6). So it's likely that you named the file .doc but saved it as a Rich Text Format file, which would mean that Word is only doing its job by telling you isn't not a .doc-format file when you try to open it.

Oh, and I've wrestled with this one for the past half hour and I still can't figure out what you mean when you say, "Their products seem easy to use, but they really aren't that easy." Could you please elaborate? That makes absolutely no sense to me.

I grant you that their security sucks, so I probably shouldn't call them "good" products. But in terms of ease-of-use, in terms of UI, they're far and away above all the competition with the exception of MacOS.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[drix]

It's a convenience feature. They are all interoperable. The way the format is set up, if Word 97 encounters something it doesn't recognize (like some formatting command or feature that got added in later) it just ignores it. So if you start using features in Word XP that weren't there before you have no guarantee that your document will look the same when it comes up on 2000 or 97. "Disable Word 97 features" gives you that assurance, if you want it. It's not required. In my experience, whether that's enabled or not, all the text and much of the formatting (e.g. the "gist" of the document) survives. I call that interoperable; you can niggle about rhetoric all you want.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[monkeydo]

I'm yet to recieve a complaint, or even a comment on this.

The question is, have you received a job offer yet?

If you don't want to use Word, don't. Your choice of word processor formats is so trivial it isn't really worth discussing, but it seems to be a big deal for people like RMS. When and individual thinks something is a big deal and the rest of the world doesn't care that person is called a fanatic.

If you don't want to work for a company that will only accept .doc resumes, then don't bother to apply. Just don't complain that they sent your .rtf file to the trash because they didn't know what it is.

It used to be that when you submitted resumes, you did it in person or by mail on nice paper. Most people didn't use this paper on a daily basis, so they bought it fro this task, or they took their typed resume to a copy shop and had it reproduced. These options are still available. RMS choses to curse the darknes rather that turning on a light.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[LinuxGeek8]

Well, I assume it works for you.
But it doesn't work for everyone.

And it still provides a vendor-lockin for Microsoft, and a problem for other software makers. The input filters for word files have to be canged again to be able to read them.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[sheldon]

The correct term is 'de facto standard' as was used by the original poster in the subect.

Most things that we take for common in our daily lives are simply that, de facto standards.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[igrek]

I believe, that's the problem with different rendering by Word 97 and Word 2000, not the different .doc formats. I agree, it's still bad; however, the problem is not with the file format.

Similarly, the IE and Netscape show pages differently, even if the HTML follows the standard... Not that it makes life easier for programmers: at my previous company, all programmers and testers had 15 versions of Netscape installed. Not much fun.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[mr3038]

Similarly, the IE and Netscape show pages differently, even if the HTML follows the standard... Not that it makes life easier for programmers: at my previous company, all programmers and testers had 15 versions of Netscape installed. Not much fun.

Repeat after me: "HTML is document description language. It's not supposed to be used for formatting." You're supposed to markup part of the text as header and another part as paragraph. It's up to "user agent", commonly known as browser, how to render this to end user. CSS is another thing, but you didn't talk about it...

all programmers and testers had 15 versions of Netscape installed. Not much fun.

And to test Internet explorer they needed 15 computers because no Windows can have two different versions of IE installed simultaneously. Much less fun.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[igrek]

Repeat after me: "HTML is document description language. It's not supposed to be used for formatting."

Wishful thinking. It was supposed to be document description language, but in reality it is not. Unfortunately, HTML is something in between document description and presentation description. Not this nor that.

And to test Internet explorer they needed 15 computers because no Windows can have two different versions of IE installed simultaneously. Much less fun.

You're absolutely correct :) Fortunately, we had to test much less than 15 versions of IE, something like 3-4, as they were much more consistent in their bugs than Netscape versions.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[PurpleBob]

Nothing reads PDF correctly all of the time either.

Having just finished college applications, which use PDFs everywhere, I can tell you that a few PDFs opened fine in gv, several opened in xpdf (which has a crappy interface) but not gv, one looked wrong in xpdf and opened fine in gv, and then there was Carnegie Mellon whose entire system was this horrible kludge around PDF Forms (the file would load as you scrolled, and you could only save the form by submitting it and loading the entries again using a separate format called AcroExch. When the server went down the night before the application was due, there was not even a way to look at your application.) PDF Forms do not open in any Free tool whatsoever, and hardly work right in Acrobat on Windows either.

Re:.doc is a de facto standard

[drix]

About 10 years ago, or whenever HTML first emerged, I suppose you would have been right. But HTML seems to have quickly morphed into some odd mixture of presentation and markup. Did you ever wonder why and do the exact same thing (or and ?) One would suggest that HTML is a description language; the other, presentation. Don't even get me started about (which appears to have died the death it so deserved, finally, although it's still in the CSS 2.0 spec!) Particularly with MS having won the browser war in 96 or 97, we've seen literally years worth of proprietary "feature additions" to HTML that have absolutely nothing to do with describing the document and everything to do with governing presentation. If you want a good example, take a look at the atrocious code autogenerated by the MS Office apps. I still have nightmares about it. It tries to basically make the outputted page look identical to whatever you are seeing in Word or Excel, which I guess must make Joe User feel all warm and fuzzy inside. But there's just no way to do that without controlling aspects of presentation (and when you have the monopoly browser, I reckon that's pretty easy to do.)

Wow...!

[Ranger Rick]

...an editorial from RMS that I not only agree with, but also one in which he doesn't sound like a raving madman. =)

While often I agree with him, half the time I can't stand the way he browbeats you with how wrong you are. I think this article was well-written and reasonable...

Scary. =)

Education

[RedOregon]

Hopefully we can show enough people that the complexity of Word is very rarely used. Maybe mass installations of the windows version of vim will help :)

I think what is required is mass education... every time some nitnoid sends you an Email with a Word document attached, and nothing in the Word document but text, respond! Don't just shake your head, think "what an idiot", and read it... respond to the Email!

Re:Education

[reaper20]

Even better, those of us that supervise Windows users can simply go in there and have 'save as .rtf' set as a default. They won't even notice, they always just click the icon anyway.

Re:Education

[daeley]

I wonder if there would be a way to write a VB script to accomplish this same task automagically, then send it to a few of your fave Winusers. Oooh, the possibilties...

Re:Education

[Outland Traveller]

Forget vim.. All someone has to do is bundle a better text editor than notepad with windows by default and people will be happy with that.

This might be something that could be done pending the outcome of the MS trial.

Re:Education

[coats]

Editors like VIM are *extremely* complicated and unintuitive for new users.

And nedit ( http://nedit.org/ is easier yet (it started out as a notepad clone, after all :-) while at the same time offering greatly enhanced capabilities for its power users...

Re:Education

[PurpleBob]

Now, even though I assume this is just wishful thinking, consider what the effects of that would be.

The virus would spread around, of course, and then the news would be announced that there is "another massive virus". (Of course they wouldn't say "Word virus" or "Outlook virus" or "Microsoft virus", just "virus".) The reporters would say, "This virus turns all your documents into a strange file format called (spooky voice or scare quotes go here) RTF. RTF files look the same as the Microsoft Word files, but they aren't really the the same! You may LOSE DATA by using this format!"

Virus-scanner companies would hype about the "RTF virus" and convince everyone to buy their latest version.

The next time you tried to convince someone to send documents in RTF, they'd look at you funny and say "You don't mean that virus format, do you?"

Re:Education

[PurpleBob]

Wordpad saves as RTF or Word 6.0, so most people would have no idea you were sending them a file from Wordpad.

Re:Education

[PurpleBob]

Even though it too was created by Microsoft, RTF is a fairly decent format, and it IS well-supported. How many people have a Word viewer built into their e-mail client? It's not in Outlook (thankfully). Word opens RTF as if it were a normal .doc file, which is out of character for Microsoft - you'd think it'd complain and scare people into locking themselves into the Word format.

Bernie will sue

[CrazyClimber]

How can we get rid of Word attachments without incurring the wrath or Bernie Shifman? If he can't send out his resume, he'll probably sue...

Re:Bernie will sue

[3.14lgrim]

From the now famous Bernard Shifman is a Moron Spammer page: "You may want to run a spell checker over your resume, as well as consider sending it in plain text format. I realize it's prettier as a Word document, but we're primarily a *nix shop and reading Word documents is sometimes more hassle than it's worth. In this case, it was *SO* much more trouble than it's worth. Then again, I should have guessed anyone sending a Word document wouldn't have any *nix clue."

Wishful Thinking

[rute_1]

I just read the article. Now that is out right wishful thinking. Let's see, if I was to reply with his examples to messages containing Word attachments my boss would tell me to find another company to work for:)

A couple of points:

1. There are plenty of Office Suites out there that understand the Word Format. (StarOffice and Koffice to name two.)

2. Microsoft has already stated they are switching to the non-proprietary XML format for their standard document format.

3. While I do like GPL and Freeware I also believe that we need to have comercialware. Let's see, if all software was free then why would anyone in their right mind want to spend money to study programming at a an instituion? Why get a degree in software engineering?

Re:Wishful Thinking

[MikeTheYak]

1. There are plenty of Office Suites out there that understand the Word Format. (StarOffice and Koffice to name two.)

Most of the Word format, anyway.

2. Microsoft has already stated they are switching to the non-proprietary XML format for their standard document format.

I'll believe it when I see it.

3. While I do like GPL and Freeware I also believe that we need to have comercialware. Let's see, if all software was free then why would anyone in their right mind want to spend money to study programming at a an instituion? Why get a degree in software engineering?

Depends on the person, but preferably not to sit around reverse-engineering proprietary formats rather than creating something useful.

Re:Wishful Thinking

[elefantstn]

Why study software engineering? Because 90+% of software work is done in custom applications anyways. There are far more jobs available writing order tracking systems and machine control systems than there are writing commercial software, especially now that there are only four or five companies actually doing that.

Re:Wishful Thinking

[jd]

EEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKK!

If MS get their grubby paws on XML, they'll only go and "extend" it with MS proprietary bits, so that the XML that people use in practice can only be viewed on a Microsoft machine!

Re:Wishful Thinking

[Matey-O]

"If MS get their grubby paws on XML, they'll only go and "extend" it with MS proprietary bits, so that the XML that people use in practice can only be viewed on a Microsoft machine!"

Does anybody see the humor in this statement, It's _EXTENSIBLE_ Markup Language fer chrissakes!

Go read up on XML Namespaces while you're at it.

Re:Wishful Thinking

[Gaijin42]

You paid money to study physics in college. The principles of physics are free. The applications of physics are NOT free. Physics is what make cars work. Cars are not free. Physics is what allows planes to fly. Planes are not free.

The principles of computer science are well established, and really not changing all that much. When someone DOES come up with an idea, they usually publish it very quickly either to A) get a degree, or B) write a book.

However the average CS _student_ is not looking to push the boundries of CS. He is looking to get a job doing programming, and if everything were open source, there would be no money involved.

Re:Wishful Thinking

[Safety Cap]

they'll only go and "extend" it with MS proprietary bits

That is the point of XML, and it won't be bad like you think. The power of eXtensible Markup Language is that it is both backwards- and forwards-compatible.

So, if MS makes DocXML, and releases it v. 1.0, then extends it with MS proprietary bits for v. 2.0, all the 1.0 readers can read v. 2.0 documents just fine. They'll drop the 2.0-specific junk, but woo cares? All of the 1.0-specific stuff will still be readable.

Re:Wishful Thinking

[bockman]

1. There are plenty of Office Suites out there that understand the Word Format. (StarOffice and Koffice to name two.)
Not very well. Usually half of the formatting and meta data are lost.

2. Microsoft has already stated they are switching to the non-proprietary XML format for their standard document format.
'XML Format' means nothing. XML can be used in a lot of incompatible ways (AbiWord and KWord both uses XML, I believe, but in incompatible way). And a standard is non-proprietary only if it is not controlled by a single company.

3. While I do like GPL and Freeware I also believe that we need to have comercialware.if all software was free then why would anyone in their right mind want to spend money to study programming at a an instituion?
I don't mind commercialware, but don't see any _need_ for it. Consider that many software engineers are not working for software houses, but for other kind of firms that happen to need software.
Look at other professions. Matematicians, for instance, are stil needed and hired, even though there are no companies selling directly their work.

Re:Wishful Thinking

[EllisDees]

Yes, there would. Even if there was *no* commercial software being sold anywhere in the world, businesses would still need custom software written for their specific needs, and would have to pay programmers to write it.

Re:Wishful Thinking

[elefantstn]

Four or five companies was hyperbole, meaning that there are far fewer companies doing commercial software now than say 10-15 years ago, as most have been bought/subsumed by larger ones like Microsoft, Adobe, etc. To be clearer, I should have said "there are only like four or five companies," I guess.

Re:Wishful Thinking

[Syberghost]

2. Microsoft has already stated they are switching to the non-proprietary XML format for their standard document format.

Switching to XML doesn't guarantee you're non-proprietary. They might as well say "we'll write it in the non-proprietary C language."

Re:Wishful Thinking

[tempest303]

Microsoft has already stated they are switching to the non-proprietary XML format for their standard document format.


HA! I'll believe THAT when I see it. ("Wishful Thinking" indeed!)

Re:Wishful Thinking

[sheldon]

I don't think you fully appreciate the size and scope of the "commercial software" market.

If you are talking software available on the CompUSA shelves, you may be correct.

But if you are talking all software for sale, you need to reverse you numbers as the market is much much larger with far more players than 10-15 years ago.

Re:Wishful Thinking

[jd]

Uhhhh..... Everyone, if MS sticks the document itself into the 2.0-specific stuff, and ignores the 1.0 options.

Java is extensible, remember? Microsoft's was still utterly incompatiable with anyone else's.

Re:Wishful Thinking

[RFC959]

Custom software is a very small market when compared to commercial development.

Do you have any actual numbers to support this? Walking into your local software store is only a good way to measure the kinds of software that gets sold in a local store. You probably won't see too many copies of Oracle or Dynamo there, but that doesn't mean that those are minor and unimportant pieces of the software market.

There's more than one "software market", in a way. There's local-store-software, there's "enterprise software", and there's custom software (to name categories off the top of my head) and they both overlap and complement each other. For example, my employer has implemented a large and complex e-commerce app on top of a "web application platform". The platform is proprietary commodity software, sold to a wide market...but the actual "store", built on top of it, is all custom work. (And there's coding there too, not just content.) Hiring a top web app firm to implement your e-commerce app for you is not cheap - there's big money in the custom software market.

Re:Wishful Thinking

[EllisDees]

The thing people forget is that most programmers started learning programming as means to an income.

If that's all they are into programming for, the world doesn't need them as programmers.

If that income market doesn't exist we won't have future programmers.

We'll have plenty of programmers, just not the ones that are only involved because they think they are going to make mad cash at this 'programming' thing. People who fit this description are generally shitty programmers anyway.

The availablity of GPL and free software is very dependant on the size of the comercial software industry. The two "feed" off each other.

No they don't. GPL programmers generally do it because they like programming, and want to have access to as much code as possible. A person who just decided one day to be a programmer because of the money isn't going to see any point in writing free software.

Re:RMS spouting off (as usual)

[demaria]

"Honestly, the people that attach word docs are usually the people that give you a blank stare when you say words like 'linux' and 'unix'"

I attach word documents every day. My organization has standardizied on Word, and for good reason too. It works decently, and can read the notes and information vendors send me. The above generalization is so far removed from reality its silly.

because the mob is polite...

[eddy the lip]

We may be able to give "don't send Word format" the status of netiquette, if we start systematically raising the issue with everyone who sends us Word files.

What, you mean completely ignored?

Save a HTML

[Godeke]

When I heard that Word would support saving to HTML I was very happy. Then I saw the HTML that was output and was depressed again. Dreamweaver does have a neat feature - "clean up Word HTML" which makes them a little more acceptable, but it is a nightmare to edit in HTML anything that was generated in Word.

It's a shame, as XHTML and CSS allows for very clean separation of content from presentation... maybe someday they will hit critical mass and it will be the accepted form of "rich" content presentation. But for now I have to slog through RTF, Word, Powerpoint (ugh) and Excel documents that are not converted cleanly to the office suites on Linux.

Re:Save a HTML

[Matey-O]

There's an add-on download for word2000 to cut and paste clean HTML from it's document source...in Word2002 (XP) the feature's been incorporated into the Application directly. (Using format: Save s web page, filtered)

Re:Save a HTML

[Matey-O]

In Word, got to Help, Product Updates, it goes to the website that had it...I believe you could also download it from either the Word website or Office 2000 website.

Re:Save a HTML

[abischof]

HTML Kit is a nice editor for win32 (though happen to prefer Crimson Editor), but keep in mind that HTML Tidy is a separate product (no affiliation with HTML Kit) that you can download on your own. And, unlike HTML Kit, HTML Tidy is available for many operating systems, including Windows, Linux, Mac, and even Atari.

PDF?

[HaeMaker]

Isn't PDF a secret format too, eventhough there are readers for linux?

Re:PDF?

[Beetjebrak]

As far as I know pdf isn't secret, but only adobe may change it since they invented pdf. I like PDF a lot because it allow me to send a digital file to just about any print shop to be reproduced on paper and it won't be different from what I see on screen. I work as a graphics designer and have sent hundreds of PDF's off to dozens of printing companies, and never once had a single problem with it. MS Word's DOC format is a sure-fire way to instant hell!

Re:PDF?

[BacOs]

No - there're several specification documents freely available from Adobe:

Scroll down to the File Format Specification section.

Re:PDF?

[TootsMutant]

Say what you want about Bill, and I'm sure we all will, but to my knowledge, MS never had some Russian guy thrown into jail just because his employer broke a US law outside of the US. Virus replication is reason enough to stop sending word attachments, but I sure don't see switching to PDF to be any sort of step forward.

Forcing the choice on others

[bstadil]

Is not giving people the 'choice' on what wordprocessor to use
No, nobody is arguing the fact they can't use Word, The issue is they are forcing a "choice" on the receiver, by sending the Doc format. If MS opened the Doc formats and perfect filters were available then Maybe you have a point.

Re:Forcing the choice on others

[Eimi Metamorphoumai]

You can use Word all you want. No one is saying "No, you must switch to vi for all your editing!" What we are saying is "When you finish writing your thing in Word, if you want me to read it, chose 'File / Save as...' and give it a format I can read." I don't see how that limits user choice one iota.

Doc 2 html

[wiredog]

It may be easy (as he says) to convert doc to html, but you can lose formatting. Auto-numbered lists, especially, seem to get munged in the conversion.

Re:Doc 2 html

[bfree]

So, if I send you a Word97 doc and you have Word2002 (is that what it's called?) do you think it will look the same? If I send you my Standard A4 formatted document and you print it on your Standard Letter printer do you think it will look the same (or even appear the same on screen) even IF you have the same version of word? Within a corporate network Word docs are fine as you are going to be able to sort it out simply, once it leaves your own network you are trying to force your software choices on another and in the process generating more revenue for MS (how many unopenable Word2002 docs will it take before your Word2000 gets upgraded?). Using Word as a data exchange fprmat is INSANE! Use pdf/ps/jpeg if formating matters, use html or text if it doesn't.

Re:Doc 2 html

[coats]

So, if I send you a Word97 doc and you have Word2002 (is that what it's called?) do you think it will look the same? If I send you my Standard A4 formatted document and you print it on your Standard Letter printer do you think it will look the same...

If you're running WORD and you have two different Standard A4 printers, and you think it will give you the same pagination on both, you're dreaming! In fact, if you think it will give you the same pagination on the same printer, you're out of luck.

Damned incompetent crap of a software system!

Thats not the problem

[clump]

Most Word users, I expect, want to write letters to their mothers, not recompile the application.

You don't need email with Word attachments. The problem is having such a format be so widespead that it interferes with normal communication, like email. I am a UNIX network engineer that has been bitten *many* times by the 'please send a resume as a Word doc'. That is difficult if you don't run Windows at all.

Though I generally feel RMS isn't an effective speaker, he definitely has a point here. Honestly, do people really need Word for the majority of text documents? Is everyone sending emails with tabular, image-embedded documents? I think not.

Re:Thats not the problem

[naasking]

Oh, you mean besides the fact that EVERYONE can read and write text?

Re:Thats not the problem

[corbettw]

"Though I generally feel RMS isn't an effective speaker, he definitely has a point here. Honestly, do people really need Word for the majority of text documents?"

That wasn't RMS's point, though. His point was that, because Word is a proprietary program, it's users can't modify it for their own uses. But it's true that the vast majority of Word's users wouldn't modify it even if they could. Hell, back when I used StarOffice on a regular basis I never changed any of the code, mostly because I didn't have the time to sort through thousands of lines of code to tweak one variable.

For simple office type software I'd rather have something that "just works" out of the box, than have something I have to constantly fiddle with to get working right. (Servers are different, but then they require tweaking to get the most out of them.)

Re:Thats not the problem

[AnalogBoy]

Its a multimedia internet - that's not going to change. Word e-mail's bother me too in some situations, but a far more realistic solution is having microsoft open the specs to word documents officially - if they havent done so already. Its not going to go away, because, to the majority of the worlds users, rich text format/word e-mail's are a boon.

Re:Thats not the problem

[dirk]

By this logic, accepting resumes by email is bad, because not everyone has email or an electronic version of their resume. If the company uses Word, it is completely acceptable for them to expect you (who wishes something of the company, ie them to give you a job) to comply with what they use. Don't have word? Print out your resume and send it the old fashioned way. If you are asking to be employed by a company, you have to play by their rules.

Re:Thats not the problem

[Score Whore]

Oh, you mean besides the fact that EVERYONE can read and write text?

How about the fact that standard ASCII (ie. this magic, all-purpose, solves every problem, format) that Dick Stallman is talking about isn't actually capable of transmitting many european languages and very few asian languages. Not to mention the complete lack of greek, cyrillic, scientific, latin, and mathematical notation, that many people need to communicate.

I bet Dick Stallman is going to ask everybody to speak and write in Esperanto next.

Doesn't anybody else find it ironic that a man who decides to go off and write his own documentation system (info) when a standard already exists (man), is asking people to change away from a "closed" format? I mean shit, more apps support .doc than support .info and yet Dick's little club mainly releases their documentation as .info files. Curious ain't it.

Re:Thats not the problem

[Stephan Schulz]

The problem is having such a format be so widespead that it interferes with normal communication, like email. I am a UNIX network engineer that has been bitten *many* times by the 'please send a resume as a Word doc'. That is difficult if you don't run Windows at all.

I have not yet been in that situation - people are always happy to receive PDF or PS from me (I use latex/dvips or pdflatex for these), and I got both of my current jobs on an plain text application and on a silver platter (i.e. without any application). However, many people have told me that Word will gladly (and silently) display HTML documents with the .doc extension, and most suits are unable to tell the difference ;-)

So fire up emacs in HTML mode or use latex2html.

Re:Thats not the problem

[ruvreve]

People need Word for the majority of text documents like they need Internet Explorer for most of their web browsing. Most computers that consumers purchase come with Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer already installed. Now if this is the first time you used a computer what would you use? You would use what is already there because you don't know any better. Now when you come back to your computer the second time what are you going to use? Your going to use Microsoft Word and/or Internet Explorer because thats what you already know how to use. This battle has already been lost. Why would any new or current Microsoft Word user change products when everybody around them is using Microsoft word?

Re:Thats not the problem

[Rupert]

It's more akin to only accepting paper resumes that were printed on a particular model of printer. A very large, fault-prone, expensive printer.

Yes, someone who doesn't have access to paper still can't send you a resume. But you also cut out people who do have paper but have chosen a different printer.

Re:Thats not the problem

[xonker]

His point was that, because Word is a proprietary program, it's [sic] users can't modify it for their own uses.

I think he was trying to make two points. This is one of them, the other is that sending Word attachments complicates life for people who don't use Word -- and unintentionally or intentionally continues the idea that Word is the de facto standard so everyone should just go ahead and buy Windows and Office and conform already.

If you're happy using proprietary MS products, cool. That's okay, I don't agree with it, but whatever. Just don't force your choice on my by choosing to send a proprietary bloated attachment instead of a nice neat plain-text message that I could read in my mail client.

It's one thing if you're sending a QuarkXPress attachment to a printer so they can do a job for you. That justifies a proprietary format, rather than sending plain-text. But many PR people and business folks just write something in Word and attach it, when it's a press release or something that could be plain-text with no loss in information.

It's not just a viewing thing either, RMS travels a lot and probably collects email via modem. It's annoying to spend an hour downloading your email because two jerks decided to send Word attachments rather than a simple email. I've been there, done that, hated it.

I'm a writer for several tech pubs, and I refuse to open Word attachments sent by PR flacks. Send it in plain text, or forget about being covered. I'd do the same thing even if I used Windows. Why? Because sending attachments that can carry viruses is also rude.

There are a lot of good reasons NOT to send Word attachments, and no good reasons to send them.

I only wish someone else other than RMS had spoken up about this. People automatically dismiss RMS because they percieve him as being too rigid, which he is, but he has good points as well.

Re:Thats not the problem

[gpinzone]

Unicode? Not every e-mail program (or even text editor for that matter) can handle Unicode. It's a two-byte format that is NOT ASCII compatible.

Re:Thats not the problem

[Chris Burke]

But it's true that the vast majority of Word's users wouldn't modify it even if they could. Hell, back when I used StarOffice on a regular basis I never changed any of the code, mostly because I didn't have the time to sort through thousands of lines of code to tweak one variable.

It's about having the freedom to do this, not necessarily using it.

To take an analogy from another post, I wouldn't buy a car with the hood locked so only the dealer could open it. But let me be frank -- there is really nothing productive I could do by opening the hood, except check the oil. I'm useless with cars. But being -able- to is good. Plus, I know that if I had a friend who did know cars, they could modify it.

Similarly, I am very glad that I have rights under the Freedom of Information Act, even though I've never used them and may never feel the need to.

Just because you, personally may never hack a line of code in an app doesn't mean that you don't benefit from having the right to. Remember, you have the right to and so does everyone else, and "everyone else" includes a lot of programmers.

Re:Thats not the problem

[susano_otter]

Please, Mr. Troll, wake me up when there's a single standard for encoding every language, and everybody complies with it. That would be great! In the mean time, try not to overlook the fact that there's an abundance of open standards (and open-source applications) for ASCII text, HTML files, and PDF documents--which is Stallman's point, anyway. And I'll bet there's no law against advocating one convention over another; Stallman's entitled to push for wide adoption of the .info standard--which is undoubtedly open as well. HTH. HAND.

Re:Thats not the problem

[Spankophile]

There are a lot of good reasons NOT to send Word attachments, and no good reasons to send them.


Hmmm, no good reasons to send Word attachments? How about formatting, tables, graphics, password-protection, spelling/grammar checking, highlighting, correction/collaboration. All supported by the fact that (as RMS admits) most computer users can read Word documents - even if it's a scaled down Wordpad reader.

Re:Thats not the problem

[Lemmy Caution]

You'll notice the parent poster said "letters," not "email." You know, those things you print on paper and put in envelopes?

And as I've noted below, if a job is on the line you can do what the millions of people around the world who can't afford a computer at all do: go down to a Kinko's or such and rent a computer for 10 minutes to convert your resume to Word format. Sorry, I'm not about to play the sad violins for someone who can't figure that out.

Re:Thats not the problem

[Chris Burke]

I have yet to see a single example of RMS forcing anyone to not use proprietary products. He might tell you what he thinks of proprietary software in no uncertain terms, and he will tell you that you shouldn't and why... That's not forcing, that's having an opinion.

It's funny, because in the article that spawned this discussion, he doesn't once say anything against using Word, just sending documents in Word format to others.
But sending people documents in Word format (and refusing to cease this practice) is much closer to "forcing" someone else to use Word. It's not literally forcing, but it is applying leverage on them, if they want to read your docs. I can't actually think of anytime RMS has applied any leverage on someone to use free software.

Re:Thats not the problem

[cloudmaster]

tables: use tabs (specifying 4-spaces/tab optional)
graphics: attach the graphics then, don't embed them in a proprietary format

spelling/grammar checking: most email clients will spell check, and your grammar should be up-to-par *before* you start composing email

formatting/highlighting: see the asterics around "before" in the last phrase? See the spacebar, tab, and return keys on the keyboard? Those'll take car of most emails' formatting needs.

correction/collaboration: yeah, I suppose, but that's not what email's really for, and documents can quickly get out-of-sync using word's features. Use plain-text and a CVS repository - it'll work better.

password-protection: Don't send private messages to people who can't keep them private. In less than 10 minutes I can find a word password cracker on-line, so you're not protecting the document from being "sniffed".

If people send me a message in word format without giving me a reason, I delete it and assume that a virus sent it - because no sane person would compose email in word and send it as an attachment. If my employer did that, I'd find a new employer.

Re:Thats not the problem

[Karellen]

Formatting/tables/graphics/highlighting?

Use PDF. Or HTML.

Password protection?

Don't use Word. Ever. That's almost as bad as using pkzip encryption. Word encryption is worse than useless as it gives you a false sense of security.

Spelling/grammer checking?

Um - what word processors don't have spell checkers? Grammer? Well, I suppose it's nice, but if you can't string a sentence together that scans properly, go back to school and get an education. And that's only a reason to use Word as an editor. That's not a reason to send the final version as a Word attachment. Sure, write in word. But why not still send as plain text. Most of the stuff I get as word attachments is just that - plain text. Just wrapped up in a huge word document.

Correction/collaboration? OK - you might have me there. I've no idea of how Word's version works or if any other package has it or not, as I've never had a need for it. *shrug*

Re:Thats not the problem

[1010011010]

He even told people how to use Word, but save documents in a nonproprietary format.

Re:Thats not the problem

[Karellen]

Um, no it's not.

Unicode isn't a character encoding. It's a character set. There's a difference. And Unicode, the character set, can be encoded in a number of different formats, including, as you mention, UCS2.

However, UCS2 can't hold all the Unicode characters, as there are code points above 65536 that are currently in use.

Encodings that do work are UTF-8, which is sort of compatible with ASCII - all ASCII programs should read and re-write UTF-8 encoded text properly, even if they don't display it correctly.

UTF-16 is a multi-character 16-bit format for encoding Unicode in multiple 16-bit characters.

UCS4 is a 'native' encoding of Unicode, with a 1-to-1 code point to character code mapping. But not many programs use it.

Re:Thats not the problem

[GTRacer]

I bet Dick Stallman is going to ask everybody to speak and write in Esperanto next.

Ummm, is that really such a good idea? I mean, if Rimmer - a computer-generated AI with millions of years on his hands - can't learn Esperanto, what chance do we mere mortals have?

GTRacer
- wants a friend like Lister...

Re:Thats not the problem

[BluBrick]

Formatting, tables and graphics are not exclusive to Word. Hell, PDF is better if you need to send highly formatted material.

Agreed.

If you're collaborating together in Word, fine, but then two people have agreed on a format. RMS is asking that people not inflict the format on others who do not choose to use Word.

But Word does not even necessarily make things easier for collaboration.

Example: In a meeting with the IT staff of another company, we were discussing the contents of a particular MS Word document that they had sent us. But their fonts/default Word preferences/printers/whatever were slightly different from ours. So although we both used MS Word in order to be able to reference the same material efficiently, we weren't even on the same page...Literally.

Using PDF would probably have solved that little hassle.

Re:Thats not the problem

[jazman_777]

Spelling/grammar checking. Many email clients do spell-checking, though I don't know about grammar checking.

I thought that's what an education was for. I hate Word's grammar checking--it always complains when I put down a complex thought. So I turn it off. And I always proofread what I post/email at least two times anyway, checking for spelling and grammar and coherence. (Ok, the previous statements looked coherent to me!)

Re:Thats not the problem

[laserjet]

Not true... some people are illiterate.

Re:Thats not the problem

[Lemmy Caution]

Well, apparently you didn't get your computer to send Word docs. That's the point. There are a good dozen workarounds, including some save-as options for RTF or DOC formats. You define "your convenience" as not including interoperability with the 90% of the working world that uses Microsoft Office, that's your choice.

Re:Thats not the problem

[Broccolist]

I can't actually think of anytime RMS has applied any leverage on someone to use free software.

*cough* *cough* GPL *cough* *cough*. His pet license forces you to distribute all your source code if you link it with *ny* GNU applications.

I'm not saying the GPL is evil, but it certainly does constitute applying leverage.

Personal versus Political

[beth_linker]

I don't think that calling Word "a secret proprietary format" (true as it may be) will make much sense to the average Windows user.

A more general issue is that all of the examples provided are political in nature.

Could one accomplish something similar with a message like "I'm sorry but I'm unable to read documents in Microsoft Word format because I use Linux. Please send your document in a format that I can read, such as ASCII Text or PDF."

Educating people about the political issues surrounding proprietary document formats isn't always appropriate in a business situation. If I need to ask a customer to use a format other than Word, I also need to be able to do it in a non-alienating way. I think that Stallman offers some good suggestions, but the specific examples he provides wouldn't work well in some social contexts.

Re:Personal versus Political

[Buck2]

Could one accomplish something similar with a message like "I'm sorry but I'm unable to read documents in Microsoft Word format because I use Linux. Please send your document in a format that I can read, such as ASCII Text or PDF."

No. The general response (from my experience) has been, "Then you suck and there's nothing I can do about it. You should use Windows."

You _must_ explain why Word attachments themselves are the problem and how to get around them.

I've found the "size of the attachment" argument to be the most effective (and that's relative ... it's a massive uphill battle). Next is inconvenience to me, but that presumes that the sender really cares, and last is the "for the good of computing".

Actually, recently, many users have been bitten enough times with transferring documents up through old versions of Word that they pay attention to, "Do you really want to be using a program which saves information in a form which may be unusable or, most probably, improperly read in a year or two?"

Finally, sometimes I just outright lie and say, "Oh, man, I'm sorry I don't have Word XP (or whatever), could you maybe save it in Word 95 format ... or better yet, save it in text since that's all I really need." Just about everyone gets that.

Re:Personal versus Political

[ZigMonty]

I don't think that calling Word "a secret proprietary format" (true as it may be) will make much sense to the average Windows user.

Could one accomplish something similar with a message like "I'm sorry but I'm unable to read documents in Microsoft Word format because I use Linux. Please send your document in a format that I can read, such as ASCII Text or PDF."

And you think they'll know what ASCII text or Linux means? I'd tell them to type (or copy/paste) their message into the email and not use attachments. You could probably use the virus reason (something they'll probably have heard of) and not worry them with big words like "Linux".

Re:Personal versus Political

[Darth Maul]

No, I don't think your example would work because an average Windows user would just think that Linux is pathetic if it cannot view files. I think your example is poorly worded.

Perhaps just turn it around, like "I'm sorry but I cannot access the file you sent me, because you sent it in a format that is only usable in Windows. Please use a format that is more accessible to all computer users, such as plain text or PDF".

Maybe?

Re:Personal versus Political

[BlueUnderwear]

Except..Isnt there an office for macs?

But is that one compatible with Office for Windows. I was under the impression that there were a couple of interoperability issues between both versions.

Re:Personal versus Political

[curunir]

Hmmm...Word docs are only usable in Windows, huh? What about Macs? You might try,

"I'm sorry, but I cannot view the attachment that you sent to me because it is a Microsoft Word document (.doc extension). Microsoft Word documents are only accessible to people using software that is approved by Microsoft. Please consider using a format that is freely accessible such as HTML, PDF or plain text. This will ensure that files that you send are readable by anyone who receives them."

Re:Personal versus Political

[dschuetz]

Please send your document in a format that I can read, such as ASCII Text or PDF

Someone in my company actually got the idea that they should send "Official Messages" out in Word and PDF format. That seems to be a pretty good compromise, and generally works for most peope, I'd think.

What bugs me is when I get an email that says only "Please read the attached memo." Then you open the memo (starting Word or Acrobat for the first time that day, and thus taking about 30 seconds to load up), and I see "We're closed next Monday for the holiday. Please turn in your timesheets a day early." or something else like that. I mean, like two lines or so -- not even a nice letterhead! THAT makes me want to scream.

Re:Personal versus Political

[fonebone]

maybe the important thing to say is "I don't have Word, can you send me the file in plain text or something?". it's not really an operating system issue, despite the fact that there is no Office for Linux. if a person had windows, but didn't have Word, they'd probably ask for the same thing anyway.

Re:Personal versus Political

[Have Blue]

Absolutely correct. What the Free Software nuts are missing is that business doesn't give a crap about how Free software is. They just care if it does what they need. Word does. So they use it. End of story.

Re:Personal versus Political

[sane?]

I suggest:

"Because of all the Word viruses, my firewall doesn't allow MS Word through. Try saving it as RTF and you'll have more luck."

That way you have a good reason, and you question their sanity for using Word.
No usual user has heard of Linux, but they are afraid of virii and will do anything you say.

Re:Personal versus Political

[sheldon]

Congratulations, you win my Most Clueless Comment of the Day award. Please send an email to collect your shiny penny so you can buy a clue.

Free Microsoft Word viewer:
http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2000/wd97v wr 32.aspx

Re:Personal versus Political

[msouth]

"Educating people about the political issues surrounding proprietary document formats isn't always appropriate in a business situation."

Heh. Let's just use this as a "true statement generator":

"[insert randomly chosen advice from RMS] isn't always appropriate in a business situation."

I think we're on pretty safe ground.

Re:Personal versus Political

[Fencepost]

What bugs me is when I get an email that says only "Please read the attached memo." Then you open the memo (starting Word or Acrobat for the first time that day, and thus taking about 30 seconds to load up), and I see "We're closed next Monday for the holiday. Please turn in your timesheets a day early." or something else like that. I mean, like two lines or so -- not even a nice letterhead!

Be happy. What's really nasty is the people who do that with a letterhead template that includes a high-resolution image of the company logo (so it'll look nice when it's printed) as a portable image. 250KB messages announcing the promotion of some sales shmoe 2000 miles away to area manager are the ones that suck, particularly when your remote office has a fairly slow connection.

Fortunately, there are IS folks who actually enjoy stomping on those people.

Re:Personal versus Political

[Splork]

its disappointing to see so many comments here acting as if this issue is somehow linux specific.
it's not. any non-windows user cannot read word documents. (mac users might be able to, but do all mac users have word? do all windows users for that matter?)

always ask -anyone- that sends word documents to send it in a readable format.

bending over and trying to use kword, staroffice, mswordview, or whatever to read it is the WORST thing you can do.

Re:Personal versus Political

[Nailer]

mmm...Word docs are only usable in Windows, huh? What about Macs?

What about Linux? Testing StarOffice against Microsoft's own case study docs from their partner site reveals StarOffice / OpenOffice does a pretty good job of importing complex layout oriented work docs.

You should probably word in the way that I can read Work documents, but I'd prefer not to, as the file's are very large and take a long time to send via email, and don't always look the same between different document viewing programs.

Re:Personal versus Political

[ZigMonty]

Good suggestion. I think all of these could work for different people. We should tailor our response for each person. If they are real newbies then mine is probably the best. If they don't know what Linux is but understand the whole "Microsoft bad" angle then your suggestion. If they are very knowledgeable then the parent of my original post is probably the best. Overwhelming a newbie won't get you anywhere but neither will patronizing a knowledgeable user.

OK , now what?

[crotherm]

I just cut and pasted the email reply suggestions into MSWord. Now how do I send it out?

We first need ...

[bockman]

... a commonly accepted free standard for _editable_ documents.

That is, it should be possible to read and edit the same document with different open-source tools [since there is no chance that we all use the same] without loosing neither text, nor formatting or meta information (like indexes, cross-references, review marks etc...).

Re:We first need ...

[zerocool^]

We first need... ...a commonly accepted free standard for editable documents

Welcome to .txt! Usable with vi, vim, joe, pico, emacs, MSNotepad, MSWordpad, TeachText for mac (i believe), MS Word, HTTP Browsers, etc.

Now, the above post was meant in jest, I understand there are sometimes where a nice looking document will go a long way (price-quotes, resumes, etc), but, really, how many people need something other than .txt for the majority of things that they just pass around? If i get a txt file, it takes me 30 sec to post it into a word doc and make it pretty if i deem it necessacary.

~z

Re:We first need ...

[bockman]

For personal use, (mostly) yes.

For business, definively not. My company generates docs of hundreds of pages. It would takes days to reformat one of them (I had to, a couple of times :-( ).
And it is not only the good-looking. For large docs, things like cross-reference and automatic indexes are a god blessing.

Re:We first need ...

[DrCode]

And let me guess: They send them out as attachments in mass mailings to employees?

How about converting them to HTML and then send the link out?

Re:We first need ...

[Eagle7]

What we need then is a quality, Word-like GUI for TEX. There are open standards (TEX, PS), but they are too cumbersome for the average person to use on a daily basis. Or the learning/comfortability curve is too steep.

Re:We first need ...

[mr3038]

That is, it should be possible to read and edit the same document with different open-source tools [since there is no chance that we all use the same] without loosing neither text, nor formatting or meta information (like indexes, cross-references, review marks etc...).

Yeah, it's a nice target, but when most users can't understand the difference between style and font attribute, how is thing thing going to keep formatting while editing text?

I mean, there isn't like one or two people in the world that still increase font size and make it bolder to mark it as header. Usually these people don't even know the difference between line break and paragraph break. I have seen too many files that have extra paragraph breaks to fix an orphan line simply because author was too dumb to edit style the way s/he likes. Now when another author adds a line 10 pages before this "fix" causes really ugly results.

Now, given the restriction that author cannot describe the meaning of the document, how can any document format keep formatting when text is edited ? Making editor to keep sure about that like LyX is one way, but how we make these people to use it? It's not like they want to be told how dumb they are... Perhaps something that looks like current MS Word interface, but hidden logic that maps bolded and increased text to one of the four header levels. Two or more line breaks as one paragraph break and so on. If only there were an easy way to edit LyX document styles to one's needs...

Re:We first need ...

[Imperator]

Sure. Just send your foo.tex file. Oh, and if you don't want the receipient to have to run TeX fifty times, be sure to send foo.aux, foo.toc, foo.idx, foo.ilg, foo.ind, foo.log, and maybe foo.log for good measure. Actually, maybe just send a tarball...

Re:We first need ...

[zvar]

I've heard this a few times in this thread.

What I can't understand is why... Yes for some stuff htm on a server is the way to go, but for most things the company wants you to have a compy 100% of the time. That way if the server goes down one can still read the sexual harrasment policies in the handbook that was e-mailed to everyone.

Same with my car

[DrCode]

I just want to drive, not mess with the engine. That doesn't mean I'd accept a car with a locked hood that could only be opened by the dealer.

Re:Same with my car

[igrek]

Nice argument, but it doesn't work here, because:

1) Cars require regular maintenance. Word processors don't (or shouldn't).

2) Cars cost hundred times more than word processors.

3) Amortization and used car sale.

More appropriate comparison would be with something like your coffee maker. Many of us use things every day, but we don't care what's inside.

Re:Same with my car

[DebtAngel]

1. Yes they do. That's why Word has patches and service packs applied to it. Word processors shouldn't have a programming language attached to them either, but Word has VBA.

2. Then explain to me why SQL Server, which can cost $5000 per processor, is closed. Stick that on a four processor machine, and you could have bought a nice car instead.

3. Not important to the argument.

I expect that for CAN$100 to $200, I am able to open up a piece of hardware and do whatever I like to it. I can take, say, the aforementioned coffee maker, and replace the power cord if the cat chews on it.

I can do the equivalent with OpenOffice or KWord, if I was sufficiently skilled. I cannot do so with Word, or any proprietary software. If there is a simple problem with the software, which I think I could fix given the source code and half an hour, I can't. I have to wait for Microsoft to do it, which they may never ever do.

That, my friend, is the point.

Re:Same with my car

[Tackhead]

> which would be a valid point, if we were talking about a car. We're not. We're talking about a word processor. My word processor doesn't cost $26,000. I can't lose my life using a spreadsheet.

"Someday, man, someday..."
- Bill Gates.

Re:Same with my car

[igrek]

1. As I said, they shouldn't. But even id they do - you don't need hex editor to apply them, right? The installer will do that for you (think car mechanic)

2. It's exactly my point. We're not discussing SQL server or some other server software here, but just word processors. For server software, the original RMS analogy with cars is valid.

3. It is important, because car internals degrade with time and people need to be able to open the hood to see the actual condition for themselves. Not the case with Word Processors (or any other shrink-wrapped applications).

About the coffee maker... If your cat chews the power cord or deletes one of the program DLLs, you can easily restore the original condition of the program by reinstalling. With software like word processor, you can easily return to the original condition if needed. Try this with cars.

How many people are thinking: "Wish I had the MS Word source code, I would do this and that..."? Not many. That's the point.

Re:Same with my car

[DebtAngel]

1. Nice screw up on the analogy on part one. I can take a car to a mechanic for scheduled maintenance (bug fixen), or I can do the oil change myself. I don't, personally, but I'm happy that I don't have to take my Chrysler to a Chrysler dealer in order to do that.

2. A car is a car is a car, whether its a 2002 Viper or a 1985 Ford Tempo. A 1985 Ford Tempo, if you can find one, can probably be purchased for the same as Word. Software is software is software, no matter what the price point.

3. I write Content Management software for a web development company. People need to get into that code all the time. People need to get into the code in Word, or Outlook, or other Office products to fix buffer overflows and other bugs. The fact that I can't but Joe at Redmond can is the point, and the problem.

4. (the coffee maker argument) Point to you, *but* if I heavily modified my cars looks (a fair number of people heavily tweak the settings in Word, turning off things like AutoCorrect), and somebody broke a window, I'd rather not have to make my car look like it did when I first drove it off the lot. Similarly, I'd rather not have to download all my patches again because my mom accidentally deleted some obscure file I didn't know that Word needed.

The point is that anybody who happens to think that "I wish I could change function X in Word, because it isn't powerful enough for me" is in no way allowed to do that. Just because you will never exercise a liberty does not mean that it's okay to take that liberty away. Slippery slope, and all that.

Re:Same with my car

[clontzman]

The point is that anybody who happens to think that "I wish I could change function X in Word, because it isn't powerful enough for me" is in no way allowed to do that. Just because you will never exercise a liberty does not mean that it's okay to take that liberty away. Slippery slope, and all that.

Sure you can. You just have to use VBA rather than hacking the source of the program itself. People have made all kinds of modifications to Word via a robust and well-documented API. I'd argue that's more useful for most people than monkeying around with the source code (which makes the software unsupportable, from a Microsoft point of view -- "Yeah, I've been getting fonky crashes since I tweaked the spell-check algorithm....").

Re:Same with my car

[Lord Omlette]

Emacs & Lisp? Anyone? Anyone?

Now if you want to complain about the implementation details of how the programming language is attached to the word processor, then we can talk, but come on...

how's this for a solution?

[issachar]

There's a very simple way of changing MS-Word's default format to something other than .doc format. I use Word a fair bit, and my copy is set to automatically save everything in rich text format. I have yet to encounter ANY formatting that can't be saved in that format. (Maybe because I don't write Macro viruses).

Explain to people that if they do this, their documents can be read by MANY more people, and that it doesn't affect them at all because MS-Word can read .rtf documents seamlessly. (It just treats them like regular .doc files). Don't forget to explain that occaisionally the system will complain that "some formatting might be lost", but that's not really true. It's only the very strange formatting that no one ever uses that would be lost. This has been good enough for all the non-technical people I've explained this to.

.

Re:how's this for a solution?

[Lazarus Short]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that RTF can't do tables. Personally, I consider that to be a fairly significant piece of formatting.

That said, I do agree that RTF is a good substitute in a lot of cases, and I use it whenever possible.

Re:how's this for a solution?

[ZigMonty]

I thought that rtf couldn't handle embedded pictures, diagrams, equations, etc. Am I wrong? I would exactly call these rare.

Re:how's this for a solution?

[marmite]

If you check MS RTF documentation, you will see that .doc is actually just the binary format of RTF.

Re:how's this for a solution?

[bfree]

I _KNOW_ rtf can handle embedded pictures, just not very nicely. A former boss of mine wanted to save his wrist signing a 500+ copy mail merge but Word (97) at the time couldn't do it sanely so I ended up having to hack it together (scaling was screwy). But rtf can handle images for sure.

Re:how's this for a solution?

[MindStalker]

Hell yea it can do tables, in fact I have a table that needs to have automatic changes (mainly the dates) on it weekly, you can actually grep sed rtf documents for said text and update them through a script, its freaken sweet.

Re:how's this for a solution?

[ZigMonty]

The OLE stuff we really need are equations. The Equation Editor that comes with word works really well. No, we cant just export them as gifs or whatever because the are lots of them and we need to be able to edit them. Other than that it sounds like RTF has come along way.

Note: I *don't* want OLE stuff in RTF. In fact I'd like a cleaner, probably XML based document format.

Re:how's this for a solution?

[Reziac]

Which no doubt explains why M$'s incarnation of RTF doesn't *quite* match anyone else's.

We use HTML for our business documents

[JMZero]

Most of our secretarial force now has only an HTML based Word Processor.

Biggest problem: there's no good way to handle tabbing (tables are fine but inconvenient, anything more fancy like auto-resizing spans screw up). Secretaries like being able to quickly due dot-lead tabs and such to make quick columns. HTML as implemented in IE (which we have to support so clients can view documents), doesn't have good enough tabs.

The other problem (no good concept of page, which makes documents for printing hard to edit), we've been able to solve (well enough for us) in our custom editor.

Misreading the title

[Pac]

I've read the title too quick, and for a moment I thought Good Old Rick had decided to go all way and become a desert hermit, as in "RMS: Putting an End to World Attachments"

one way to make them stop

[edgarde]

The moderator of a Yahoo club to which I belong sent (as a standard new member greeting) some poetry as an MS-Word attachment. He was quite surprised when I replied with the name of the company he was working at when he typed it ( File | Properties | Summary ), and explained how to save as text.

He quickly changed the greeting to a .TXT

Later, on my advice, he made it an .RTF so he could font & format. This created sufficient confusion among other recipients that he had to change it back.

Re:one way to make them stop

[Reziac]

Someone I know was much more startled when I pulled her boss's bad porn out of the "padding" part of a Word document, and quoted it back to her. (ANY data currently in memory, or in the swapfile, or even from other Word documents that were opened on the same template, can wind up in the nonvisible part of any given Word document.)

Then there's extracting someone's UserID string and letting them know that now you have all the information you need to forge a document that WILL hold up in court as being "made on their machine".

With Word, the fun never ends!!

Give as good as you get.

[Snowfox]

I like responding to Word documents by picking another esoteric file format. Even EPS is as good as opaque to most users.

When they reply with a "huh?" then I share some of my views on proprietary and non-standard text formats and suggest RTF when sharing docs with others. With simpler users, I'll just simplify, explaining that "RTF is the form you use when emailing documents, DOC is mostly meant for local editing before you 'publish' by printing or saving in a public format."

Until they experience the annoyance of unavailable or cyrptic data first hand, most folks will write you off as a quack for complaining. They just can't imagine a world where e-mail attachments don't open nicely so long as you know how to double-click.

Re:Give as good as you get.

[russianspy]

I work in a research environment. A few months ago I was introduced to Latex. I am NOT going back. Ever. I can type out a formula just as easy as typing out a sentence. I can specify formatting external to the document itself. I can include other documents, update references automagically, use a database of references.
I can do ALL that in either Windows, Linux, or Unix. (I think there is a Mac version as well). If you'd like a wysiwyg editor - try Lyx.

Why create a NEW file format? One allready exists.

Re:Give as good as you get.

[PD]

Good idea. I just tried that with my boss. Now I have another question: do you know anybody that is hiring a UNIX/C++ programmer with 12 years experience?

Re:Give as good as you get.

[Snowfox]

Mind, if you wanted to be a brat about it, I suppose another way to scare .doc users would be to look at the embedded meta data, and point out that you can see what directory they kept the doc in, who owns the copy of MS Word, part of the registration key, as well as anything else you can dig out of there.

Most people don't take too kindly to others knowing about them and their computers, especially when they don't even realize they're sharing the information.

Re:Give as good as you get.

[slamb]

LaTeX isn't an open alternative to Word documents, though. It's a completely different system. Arguably, it's superior for many (some would say all) tasks, but it would take a lot of getting used to for many people.

A description of TeX/LaTeX/LyX for those unfamiliar with them:

TeX is a formatting system by Donald Knuth. In TeX, you specify how the document is to be rendered in a source file. I believe it's actually a Turing-complete language. It runs through and performs a lot of calculations to lay out the text in the best way...balancing underful and overfull boxes, etc. It tries to minimize a "badness" value. It produces very good output. TeX is extremely popular especially in scientific/academic environments because it's basically the only package that lays out complex equations correctly. If you own a math textbook, chances are it was made with LaTeX. (TeX is also a very good example of solid software. It's open-source and he will give you a $2.56 check for finding an error in his software or documentation. People frame them.)

LaTeX is a popular TeX macro package. It provides abstraction so you can specify content organization instead of presentation. By changing the documentclass, you can change how it is presented.

LyX is a graphical LaTeX editor. It lets you do most of what raw LaTeX does relatively easily. It still isn't really WYSIWYG. It gives a decent approximation of the final output as you edit, but the way you enter stuff is pretty different from Word, because the underlying format is so different.

Re:Give as good as you get.

[isorox]

A few months ago I was introduced to Latex.


Another geek gets laid!

:)

Re:Give as good as you get.

[BlueUnderwear]

...who owns the copy of MS Word...

And if it isn't the same person who sent the document: piracy@microsoft.com ... (or alternatively, if you live in Germany: gravenreuth@gravenreuth.de )

Re:Give as good as you get.

[coats]

I like responding to Word documents by picking another esoteric file format. Even EPS is as good as opaque to most users.

And there was a government colleague of mine a few years ago who was required to submit documents in WordPerfect® - and he hated to use that program. So he would compose his documents in LaTEX, generate PostScript® pages, and import it into WordPerfect® as images...

Re:Give as good as you get.

[ishark]

I wish I still were as "civilized" as you guys...

I got VERY bored of .doc attachments long ago. After polite answers, with basically no effect, sending back weird formats, again with small effect, I've now found an optimal solution.

1- the document is critical for me: I open with StarOffice and send a reply saying that due to some strange microsoft incompatibilities (dur to my word being old, probably) something was wrong, but I was able to read the text. Why not send it as text in the first place and save the trouble?

2- the document is non-critical. I hit 'd' and plainly delete the mail. I may even NOT read the mail body. When asked I look puzzled and reply that I never got the message, adding something misty about "word attachment with virus which may get deleted automatically by some mailservers".
It still doesn't work, but at least it's fun :)

No problem saving as .doc

[cvd6262]

I've found that KWord and Abiword both did a fine job of reading Word files - it's the being able to Save As Word where things get messy.

That's just the opposite of my experience with StarOffice. I've opened .doc files from the network, with "track changes" enabled, edited them in StarOffice Writer, and then saved them. None of my coworkers were ever the wiser.

I also print a lot of homework at work. I've saved my files as Word 2000 files, opened them on Word 2000, and printed without a problem.

Red Herring

[elefantstn]

This is a meaningless point. The fact that a specific subset of users, however large, cannot get at the source has no bearing on its importance. Even though I personally can look at and understand [some] source, I would never be able to look at it all. The value is that I know that there are multiple people looking at and improving the source that I'm not looking at, and doing it from an end-user perspective, not a software-producer perspective. I may not be a kernel hacker, but someone else with my hardware is, and I benefit from the improvements he or she makes to the kernel. "I don't recompile applications" is not a reason to not use open source software.

Re:Red Herring

[jgerman]

I may not be a kernel hacker, but someone else with my hardware is, and I benefit from the improvements he or she makes to the kernel. "I don't recompile applications" is not a reason to not use open source software.

Excellent, excellent point, and one which I rarely, if ever have seen brought up. Here's hoping someone with mod points takes you up a couple of notches.

Re:Don't tell me to stop using MS Word...

[LeftHanded]

The letters in the article asked for alternative formats, which can be created with MS-Word: text, HTML, and PDF. The third can be created within MS-Word if you have Adobe's Acrobat software. (not just the reader; the distiller).

Re:We have been trying to do that for years.

[dinivin]

Letting people know that we can't view a document isn't a bad idea.

Well, except for the fact that it makes us look like incompetent computer users and annoys our clients who now have to take the extra time required to open up the document, save out as text, or paste the text directly into an e-mail message

It's quite obvious that RMS has no experience in the real world where a client says "You must meet the following qualifications to do work with us: (Begin list that includes having MS Word)"

Dinivin

Re:RMS spouting off (as usual)

[foo fighter]

It's obvious you didn't read the article.

RMS is suggesting that supporters of free software, when they receive an attachment in Microsoft Word format, request the attachment be sent again in a non-proprietary format such as HTML or ASCII text. He provides three boilerplate replies, mostly polite and one includes instuctions.

No where in the article does he ask people to stop using Word, nor does his suggestion limit their choice of wordprocessors.

In his suggested reply text, their is only a passing mention of GNU/Linux in the first and no mentions of Linux/UNIX in the other two.

Please take your ignorant posts elsewhere.

Simple.

[clump]

So how exactly is it different for someone to ask you to send them an email as a word document and you asking someone to send you an email as text?

Its really two situations. Both parties can read text while both parties may not be able to read .DOC files. Think of it as appealing to a lower common denominator, when the 'greater denominator' offers no way for you to join.

No need to be a prick

[Otter]

First, Hemos and everyone else saying the same thing, the question isn't whether one can open Word files -- RMS's point is that we should discourage the use of .doc, or free software developers will be perpetually chasing Microsoft's newest version.

That said, Stallman is proposing a particularly counterproductive way to go about it. When I receive a file I can't open, I send a polite message to the effect of, "I can't read that file format. Please save the file in RTF format (Select "Save As.." from the File menu, and then choose Rich Text) and resend it. In the future, please send me files that way, so I'll be able to open them right away."

That has the advantages of a) not confusing the secretary or supplier who doesn't even know that there are different file formats with some political rant about Kenya, the Microsoft monopoly, bytes and freedom, b) doesn't convince a more knowledgeable recipient that Linux users are rabid, socially dysfunctional loons and c) is the way a decent human being behaves.

Richard Stallman probably doesn't realize that when the rest of us receive a Word attachment, it's not from a reporter seeking our views on Free Software and appreciating his tantrums as a little added color for his article, it's from a coworker just doing what any normal computer user does.

Re:No need to be a prick

[caduguid]

Point well taken, and I agree with your .rtf advice.

However, would it really hurt to add the line "Besides, as I tell friends and coworkers with .doc file problems, .doc files often contain viruses, they're hard for many people to read, _and_ they encourage microsoft to keep up its efforts to lock up the entire computing universe. So, really,(and this is just my opinion) it's probably a good thing in general to get in the habit of saving word files as .rtf format and sharing them that way. Almost any word processor you can think of will be able to read the files then, and you're doing a good deed to boot."

Would that really make me a prick?
(Somehow I just _know_ asking that question is a mistake.)

Re:No need to be a prick

[Rupert]

We must have read different articles. In the one I read, RMS proposed doing exactly what you are already doing. He suggests editing the boilerplate replies into your own style. If your style is not to complain when US companies harrass CS students in other countries, cut that bit out.

Re:No need to be a prick

[jonbrewer]

caduguid said... ".doc files often contain viruses, they're hard for many people to read, _and_ they encourage microsoft to keep up its efforts to lock up the entire computing universe."

And I say it's a rant. I agree with Otter, no need for additional information. Just instructions on how to save as RTF and a polite request for documents to be sent that way.

It really would hurt to add the line "Besides..." as it would bring religion into the picture, and there's no reason to evangalize while in most professional environments.

Re:No need to be a prick

[BlueUnderwear]

I have NEVER gotten a word virus from an email attachment...they are NOT hard for people to read because 95% of people use Windows...

Funny that you say that. Out of the mails with Word attachments that I received over the course last year, over 95% were indeed virii (mostly, Sircam). And that's only counting those received on my main address, not on various webmaster aliases. So I'd say that it's indeed prudent advice to be mistrusting of Word attachment, and to doublecheck with the sender if you receive any such item.

perhaps you have heard "majority rules"

It's a little bit hard to reply to this one, without triggering Godwin's law ;-)

Re:No need to be a prick

[caduguid]

That's called a scare tactic.

Scare tactic or not, we get plenty of email here, and we have most definitely received word viruses as email attachments. (as well as most every other kind, I suspect.)

they are NOT hard for people to read because 95% of people use Windows

Or, you could say, they are not hard for 95% of people to read, I suppose.
Quick math: 5% of installed base of computers, (Or, more accurately, just say whatever the number of people who don't run office is.) You're in the multiple millions, no?

The government department I worked in last year ran Lotus Word Star, all 1200 people. For us, .doc files were a major problem. (as were .lwp files, of course, going the other way...)
However you want to count it, though, they are hard to read safely, so I guess you could just say that.

Linux is a minority, like it or not, you cannot expect the whole world to change on your account.

A guy can hope, can't he? Seriously, I don't expect the whole world to change... just those folks who want me to be able to read their attachments. ;-)

Not to mention my other guilty secret... (oh, the karma debacle)... I don't run linux, yet. I just want a file that includes formatting and can be read by the widest audience possible, and if it hurts microsoft's efforts at monopolization a bit in the meantime, that's a price I'm willing to pay. I'll stick with the original poster's .rtf suggestion and the modest evangelizing of that extra line, though I admit I may remove the Microsoft bit if it feels inappropriate. (ie: a very formal email relationship.)

Re:No need to be a prick

[Dahan]

Funny that you say that. Out of the mails with Word attachments that I received over the course last year, over 95% were indeed virii (mostly, Sircam).

Sircam isn't a Word attachment; it's an .EXE. (Disguised to make the person receiving it think it's a Word, Excel, ZIP, or whatever file... but it's still a Win32 EXE.) So have you actually received any virus-infested Word document? Someone sent me one about 4 years ago. That's the only one I've ever seen.

if only...

[mirko]

..."they" zipped their word files before sending them...
no way.
Acorn User will be happy to use !AntiWord to convert these into formatted text, at least. (BTW, it works on most platforms ;-)

Re:Microsoft XML

[bfree]

<font style='0010101' size='man' kern='385420' content='00101110101000111000000010100101010100'/& gt;
</style>
I can't wait

Good idea wrung and ruined thru Stallman

[mactari]

Another good idea ruined by Stallman's egocentric GNU rantings. Should .doc's be the de facto standard they seemed to be today? Absolutely not, and everyone who uses them should realize the inherent bias .doc's create.

But to "politely" call those who use .docs ignorant and to use scare tactics about how these files are in some witchy "secret" file format that can contain hidden personal information isn't educating people either. It's playing on the same naivety that made them succumb to using .docs at the outset! Furthermore, Stallman refuses to even use open source software (like the excellent aforementioned AbiWord) to read the file's content, which is hardly the way to begin a dialog.

Stallman's not worried about secret file formats (which he should drop from those silly email replies about .doc attachments), he's worried about closed standards. This is a good point. But instead of preaching that pdf is the answer (a paradigm shift for Word users), offer good alternatives.

* Write a vba script for Word that turns .docs into .rtf when .docs are opened and creates new .rtf files, not .docs, when a user creates a new file.
* Suggest that they use AbiWord, something that can read .docs and save to formats Word users still understand.

Stallman is, imo, no better than Microsoft in that he has great ideas wrung through a strange, self-serving translator that mangles the original, useful message. In MS's case, it's a profit maximization machine. In Stallman's, it's GNU. Both biases serve to dilute what could have been a well-received and useful technology or lesson, and this Word scare is another one.

Some text-processing useful

[Dirk Pitt]

Every time some nitnoid sends me an Email w/ Word attachments, I usually add suggested revisions to the document, which are highlighted and able to be implemented by the document owner after I've sent it back.

Really, Word is a decent package for document collaboration. There might be better tools out there, but none so universally accepted and used. It might suffer from featureitis, but don't think it's only useful for pictures and tables.

Re:Some text-processing useful

[Bob Uhl]

I recommend CVS. Much better and more scalable for large-scale document sharing. LaTeX makes a wonderful document format. And emacs has an excellent LaTeX mode and good CVS support. See where I'm headed here?

There's a reason the educated world did so well for so long. Microsoft Ain't It.

Re:We have been trying to do that for years.

[avdp]

True.

But the reverse is true as well. Where I work (big fortune 500) I often receive documents in proprietary formats (Word, Excel, etc) from a SUPLIER. I often turn around and tell them to resend as text document.

So, I am the customer and I get to dictate what they do. If you are on the other end of the deal, well, yes, you better have Word installed just for them.

RTF file with .doc extension

[mbrubeck]

In fact, I believe that if you rename an RTF file so that it has the .DOC extension, it will appear to Windows users to be a normal Word document. Opening it will launch Word, which handles the file without complaining. This can be a useful trick for sending to recipients who require .doc files. You shouldn't abuse it too much, because it will inconvenience non-Word users who can deal better with RTF than DOC.

Re:RTF file with .doc extension

[sammy baby]

Why don't we have a standard that says that the "header block" of a file determines its type.

This question ranks up there with, "Well, if the problem is that it takes a long time to download stuff over the Internet, why doesn't everybody just get DS-3 lines to their house? Duh."

The reason we're often dependent on the name to determine the type of a file is that so far, it seems to be the only thing that really makes sense. Requiring that an OS read the beginning of a file to determine its type isn't practical: consider the case when you open up a directory full of files, and every one has to be read in order to determine its type. Plus, any files you have that don't conform to your header standard - basically, anything that adheres to any other standard - won't show up correctly. And what do you do when the "file" is actually a block device on a *NIX system?

Using file extensions to determine the type of a file is a good idea in general, that was made into a requirement on the Windows platform. Maybe MS could have gone about it better, but I'm not going to fault them for the decision.

Oh, by the way: if you're really intent on escaping that "legacy" of DOS/Windows, just use Linux (or whatever). You can name executable files whatever you want. (although you may fuck up your terminal when you try to read it using "more". Been there, done that.)

Re:RTF file with .doc extension

[sammy baby]

To say that file extensions are 'good idea in general' is a questionable statement, to say the least.

Let me clarify that a bit - I meant to say, "a good idea for use as a naming scheme, although probably not a terrific way to mandate application/document relationships." Windows essentially mandated that naming scheme: the scheme itself isn't a bad idea, except when you become convince that it's the be-all, end-all.

And while I appreciate wanting to use the header information of a document, you still but up against the "having to open assloads of files simultaneously" problem I mentioned before, not to mention breaking already-agreed upon file formats. You could store file-type information in an external database, or as part of the filesystem, but then you're back in Mac-land: again, there are worse things, but I don't hear anyone here shouting that this is the right idea either.

Re:RTF file with .doc extension

[sammy baby]

Er - yeah. Maybe. Stop burdening me with details like accuracy, okay?

Re:RTF file with .doc extension

[Jeremi]

The reason we're often dependent on the name to determine the type of a file is that so far, it seems to be the only thing that really makes sense.

BeOS has an excellent method that makes much more sense:

1. On filesystems that support file attributes (e.g. BFS), each file is given a string attribute containing the appropriate MIME type. (If a file doesn't have a MIME type, perhaps because it has just been copied in from a foreign file system, a MIME type is generated for it on demand)
2. On filesystems that don't support file attributes (e.g. FAT), the MIME type is always generated on the fly

Doing it this way is much better, since the user can then name their files any way they like without worrying about confusing the OS. Since other OS's are now beginning to support file attributes, perhaps the time has come for them to start using this technique as well.

Re:RTF file with .doc extension

[devphil]

You can name executable files whatever you want. (although you may fuck up your terminal when you try to read it using "more". Been there, done that.)

Destroying a terminal window in this fashion is, I believe, a rite of passage for beginners. But these days...

% less /bin/ls
"/bin/ls" may be a binary file. See it anyway?

...our utilities protect the young'uns from themselves. :-)

(Unix hackers from the Old School can still read the characters even after the font has been forcibly changed to Wongafuzhian, just because we've done this so often...)

Re:Don't tell me to stop using linux...

[eddy the lip]

...until you can provide me with an alternative. Mandrake, StarOffice and KMail meet my needs quite well; I tried MS Word about a year ago, and based on that experience I'm not going to try again very soon.

Rant and rave all you like about "you get what you pay for", "company's rights to make a profit" and "the next version of Windows will be really good, honest", I've worked daily in Linux for the last two years, and I'm never going back.

What planet is RMS living on?

[foxtrot]

I can't even convince seventeen members of my not-so-immediate family to quit sending me seventeen copies of the latest chain mail or dancing baby. What makes him think I'm going to be able to convince them to quit sending me these things in Microsoft proprietary formats?!

Re:RMS spouting off (as usual)

[Pfhreakaz0id]

cutting and pasting it into exchange would be quite a trick... should they use a WSS (Web Storage System) form, or should they just paste it right onto the desktop of the server as a notepad file?

Why RMS just doesn't get it...

[sheldon]

First, I realize that this article is probably fictional as I doubt RMS actually receives email with Word attachments.

But I don't think he understands his audience. For when RMS tells someone, "You sent the attachment in Microsoft Word format, a secret proprietary format, so it is hard for me to read."

That person is going to say "Well then buy a real computer, you bone head."

International?

[jfedor]

RMS says:

You sent me five files in the non-standard, bloated .doc format that is Microsoft's secret, rather than in the international, public, and more efficient format of plain text.

Microsoft Word format, love it or hate it (OK, hate it), is more "international" than plain text. I mean it's more probable I'm gonna get someone's bizzare alphabet right (like my own - Polish) if he sends it in Word format rather than plain text.

(Assuming I have Word of course.)

-jfedor

We Need a Word-Bot

[zulux]

Sombody with:

A copy of Word 2000
A decent net connection
A brain

could set up a web site that converted word .doc files into RTF - by using an actuall copy of Word. Word is scriptable using VB, and there is a whole group of people who are experts at Word VB...Windows-virus writers. Just my USD .02 .

Re:We Need a Word-Bot

[zulux]

don't think there is a simple way to create a pdf under linux.

Mandrake 8.1 has a PDF printer automatically installed in CUPS(KUPS). Just tell your app to print to it and it pesters you for a file name to save to.

Re:We Need a Word-Bot

[PurpleBob]

That's far too many steps.

Any program at all that has printing support can print to a PostScript file. Just choose "Print to File", and then use ps2pdf on the resulting file.

Resume in Word format

[medcalf]

I have this problem as well. I explain to the person that they can use Word's File->Open Web Page menu option, enter the URL for my resume, and it will be opened as a Word document. (I have my resume formatted completely into a table, which makes it look right on Word as well as the web.)

If they are not willing to go that small distance for me, there is generally not going to be a good working relationship anyway.

Re:Resume in Word format

[Anonymous Coward]

The format of my resume is HTML with CSS2 (which has everthing I want from Word, including printing directives, automatic numbering, etc.)

Before sending, I change the extension to ".doc" and they are none the wiser. It's loaded by Word, which notices it is HTML.

The only thing Word has that I'd want that HTML+CSS2 does not have is embedded images. I
gotta use PDF for that.

Re:Resume in Word format

[jd142]

Can CSS2 easily do linked, autonumbered footnotes/endnotes? I don't know, I haven't looked through the spec that much.

Until I found Open Office, that was a feature I really needed that none of the other editors, except for WordPerfect which I loathe, could do for me. I need a program where I can add and remove footnotes/endnotes and have all the numbers automatically updated.

Re:Resume in Word format

[SETY]

umm, Latex.

Re:Resume in Word format

[Jason Earl]

If you are creating large complex documents you really should take a look at LaTeX. All it takes is 95 minutes.

Re:Resume in Word format

[Jason Earl]

Actually, one of the things that I like about LaTeX is that it outputs PDF. I can send these PDF files to basically anyone, and chances are they can read it. More importantly, I know that my files will appear on their machine exactly as it appeared on my machine. You never can tell what version of MS Word the person reading your file has, and I have seen too many word documents that have gotten screwed up by a different version of MS Word.

Re:Resume in Word format

[budgenator]

Maybe when someone sends a .doc format attachment when a text file would do fine, we should reply, Please resent, attachment was deleted by virus scanner, re-sending as plain text, or HTML file.

or how about < Humor Mode>Sorry my reply to your word doc attachment contained a virus. I use Linux® so I don't have to worry about or scan for them, are you sure it was clean when you sent it to me?</Humor Mode>

Re:Resume in Word format

[SCHecklerX]

Actually, my resume is the one thing I don't use LaTeX for, since a resume format isn't exactly a long document with any specific format (resumes need to be individualized to an extent...but we don't need to go into that argument).

For PDF's, just print to a file (postscript), then run ps2pdf on it. I did my resume with staroffice this way.

Problem is the lack of a compliant MS email client

[crath]

Richard's wrath is misdirected: if the MS Email clients emitted proper RFC compliant MIME email---where each message had a plain text part and a rich text (i.e., MS Word) part---then there wouldn't be the same issue. MS's very poor record complying to RFCs and other industry standards is the real problem, not the use of MS Word.

None of MS's email clients emit RFC compliant email. MS Outlook combined with an MS Exchange server running in Enterprise Mode can be coerced into sending almost compliant email messages, but it is tough to do and the messages are still problematic enough that some email systems cannot deal with the resultant messages (e.g., Exchange to Notes email is very troublesome).

XML format - not what you think.

[SuperKendall]

Sadly I cannot find a reference, but I remember reading that Steve Balmer in the context of some stockholders meeting said that even though they were moving to an XML format, they would use proprietary binary "blobs" to maintain an advantage.

Even if what I read is not quite correct, you can easily imagine large chuncks of your document in a binary PCDATA section of the document. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they might put all of the text and some formatting in plain tags and leave more complex things in a binary format - but even that could still render everyone in pretty much the same boat as we are in now in terms of inabilty to write documents or view a document correctly 100% of the time.
However, if a document was broken into smaller binary chunks people could reverse-engineer the format more easily leading to more programs that generate correct Word documents.

Re:XML format - not what you think.

[coyote-san]

I've heard reports that this is exactly what they did - instead of

BLOB

you have the new and improved

<ms-office>BLOB</ms-office>

However that might have just been the first generation. I haven't heard any reports, either way, on now Office XP handles XML.

A problem with free software advocacy

[sterno]

In the commentary RMS says:
Most computer users use Microsoft Word. That is unfortunate for them, because Word is proprietary software, denying its users the freedom to study, change, copy, and redistribute it.
Most users of Microsoft Word don't actually care about having the freedom to study or change it. Most don't even care about the right to copy or redistribute it except in making some limited copies for friends or to install on other computers. For most people Word works well and the issue of it being proprietary never effects them in any way they are likely to be aware of.

Until free software advocates can make it clear to the average use what the benefits of that freedom are, it will be very difficult to wipe out things like Word attachments. We have lots of people preaching to the geek choir and people convincing businesses of the value of open source (not free software, and it's an important distinction). But nobody is really convincing the average computer user of the value of free software (aside from possibly the "free as in beer" sense).

Simply responding to Word attachments with a political tirade isn't going to do anything except make the people who sent them to you think you're some commie wacko. The people who are likely to be receptive to such communiques are those who probably wouldn't send you the word attachment in the first place.

Re:A problem with free software advocacy

[SuiteSisterMary]

Most people drive cars. They're well within their rights to strip it down, learn how it works, do their own maintenance. How many people do it? Sure, the car buffs. But not the average person.

Re:A problem with free software advocacy

[SuiteSisterMary]

Actually, with your average modern car, there's a thingy in the engine you can poke, and the engine light will flash out a code. Then you look up the code in the service manual. That's all the "mechanics" do these days. Me: "Yeah, my car's busted. The RPMS keep dropping by ~500 for a second at intermittant intervals, be it idling, accel or braking.
Authorized Service Mechanic: "Is the check engine light on?"
Me: "No, but..."
ASM: "Next!" A week later, it DID come on, I took it in, and it was fixed within four hours.

Re:A problem with free software advocacy

[SuiteSisterMary]

"You have inserted new items into the trunk/boot. Please stop and restart the car to proceed."

Re:A problem with free software advocacy

[morris57]

Most users of Microsoft Word don't actually care about having the freedom to study or change it.

You are probably correct.

Most don't even care about the right to copy or redistribute it except in making some limited copies for friends or to install on other computers.

You are probably correct on this point as well, however...

For most people Word works well and the issue of it being proprietary never effects them in any way they are likely to be aware of.

...your second sentence and your third don't agree with each other in most cases. Most users of Windows *know* that they are not supposed to provide copies of Word to their friends and family. This is EXACTLY the point of free software! If I have a copy of OpenOffice, I can freely give it to my brother, without feeling even a twinge of guilt.

I know that you meant that the file format was not proprietary, and that is what is being debated, but I think that even Windows users are aware of the issues surrounding making copies of MS Office products....

Attribution...

[DrCode]

I must point out that I didn't come up with the above on my own. In fact, I think (though not positive) that it came from RMS.

OpenOffice

[MrResistor]

I haven't had any problems opening or saving to MS Office file formats with OpenOffice 6.41. I've been using it at work and at home for about a month now.

This actually worked...

[Toddarooski]

At my old job, our engineering department successfully lobbied for people to stop sending documents as Word attachments.

Their explanation was a little simpler, which was basically, "Hi. Those of us with Unix machines don't have Word installed, so it's a major pain in the ass for us to read that document you just attached. Can you send it in a different format?" Personally, I wouldn't recommend using any of the examples in the article, as they all sound pretty self-righteous and would probably make an average recipient more likely to walk over and give the writer a massive wedgie than to change their email attachment behavior.

The drawback, of course, is that the people who were sending Word attachments in the first place were still composing them in MS Word. And so you've either got to deal with the huge mess that is Word's "Save as HTML" or you lose all the pretty formatting (which does sometimes include important diagrams or tables) when it's saved as text. But I suppose it's a moral victory, if nothing else...

Let me get this straight

[SilentChris]

The author wants users to abide by a particular format simply to augment the "argument" that he *thinks* MS Word is preventing widespread Linux/GNU use. Never mind the widespread obstacles to mainstream use like synchronizing the various Linux distributions codebases, producing truely user-friendly apps (not what some Unix developer *thinks* his mom wants to use, but in reality is just simpler for him), allowing better hardware driver consumption (ahem, a digital signature program as is in use with Microsoft wouldn't hurt) not to mention porting hundreds of software titles (and don't tell me it can't be done).

What angers me the most is that some guy thinks going against a format is better than forcing people to use a particular one. It's the same thing. Also, no one argued when text lost its carriage return and line return in most documents. Why? Because there was a widespread and suitable alternative that was already in place.

Sometimes I think that Microsoft was meant to come up with "monopolistic" procedures in the same way other standards were set, like the 8-valve engine and VHS. It just happened. It became widespread, people learned to use it, most learned to like it (besides the descenting few on Slashdot) and now it's being used. Those who argue against it, as far as I'm concerned, are saying the same thing as "I won't accept VHS tapes. Please send BetaMax, a better, high-quality format".

Sounds like a hopeless rant to me...

[turbine216]

I'm not much for Microsoft's way of doing business, but I will NOT deny the fact that their Word format has pervaded and dominated nearly every market possible. Stallman is making a desperate attempt to reverse this, and all i can ask is - what makes him think that his word (no pun intended) will really change the world?

I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but it needs to be said. Stallman is a very prominent figure in the Open Source community. However, Stallman is NOT GOD. He's not even a demigod. This editorial gives me the impression that the man has finally convinced himself that he is some sort of Open Source deity, and that all of his "minions" will be the ones that will finally topple the Microsoft Beast(TM). I know he's never been a particularly effective speaker or writer, but it seems to me that the man needs to get off his soapbox for a while. He's starting to remind me of Katz, for christ's sake...

But I digress.

Back on the topic of Microsoft Word...there's a very good reason that Word dominates the market the way it does. I'll spell it out for those who can't see it: Word has no competition. Simple as that. And it's not because Bill Gates personally hired hitmen to wipe out all the competition. And it's not because nobody wants an alternative. It's because the Open Source community hasn't been able to wean itself off of the old Vi/Emacs crap that it's been stuck with for years. Every new word processor that comes out for Linux/Unix looks, feels, and operates a lot like Emacs. Every Open Source attempt at cloning Word has failed miserably because it's not as good as Word...there IS NO OTHER EXCUSE.

I'll elaborate a bit on this point...RMS, like so many other Open Source developers and advocates, is convinced that EVERYONE operates a computer on the same level that he does. He seems to think that EVERYONE using Windows should have at least three years of programming experience in C or something similar. He's convinced that EVERYONE should know how to compile a kernel and maintain his own source code. He's perplexed by the fact that so few people write device drivers for themselves.

The sad, sad truth is that VERY FEW PEOPLE share Mr. Stallman's expertise. In fact, I would be VERY comfortable saying that at least 95% of computer users do not have even close to the same level of expertise. Moreover, it's safe to say that at least 80% of computer users have NEVER EVEN HEARD of Open Source. That's why Word isn't going to disappear. That's why HR execs are going to continually ask you for a Word-formatted resume. That's why Word documents aren't going to magically go away.

My editorial advice to Stallman: if you don't want to get any more Word documents in your e-mail, design something better. When your superior alternative to MS Word is available, make sure it's free, and that the world knows it. And make sure it's FULLY compatible, so that we can convert all of those pesky .DOCs that we have sitting around. When you can do that, you can get back on your soapbox and rant away, because then you might have a few more people listening.

Re:Sounds like a hopeless rant to me...

[zulux]

I'll spell it out for those who can't see it: Word has no competition.

That may be true a few years ago when people loaded their whole office with one copy of Word. Now that Office XP is locked to one computer - I've found that my customers are quite happy with the MS Windows version of AbiWord for short memos and small letters.

Re:Sounds like a hopeless rant to me...

[turbine216]

Oh, i disagree fully. The company that I work for has enterprise licensing deals with Corel AND Lotus, to the extent that both companies' word processing apps are available to all internal users. I've used both WordPerfect (Corel) and WordPro (Lotus), and have supported both apps countless times with users. The bottom line is that NEITHER of them is as easy to use or as intutitively designed as Word. While it is true that Word's HTML conversion feature has much to be desired, the fact of the matter is that the users here don't care because it works. They don't look at the code...they just see the end result, and like it.

Most of the users here have requisitioned individual copies of Office 2000 to replace the Corel software that the company has tried to standardize due to its lower cost. Nearly all of them are happy for doing so. I'm one of those people.

The company's going to be ending their agreement with Corel next year in favor of an XP volume license (we're keeping the Lotus apps because Notes is standard here).

Re:Sounds like a hopeless rant to me...

[MeerCat]

hasn't been able to wean itself off of the old Vi/Emacs crap that it's been stuck with for years

Vi and emacs are text editors, not word processors - there is a world of difference between the mindset of the two tools.

I've seen users write essays in Excel as it's the only program they know... doesn't mean Excel is "old [...] crap", just that it's not the right tool for the job.

T

Re:Sounds like a hopeless rant to me...

[turbine216]

Agreed, but it's almost as counter-intuitive as Emacs and Vi.

My point was that Word is easy to use. Easy to use is GOOD for end-users. Open Source apps are NOT easy to use. NOT easy to use is BAD for end-users.

It's that simple.

Re:Sounds like a hopeless rant to me...

[geekoid]

In my experience people who say that are confusing intuitive with learned.
I suggest giving staroffice a try.

Re:Sounds like a hopeless rant to me...

[geekoid]

I'm not much for Microsoft's way of doing business, but I will NOT deny the fact that their Word format has pervaded and dominated nearly every market possible. Stallman is making a desperate attempt to reverse this, and all i can ask is - what makes him think that his word (no pun intended) will really change the world?

I won't pretend I know what RMS thinks, like you seem too, but One voice won't change the world. His voice WILL be heard by many, and if some of those repeate it, then perhaps more will agree, and so on. Its called a "grass roots" movement, that is how it works.


I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but it needs to be said. Stallman is a very prominent figure in the Open Source community. However, Stallman is NOT GOD. He's not even a demigod. This editorial gives me the impression that the man has finally convinced himself that he is some sort of Open Source deity, and that all of his "minions" will be the ones that will finally topple the Microsoft Beast(TM). I know he's never been a particularly effective speaker or writer, but it seems to me that the man needs to get off his soapbox for a while. He's starting to remind me of Katz, for christ's sake...


I don't see anywhere in the article that would fit your description of RMS concidering himself a God or demigood.
I have more respect for someone who follows there belief, then someone who feels its better to "just go along" and say what they believe when its convientent.


Back on the topic of Microsoft Word...there's a very good reason that Word dominates the market the way it does. I'll spell it out for those who can't see it: Word has no competition. Simple as that. And it's not because Bill Gates personally hired hitmen to wipe out all the competition. And it's not because nobody wants an alternative. It's because the Open Source community hasn't been able to wean itself off of the old Vi/Emacs crap that it's been stuck with for years. Every new word processor that comes out for Linux/Unix looks, feels, and operates a lot like Emacs. Every Open Source attempt at cloning Word has failed miserably because it's not as good as Word...there IS NO OTHER EXCUSE.

Bill gates may not have hired hitment, but MS made moves specifically to make competitors software difficult, if not impossible, to use on there DOS systems.
Vi/Emacs crap is seldom heard anymore, the fact that you bring this up in a word processor discussion indicates to me you are pretty clueless about anything thats happened in the OS wourld in the last 5 years.
There are non-MS WP that have not "failed miserably", Star office springs to mind. However, they do require changes to be able to read .DOC format, that keeps changing with every release.
MS is the ones not competing.
There are many non-ms WP that would work just as well in any coperate workspace, however MS uses its monopoly to keep word in place, that is why there isn't anbother widespread distibution.


I'll elaborate a bit on this point...RMS, like so many other Open Source developers and advocates, is convinced that EVERYONE operates a computer on the same level that he does. He seems to think that EVERYONE using Windows should have at least three years of programming experience in C or something similar. He's convinced that EVERYONE should know how to compile a kernel and maintain his own source code. He's perplexed by the fact that so few people write device drivers for themselves.


I have no idea how you got that impression. In his example, he gave simple direction on how to send the file in another format. Clearly someone who felt everyone should be a computer guru would not have done that.



The sad, sad truth is that VERY FEW PEOPLE share Mr. Stallman's expertise. In fact, I would be VERY comfortable saying that at least 95% of computer users do not have even close to the same level of expertise. Moreover, it's safe to say that at least 80% of computer users have NEVER EVEN HEARD of Open Source. That's why Word isn't going to disappear. That's why HR execs are going to continually ask you for a Word-formatted resume. That's why Word documents aren't going to magically go away.


Here's a cluex4: most, if not all, executive and trade magazines have talk about OS, and Linux. In my experience MOST executives have heard of Linux and open source. Most HR execs haven't change because of the "nobody get fired for buying..." mentality. as soon as execs begin relizing how much bigger there bonus's would be for changing there will be another force moving towards OS.


My editorial advice to Stallman: if you don't want to get any more Word documents in your e-mail, design something better. When your superior alternative to MS Word is available, make sure it's free, and that the world knows it. And make sure it's FULLY compatible, so that we can convert all of those pesky .DOCs that we have sitting around. When you can do that, you can get back on your soapbox and rant away, because then you might have a few more people listening.


If I made the "perfect" WP app, it would still have a hard time entering the work force because of MS monopoly, which has been proven to be weilded illegally, and "You don't get fired for buying.." mentality. The only way to change that is by speaking out, and spreading information.
His points are all valid. I can't build a car, but if a car company was doing something I felt was wrong, I would still speak out.

You seem to be hiding your head in the sand, only pulling it out to spout off about something you haven't put any thought into.

RMS often says things in a way that makes me just shake my head, but his points are often valid. I will take up this method for people who send me email attachments.

Re:Sounds like a hopeless rant to me...

[jonabbey]

Have you tried the StarOffice 6 beta? The Writer module seems pretty intuitive to me, with the exception of their Outline numbering mode. Home, End, Cut, Paste.. pretty Word-like. It's true that some imported Word files have a lot of (synthesized, I assume) styles defined with mysterious names, but to the extent that Microsoft refuses to document their file formats, ease of use and Word compatibility may have to be in some tension.

Regarding emacs.. I'd say that it is actually extremely easy to use for what it is intended for. Let's not confuse 'easy to use' with 'easy to learn'. If you make something easy to learn, you have only covered the first small fraction of the user's experience. I would personally love to have keystrokes that would let me fly through a Word document the way that Emacs will. I'd love to be able to hit a keystroke to convert a word to capital or uppercase, or to center the display on the line that I am editing, but I won't find those in Word. Word is a good text formatting tool, but it's never been a particularly easy to use text editing tool. Too much mousing for too little control.

Re:Sounds like a hopeless rant to me...

[PurpleBob]

Allow me to vent a bit about AbiWord.

Does the Windows version of AbiWord support TrueType fonts instead of its own special ones? Does it print without dropping random letters and making you look like you can't spell?

Re:RMS is full of shit

[xonker]

How hard can it be to find a computer with Word installed? Is buying the de facto standard word processor that much to be asked?

In a word, yes.

The only reason you would NOT use MS Office is ideology.

Oh, and ideology is such a horrible thing. Ideology is what prompted colonists to buck taxation without representation too. I guess you think that's horrible as well.

Pragmatism is not such a wonderful thing. You can thank pragmatism for corporations who would rather pay MS license fees than save jobs.

Then I got a job and learnt that tolerance instead of shitty elitism is the way to go. Too bad RMS never learnt that.

Asking people to send plain-text or HTML is not "shitty elitism" -- it's asking people to recognize that they are non-proprietary formats that anyone can view on any platform. How is that bad? Maybe you don't like RMS' phrasing, which is understandable because he tends to devolve into hippy-ish terminology, but the ideas are valid.

Asking people not to send MS attachments, politely, is not fanaticism. It's an attempt to change people's minds. You don't like it? Fine, but don't call it fanaticism, because it's not. It's simply a viewpoint that's different than yours. He has a right to express it. If you think differently, (that he shouldn't express it, not that you don't agree) perhaps RMS isn't the fanatic here.

You didn't learn tolerance, you conformed. There's a difference. Tolerance would be understanding that the world is not fully comprised of Microsoft Word users, and that there are people who do not want to be forced to use Word to correspond with the people who choose to -- or who simply don't think about it at all.

You sound like one of those

[2Bits]

Obviously, you haven't worked in a company where engineers only have Unix machines to develop softwares (obvious), and the marketroids all Windows laptops. And under disguise that marketing/sales and engineering should have more communication, you receive all kinds of emails, all in .doc attachment. And 99% of the time, the contents of the mail is a 5-line text.

When you send them polite reply that they should send normal email in text format, attach only pre-written documents if there's no way to convert into another format that engineers can read. The next thing you know, you get a review of having a bad attitude and you don't want to cooperate. And you know where that comments come from, right?

It's a royal pain in the butt when you have one Windows machine shared between 20 engineers all working on Unix.

Re:You sound like one of those

[4of12]

As an engineer that works day to day on a UNIX workstation, I can strongly attest to some benefits of thestatus quo.

The only .doc attachments come out from two sources: management and secretarial ranks. The messages are guaranteed to be insipid, fluffy and ignorable. If there's any significant message, look for the sufficient 1-line synopsis in the ASCII text of the subject line.

Once in a great while someone will ask if I got a particular document and I have the ready-made excuse that, no, unfortunately it was in an unreadable format so I couldn't open it.

But I do like the efforts being made to come up with polite educational replies to the MS 0wn3d crowd. Sometimes when I've replied back about unreadable attachments I've gotten offers to fax the document to me, which is not that appealing either. The "Save As..." instructions look pretty good path forward to a better world.

Re:You sound like one of those

[crucini]

Have you tried antiword? So far it's worked for me. If I got a lot of Word docs, which I dont't, I would wire antiword into my mail filter so that the original .doc is dropped in a special directory and the plaintext is inserted in the message. In fact, I may do this anyway. Much more efficient than opening StarOffice or something.

By converting small .docs to plain text, I am able to respond with interleaved comments as I would with any other email. This helps open up the discussion and invites other recipients to chime in on specific points.

RTF is the solution

[Mr. McGibby]

Why aren't more people suggesting this (RTF format)? RTF is the best of all worlds.

The truth is that HTML was never meant to be a document formatting language. There is no mechanism for margins or other such "printed page" stuff. It's just too difficult for normal users to transport documents around (multiple files)

I don't understand how people can actually compare plain text to a word document. Plain text is just like HTML with all the tags removed. It just doesn't cut the mustard.

PDF is okay, but doesn't have the ability to for straightforward editing. Yes, I know you can edit it, but it wasn't really meant for that.

RTF is pure text, no crazy binary files, so you can edit it in emacs if you want and it is viewable by almost everyone. You could even put it into CVS! WordPad, which has been included with Windows for a while now will read it (and save to it) without even the download of the Word Viewer (which is free from MS).

Re:I'm confused

[SuiteSisterMary]

Do a 'find / -name "*2pdf" -print' and you'll find a whack of converters.

Staroffice 6.0

[almightynayr]

A couple months ago someone gave a presentation at the local LUG (www.aclug.org) on staroffice.. The guy who gave the presentation claimed that He has been using Staroffice for many months in a large M$ Office oriented employer.. After months of composing and sharing documents made in staroffice with microsoft office and vice versa he never encountered a compability problem. In fact, no one has noticed that he has NOT been using Microsoft Office. After the meeting I installed staroffice on my teen sisters debian box I made for her.. She has been tickled pink over the fact that she can now work on power-point presentations and word documents at both home and school.. As for my self I do have staroffice 6 installed but I rarely use it for my line of work, but it seems to have way better compability (did i mention Office XP compatible?) than any other office software I have used for linux..

XML

[acomj]

Aren't there new XML standards for formatting things. Shouldn't there be a "open" standard, this would seem to be good for the open source community to push for.

I Know that there is one XML standard for drawing programs (or at least a draft proposal..) but I can't . It seems like they need to simplify where to find these thing to get usage up.

Re:XML

[NutscrapeSucks]

Excellent point! We see lots of people knee-jerking at the fact that Word is the de facto standard, but the fact is there is no dejure standard to replace it.

This is highlighted by the silly solution suggested by several slashdotters of adopting the Microsoft RTF format as a standard for interoperability. Not often you'll get a bunch of died-in-the-wool MS haters to promote a Microsoft format!

In fact, the only thing that comes close an open standard in this market is a bunch of CSS3 drafts over at the W3C, and I haven't heard about anyone who's promised to implement these, including open source projects.

The thing is, if you did have a Big Name Standards Body Word Processing Spec, there would be more than a snowball's chance in hell that the US Government would adopt it as a requirement. And the US Governement is Microsoft's biggest customer.

No surprise.

[TheMCP]

Auto numbered lists always got munged in Word every time I've tried to make any substantial use of them, so it hardly comes as a surprise that they'd be odd when exported...

Wow indeed

[UberOogie]

You're kidding, right?

I mean, I'm with you if you mean "reasonable for RMS," but did you read the "polite" responses he had?

Can you imagine how anyone in the mainstream corporate world would react to any of them?

At best, they'd think you're a paranoid loon. At worst, they'd get furious at you and spread their opinions to others.

Tons of people following this advice would be the single biggest setback that free software would have in the corporate world.

That said, an actual polite response would probably get some effect. Something explaining that you do not use Word, what formats you'd accept, and how to do so in Word.

Re:Wow indeed

[PurpleBob]

"Troll"? Someone doesn't like to hear the truth. All of those responses contain mini-rants by RMS, in exactly his style. Even the one not by RMS is a typical RMS rant.

If your boss sends you a Word document and recieves back an e-mail telling him that his software habits are supporting the Microsoft monopoly which oppresses people in Kenya and Brazil (for those who didn't read the article, I'm not making that part up) it won't exactly give him a positive impression of you.

Re:Wow indeed

[MadAhab]

I don't think your comment is a troll. You have a real point. Inserting ideology often allows people to dismiss you as a whacko.

When I get word docs in email, I say "Why did you send me that huge file when you could have sent me an e-mail? Also, I won't read your word document because you could be sending me a virus. Try cutting and pasting the text into your email and resend it." Remember to stick to your point that they did not e-mail you whatever was in the word doc. They may think you're difficult but they won't think you're wacko.

And if they make the same mistake again, just don't acknowledge that they sent it. Reply saying "I think you might have sent me a virus" hahaha.

Another trick, if you are at work and they don't know better, is to tell them that your corporate firewall strips out Word attachments. If they say "no it doesn't", then come back with "maybe it had a virus or something.

If they insist you need to have MS Word, remember to ask them if you can borrow their disk and registration number.

Re:RMS spouting off (as usual)

[demaria]

"So, you are saying that your organization is a nice little Microsoft utopia guided by the gentle hands of the Microsoft dictatorship?"

No I'm not. And claiming that a place that standardizes on Office is a little Microsoft utopia will make your arguments look foolish.

Re:My employer...

[renehollan]

...unencrypted?

I should hope not, espescially if sent through the public internet, but even if distributed internally.

reading a Word attachment

[brer_rabbit]

My usual way for reading a Word attachment is "|strings" in XEmacs VM. It isn't half bad for getting the *content* of the message. All formatting and font crap are thrown out the door of course. But if the author is relying on formatting and font crap to get their point across, perhaps he/she needs to rethink what it is they're trying to say.

Yes, we need to "Be A Prick"!

[Catiline]

Before you flame me for that subject line let me explain.

Browse Slashdot at -1. How many of those trolls would you not need to beat with a clue-by-four within an inch of their lives to get them to post on-topic? (I don't mean just once or sometimes, I mean forever and always.)
My sister is like this. Every six months I get another chain letter from her ("Re: New Virus Warning" or maybe "Re:Great Internet Snowball Fight 2005"). I do not like chain letters. They are spam; I filter them as such. Each time she sends me a chain letter, I send a very polite "don't do this again; chain letters go to my trashcan"-style response.

Maybe I ought to take a clue from RMS; tell her that I believe chain letters consumes network resources, that massive numbers can become counter productive-- in short all the standard anti-spam arguments. If I present myself calmly and rationally I expect (from experience) that she will stop. If I do a really good job, maybe she'll change her opinion. Take this example from letter 2: "Receiving Word attachments is bad for you because they can carry viruses" is calm, well spoken, and provides a reason that the sender may never want to see another Word file themselves. Spoken in this manner they might see your "opinion" against Word .DOCs not as just a unreasoned preference but as an intelligent decision.
Something tells me that's the reason my sister keeps sending me spam: I've never really told her why I want her to stop (just been a prick and threatened to trash her emails to me, if in a polite manner).

Re:damn microsoft word...

[Graspee_Leemoor]

Heheh, Mr. Troll, for someone who doesn't like Word you sure got your value-for-money out of its thesaurus features...

graspee

Freedom only has value...

[ChaoticCoyote]

...if you have the means to exploit that freedom.

RMS sometimes lives in a fantasy world, as evidenced by this quote from the article:

Most computer users use Microsoft Word. That is unfortunate for them, because Word is proprietary software, denying its users the freedom to study, change, copy, and redistribute it.

I hate to break it to you, Robert, but the vast majority of computer users couldn't program their way out of an "if" statement. And they don't want to program. You and I may have a grand time exploring code and writing software; most people just want to sit down, write a note to Aunt Emma, read the joke their kid sent them from college, or check the latest football score. They want to play Quake, not write it.

The freedom to examine a program's source code is meaningless to 99% of computer users. They'd rather spend a hundred (or two) bucks on an upgrade than learn C...

Now, as for getting rid of Word attachments, I totally agree. I also despise HTML e-mail. I'd love for them to go away -- but even some programmers I know can't send an e-mail unless it contains a dozen fonts and background images. And don't forget its easy to be on a religious crusade when you don't live in the real world. You may be able to tell people to stop sending Word attachments; I say such a thing to a potential client, and I guarantee they'll hire someone else.

I note that O'Reilly, supposed scion of Open Source, uses Word for all of its book publishing. I spent more time fiddling with their damned Word templates than I did writing a book (not yet printed)... but was I going to refuse a book contract because they kept mailing Word docs around? I think not...

Re:Freedom only has value...

[jdavidb]

I note that O'Reilly, supposed scion of Open Source, uses Word for all of its book publishing.

That's not true, is it? The 3rd edition camel was actually written in POD. Older books sometimes mention TeX

Re:Freedom only has value...

[ChaoticCoyote]

Let's put it this way... the editor I was working with wanted the book in Word, and he gave me a set of Word templates, and a couple of docs on how to use the templates. They weren't from the editor himself; in fact, he didn't know Word very well, and he got the templates and stuff from someone else at O'Reilly. Everything has the official "O'Reilly" stamp on it, so to speak.

Now, had I been given a choice, I'd probably have used TeX -- but I wasn't given a choice.

My book, BTW, is about C++, and has *nothing* to do with Windows per se.

Re:Freedom only has value...

[JoshuaDFranklin]

If you bug them about it, they'll let you use whatver you want. In the latest Vi book, for example, each of the chapters on the clones was written in SGML with the clone being discussed.

but RMS is making a politcal point

[RatFink100]

RMS is a Free Software advocate. Free Software is political because it's about rights and freedom.

And the whole thrust of this article was not "Let's convince people to send us documents we can read" it was "Let's use the issue of not being able to read these documents to promote the wider issue of Free Software".

I happen to disagree with RMS but what he's saying is totally consistent with his beliefs. I would no more expect him to use 'non-political' examples than I would for him to call GNU software Open Source.

Re:but RMS is making a politcal point

[beth_linker]

You're right. RMS' examples will probably work very well if you happen to be RMS and people accept that you're the sort of person who'll turn the file format used for the office football pool into a political issue.

I'm not RMS. The rules in my work environment are not the same as the rules in his work environment. I don't have the credibility that comes from 20 years spent working on free software. If I start rambling about secret proprietary formats, people will wonder what my problem is. So, assuming that I support the political point RMS is making, how do I advance that point in a way that doesn't damage my personal interactions with the people who send me e-mail?

Re:but RMS is making a politcal point

[RatFink100]

So, assuming that I support the political point RMS is making, how do I advance that point in a way that doesn't damage my personal interactions with the people who send me e-mail?

An excellent question. I guess my answer would be that if you're going to make poiltical points in your everyday life then you are going to upset people you don't understand or don't agree with you. If they are reasonable people they won't hold it against you - unfortunately not everyone is.

You have to decide whether you want to fight that particular battle or not. It may well be more effective for you to take the pragmatic "this is about getting a file I can read" approach over the attachment issue and seek to promote Free Software in other arenas. Pick your battles in other words.

But that sounds a bit preachy. I don't share RMS's politics and I spend hardly any time, in work or out, trying to convince others of my political views. So treat my advice with a measure of salt accordingly :)

By the way I think RMS's biggest claim to credibility comes from the fact that he's been saying the same thing for 20 years. He was as uncompromising at the beginning as he is now. And he has suffered some damage to his personal interactions. Presumably he considers it worth it.

Please understand I am not criticizing you in any way. I was merely trying to point out that RMS's article is about turning an annoyance into an opportunity for advocacy. If it's an opportunity you choose not to take than that's entirely up to you. It's certainly an opportunity I choose not to take because I'm not an advocate of Free Software.

Re:but RMS is making a politcal point

[Chris Burke]

You use the same templates he does, but you do it without talking about the political topics.

I've done this on many occasions before. People send me .doc's, and I reply saying "I cannot read the document you sent me. Please send it in a plain text-format." Or I might add "non-proprietary format", and mention things like html. It's easy to make the "You need Word to read this, and I don't have Word." argument without it getting political. Unless you're dealing with the kind of person who thinks you should have to go buy Word so he doesn't have to go to the trouble of selecting "plain text" when saving.

Re:but RMS is making a politcal point

[SethJohnson]

Beth,

You might avoid the whole thing by describing the fact that you use pine to read your e-mail. Tell them about how you'll have to save the file, ftp it to your local computer, etc. Ask if there is some sort of special formatting that plain text, HTML, or PDF cannot handle. Ask them to simply copy-and-paste the content into the body of their e-mail. If they've got an HTML-savvy mail client, it can probably spin the format on the fly.

I find that a lot of people send me emails with silly memos attached as word docs. I usually respond by telling them that if the content of the memo is important, it would be more likely to be read by the recipients if there were fewer obstacles to access the content. By attaching it in a word processor document, people will have to launch an app, etc. Usually, people think what they're saying is important, so this sort of comment makes them think twice about whether the word doc is the best channel of broadcasting their message. It also takes the weight off you and puts it on the un-named others who are too lazy.

Re:but RMS is making a politcal point

[Reziac]

In that case, let's have RMS put his editorial on a page ALL browsers can READ, shall we? The damned 225k+ Newsforge page (do they think everyone has broadband?) tried real hard to crash my *preferred* browser, and I had to bail without seeing the article at all.

Don't say "get a better browser" -- that's exactly the same as someone saying to a linux user, "get a more compatible OS, so you can read those Word documents".

Argh, the depth of hypocrisy in the linux "community" never ends...

How are documents ending up as attachments?

[Malc]

How are these documents ending up attached to emails? Are people writing their email in Word, then saving, then switching to Outlook [Express] and then attaching them? Or, is Outlook doing this for them behind the scenes? If it's the former case, why are people using that process? If it's the latter case, it's going to take more than a polite email asking people not to send Word attachments... it will need instructions about how they should change their programme settings, which might not be an option to them anyway.

Re:Don't tell me to stop using MS Word...

[bfree]

Or you can go and grab ghostscript and not give Adobe your money and then you can print your word sessions to pdf.

RMS Missed the point, again.

[daviskw]

Once again, RMS has turned something mundaine, such as reading your email, into a political statement. For 99.9999% of all people who use the computer the whole point of using the computer is so that they can do their job better. They don't make the decision about which software packages to buy. They don't make the decision about what format to use to save file. They don't know the difference between RTF and DOC formats. They couldn't read HTML if it reached out and bit them in the butt.

All they want to do is read their email and use their documents. If they have to forward it on to someone else then they just want to take the document and drop it in a letter and send it on. They don't want to have to deal with the complete and total hassle of opening the document and saving it off as some sort of Stallman approved attachment and then dropping that into an email attachment.

The whole point behind the computer age is that these machines are supposed to make our lives easier. I for one could care less who owns the format for Microsoft .DOC documents and, believe it or not, I'm not concerned about my older documents becoming unreadable. What Stallman forgets is that the format is as much a straight jacket for Microsoft as for anybody else. Sure you may or may not be able to read a ten year old document but I would bet that twenty years from now I will still be able to read documents I write this year. It's entirely possible that this will be true a hundred or even a thousand years from now.

The other possibility is that Microsoft obsoletes documents written more than seven or some years ago. This is, of course, nutty because Microsoft's customers would sue them into the poor house, or worse, just stop buying upgrades.

Think I'm wrong, take a look at how long it took for them to get ride of the 8086 stuff, and that was an idea everybody agreed on.

I understand Stallman's political point but what he is doing is guaranteeing that he never sees another email from someone who uses Word. His proposed solution is little more than taking a tiny sharp stick and digging it around in an open wound. Or worse, its just another rock in the shoe of life.

Want to make a political statement? Then ask why .NET adds a whole bunch of new key words to C++. You could also refuse to use a compiler built and sold by Microsoft. Write code that only works on Linux. Work on things that make computing better, not just more difficult.

Re:RMS Missed the point, again.

[SpinyNorman]

People just click on mail attachments, and could generally care less what program gets fired up to view it - whether it's Word (.doc) (if they have it), Acroread (.pdf) or their browser (.html).

I don't care for Stallman's mind numbing pedantry, but there is a simple point there - that .doc is not a cross-platform standard. The (major Telco) I work for uses Sun boxes for developers, not Windows, and so sending .doc or .xls to anyone here will not win you any favors. Quite franky anyone computer literate would send in a standard format in the first place, and not make any assumptions about what operating system or applications the person on the other end is using...

Re:RMS spouting off (as usual)

[Lumpy]

but it's silly, RTF is just as useful and that is the only thing I accept. I FORCE my vendor to resend as RTF... if they dont? well then I buy from their competitor, and let them know this.

you can control it, if the Micorsoft users were so dumb they'd know that Word can read RTF and a ton of other formats to begin with. (Much to the suprise of many of the MSCE's here)

I send RTF, if the people complain because I did, then I ususally berate them after I ask if they even tried to open it. (if you try to open it it.... wow.... magically opens!)

It's the users, silly!

[simetra]

Get real.

If you email someone saying not to send Word documents (and I know this from experience), they are baffled. They don't know what file formats are. They don't know what ascii text is. They don't even know how to copy-n-paste for Pete's sake!!!

Asking actual end-users to use a different format, or copy-n-paste text, is like asking a monkey to set the table.

Plus, you come across as an elitist geek snob. Joe Jackass end-user couldn't care less about proprietary formats, open source, operating systems, etc. Until this elementary fact is well understood, open-source will continue to get the cold shoulder from the 90% of people out there who qualify as "end-users".

Please resend with 128 bit encryption....

[Razzious]

OK Here goes my Karma....

Due to snoops and other l337 h@x0rs I am asking you to send your e-mail encrypted and do not give me information on the Key. This stops evil people from having the ability to function easily.

Thats about the same concept...however his quote was BEST!

"You sent the attachment in Microsoft Word format, a secret proprietary format, so it is hard for me to read. If you send me plain text, HTML, or PDF, then I will read it."

So now I have to buy Adobe to create a PDF for him to be able to read my e-mails...

Also I have used a copy of Word 97 at work for years. I have NO TROUBLE with Office 2K or XP and reading docs. Maybe for the type of work he does txt is acceptable for looks. In my line I need the power of a more robust system. We use Corel for years, however Office IS the Standard regardless of if you like it or not. YOU ARE A MINORITY IF YOU DON'T USE IT!

Re:Please resend with 128 bit encryption....

[Knobby]

PDF is an open standard and there are a number of utilities that will act as virtual printers, thus allowing you to 'convert' any document to PDF without the use of Adobe Distiller..

As for the MINORITY comment.. You're right.. I'm definitely in the minority but I hate word attachments.. 95% of the word documents that I recieve require no formatting.. They are essentially text documents, and that's exactly what bothers me the most!! Many, many people just can't seem to recognize that the tool they're using is not the right one for the job..

Re:Please resend with 128 bit encryption....

[Razzious]

Obviously you and I come from different worlds then. 90%+ of my document needs require the formatting I get with Word. Its common for me to embed spreadsheets, graphs charts, photos, etc. Use what serves you best.

As for the Flamebait from whoever...GET A LIFE...I am only making a point.

Better than Word attachments...

[DrCode]

I'd venture that plain ASCII email is better than one with a Word, or any word-processor, attachment. It uses >far less bandwidth, can be read immediately, and can be viewed on any platform, even a cellphone.

Re:Better than Word attachments...

[DrCode]

In that case, I'd rather be sent the URL where I can view that guide.

Demoroniser (Re:Save a HTML)

[MeerCat]

I don't know how well it copes with the latest abomination code that Word pumps out as HTML, but I used to use Demoroniser to clean up HTML that people would save from Word...

The demoroniser keeps you from looking dumber than a bag of dirt when your Web page is viewed by a user on a non-Microsoft platform.

T

Now how do I do this and stay in business?

[TheMCP]

Look, I'm a consultant. Staying employed requires that I make my clients happy, and part of doing that is making them feel that doing business with me is an effortless task.

Clients, unconsciously, have a scale in their head that weighs how much they've put into me versus how much they've received back from me. Every little thing I ask them to give me or do for me reduces their perception of the benefit/cost ratio, and reduces the likelyhood they'll use my services again. Really, clients generally want me to come in and pull a completed job out of thin air with no assets from them, and much as they technically understand that they have to give me stuff to work with they don't actually like it.

So, I make a point to bend over backward for the client on the little stuff so that when I do have to ask the client for something, it's always something that's really important to the project. Convincing them to support free software does not constitute "important to the project".

I can just imagine telling a client I can't read their Word file. They'll think I'm incompetent for being improperly equipped and replace me.

Like it or not I'm stuck with Word unless a court breaks up the Microsoft monopolies and businesses start using more of a variety of software. I can give my clients PDFs, but that isn't going to change their file habits anytime soon.

Re:Now how do I do this and stay in business?

[Rupert]

I didn't see anywhere in the article where RMS suggests you do this with a procmail filter. If asking a person not to send five-line memos as .doc attachments is going to cause you trouble, don't do it.

Now, if you want to collect those .docs, compare the file sizes with the size of the text within them, and present your client with an estimate of how much bandwidth and mail server disk space they're wasting, you might be on firmer ground.

Now THERE'S an application for a virus...

[alispguru]

How hard would it be to write an MS Word virus that would change this preference when a document was opened?

Re:Now THERE'S an application for a virus...

[mr3038]

How hard would it be to write an MS Word virus that would change this preference when a document was opened?

There's only one problem: this kind of virus wouldn't spread effectively because I don't know about virus that works with RTF files. That doesn't say that such virus cannot exist though. Perhaps it should spread itself for a week and change the preference after that.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Bah, convert it to PDF

[Mr_Perl]

Here's a perl kludge I use to convert doc on the fly into PDF and open in acrobat from kmail:

#!/usr/bin/perl

my $fn=shift;
my $or=$fn;
$fn=~s/.*\/(.*)\.doc$/$1/o;
$fn=~s/ /_/g;
$or =~ s/ /\\ /g;
`antiword -p letter $or | ps2pdf - > $HOME/tmp/$fn.pdf `;

exec("/usr/bin/acroread $HOME/tmp/$fn.pdf");

It does require antiword which you can obtain from freshmeat.

Re:RMS spouting off (as usual)

[sheldon]

Did you ever stop and think that your gross exagerrations might be why people don't take you seriously?

I am not an RMS supporter

[erroneus]

But that doesn't mean I can't agree with him on this. Actually, I agree with him on a lot of levels. I just hate that he takes it all so personally and religiously.

Actually, I have had word documents emailed to me in the past and on systems where I run MS Word, I have macros and VBA disabled and all that. I have on many occasions received messages stating "this file contains [executable code] would you like to turn this feature on?"

1. Most authors do not ever need to run code in a DOCUMENT. Why is such "power and flexibility" there in the first place? Barely anyone except virus writers will ever use it. Therefore, it represents nothing more than a security risk to its users.

2. There is so much "bloat" in the resulting document files that very small content gets ballooned into documents often up to ten times the size! (That's just a rough guess... quote me on it, but don't expect it to be 100% accurate...hehe) Therefore it's mostly a big waster of space all around.

3. Often too much personal information about the author or the computer it was written from is included in the document exposing the legitimate user [licensee, not owner] to privacy risks.

I include all three of these reasons to people who send me Word documents and most people THANK me for enlightening them. Often times, I offer suggestions for how to change the default save format to "RTF" format. I don't know how "safe" that format is, but it has got to be better than DOC format(s). I mention RTF as opposed to HTML because it translates from word a bit better than HTML does -- looks more like the original document in most cases. People ARE concerned about the appearance of their documents and if they change radically because of conversion to more elementary formats, they CRINGE at the idea of converting.

So remember to be sensitive to the fears of converting or even doing a simple "save as..."

Re:RMS is full of shit

[Carik]

"Most computers come with Microsoft Windows pre-installed. Getting the MS Office suite isn't that difficult (either legally or illegally).

The only reason you would NOT use MS Office is ideology. "

True. And by my ideology, stealing is wrong. Since I can't afford to buy a copy of MS Office (and really wouldn't wish to spend that much money simply to read email attachments, even if I could), I don't have MS Office. There's also the little fact that I run linux on my home system, and Office isn't known for it's compatibility with linux. And no, I don't run linux for political or ideological reasons; I run linux because I believe it's a better system. My computer doesn't crash, I don't have to upgrade my system every time a new version is released, and I have massive amounts of free (as in beer) software to play with. The fact that I agree with much of the ideology is a bonus, but wasn't enough to get me over to linux until I found that it suited my needs much better than Windows did.

Beating the .doc lock

[4of12]

I think the only way the .doc, .xls, .ppt lock will be broken is if a big supplier of software, such as AOL, distributes AOL 9.0 with StarOffice for free on CDs distributed as bulk mail.

Currently, users of MS operating systems can read word documents in the free beer sense, but are obliged to pay $$$ to be able to write them (wouldn't you love to own that toll both, considering how much business documentation is tied up in .doc files!).

A version of StarOffice that:

• is free as in beer
• is free as in GPL'd source
• strongly supports import of old versions of Word, Wordperfect, etc.
• outputs an open standard XML
• is featureful (eg, graphics, math)
• is easy to learn
• has internationalization support

would do wonders for killing off the actual handcuffs that MS uses as a cash cow.

What would really be nice if the mimetypes for StarOffice new format would provoke web browsers into a simple choice of either downloading and installing the free StarOffice binary for their platform (including Win9x) or, if they haven't the oomph with their existing modem for a multi MB download, to offer to crunch the XML through a conversion website to display it for them (I think Sun already has something like this in mind).

My thanks to Richard Stallman, though, for answering a question I had posted earlier to Slashdot:

Is there a gentle, kind, informative explanation that someone has already prepared that I can use to auto reply to misguided souls in my organization who think that .doc files are as standard as text or HTML?

text vs. HTML vs. RTF

[Heironymus Coward]

let's straighten some things out right now, before it gets too confusing. there are three possible desired features for basic documents:

• information
• prettiness
• printability

all documents should have information, but not all need prettiness or printability. if the goal is to take information and present it in an easier-to-read format, with easily-identifiable headings and subheadings, then prettiness becomes important. if, in addition, printouts of the document will be used as something other than rough drafts, printability becomes an issue.

the point I'm trying to make, of course, is that not every document needs the same amount of formatting details. margin information is only necessary for a document that's intended as a final printed product. stuff that's used in a company as an internal reference only doesn't need margin information, just info like bold and italics, and maybe some diagrams. HTML is great for that. if someone wants to print out an HTML doc, they can set their own margins.

but a lot of documents -- email, memos -- do not even need prettiness. they should be done in plain text.

Re:text vs. HTML vs. RTF

[Pfhreakaz0id]

stuff that used in a company as an internal reference only doens't need margin information? What about when they want to print it out and take it into a meeting?

Re:text vs. HTML vs. RTF

[damiam]

Any decent email program should do that fine. Even opening a plain text file in Word will display it with proper margins.

Low Hurdle

[cthlptlk]

Stallman: Someone I know was unable to apply for a job because resumes had to be Word files. Even governments sometimes impose Word format on the public, which is truly outrageous.

It's a stupid requirement, sure, but would you hire someone who can't (or won't) problem-solve? Apart from the obvious technical solutions, you could go to Kinko's, or ask a friend, or whatever. If this is a showstopper for a job applicant, they're either an idiot or a prima donna.Neither one makes a very good employee.

Is PDF "Open" or "Free"?

[acroyear]

I thought PDF was a format of Adobe's, which open software had only been able to decode through reverse engineering (xpdf comes to mind, plus FOP from apache/xml, or the very basic plaintext-to-pdf format in gedit). Yes, acroread is freely downloadable, but generating PDF is not free officially, and acroread is still limited on the platforms it supports, being both closed source and Motif based (last I saw, Motif was still officially closed source on non-free platforms).

Re:Is PDF "Open" or "Free"?

[acroyear]

Ok, so who on Job's "team" keeps doing that sort of thing?...Job's last big thing, the NeXT also had a graphics engine driven by what was originally just printing technology, Display Postscript (also from Adobe). I sense a pattern here...

Ah for fuck's sake

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

I'm probably as sick of Unix world domination plans as you are- but don't go encouraging Unix developers to write something other than what's simpler for them. The stuff IS free in both ways, after all- the most we can expect is that people solve their own problems first! Everything after that is gravy.

This is advocacy not pragmatism

[RatFink100]

RMS's point is that we should discourage the use of .doc, or free software developers will be perpetually chasing Microsoft's newest version.

IMO that's not his main point. He's a Free Software advocate and he wants you to be. He wants you to use the issue of not being able to open a file as an opportunity to spread the Good News about Free Software.

Forgive me for presuming but based on your reply, I would guess you have a more pragmatic goal - getting people to send you files you can read.

Stallman is proposing a particularly counterproductive way to go about it

Counterproductive to your goal not his. I'm sure RMS would prefer to be perceived as difficult whilst hopefully communicating something about Free Software, than to not appear difficult at all but to argue the case merely on pragmatism. See his writings on why he doesn't use the term Open Source for evidence of this.

Re:RMS is full of shit

[sheldon]

"Oh, and ideology is such a horrible thing. Ideology is what prompted colonists to buck taxation without representation too. I guess you think that's horrible as well. "

It's always so funny to see people with such simple problems trying to compare them to matters of great import.

That is the very definition of a fanatic.

There is (yet another) decent way to handle this

[Srin Tuar]

If you really dont want to recieve or promulgate any word documents, set up your mailserver to filter out all .doc attachments and replace them with a small ascii note:

<<< Word.doc 900k -- file removed by VirusScanner 7.0 >>>

Then anyone who uses the server can honestly reply- "I want to get that document from you, but my virus scanner keeps deleting it, if you could send it as plain text or rtf... "

This directive will fit nicely next to the ones for *.exe, *.vbs, etc.

Overkill, condescending and confusing

[alumshubby]

The first thing we technical writers learn in our profession is Consider Your Audience.

Imagine the reaction of the admin assistant in HR who sees the boilerplate message RMS advocates. Your average office drone doesn't know or care about the file formats or the merits of open software; s/he wants to get work done, period. If I were a Windows-accustomed office user and I saw that kind of diatribe in an email, my eyes would cross as my finger caressed the Del key. Others' admonitions about writing a short-to-the-point message (with instructions) about .RTF suffice, so I won't elaborate here.

However, for creating and sending, I'd add: If the formatting is kept sufficiently simple, StarOffice works just fine for creating .DOC files, thankyouverymuch. If your resume looks funny in Word format, most of the time it's because you tried to get a little too creative with the formatting.

It just won't work in cubeland

[MoNsTeR]

The only people that send me Word attachments are co-workers. More specifically, supervisors. If I were to send them even a polite mail (as opposed to RMS' suggested "secret, proprietary format" diatribe) I would just a get reply saying, "You don't have Word? Call the Help Desk so your machine can be re-imaged," or "You can't read it because you're running Linux? Clyde will be right over to confiscate your computer."

It's against college policy to possess a Linux computer (I'm not kidding), and to a lesser zeal of enforcement, against policy to have a computer with MS Office installed. I imagine there are hundreds of other large institutions out there with similar policies.

Unless I can convince the President of the college to talk to the VP of IT about appointing a committee to consider instituting a policy restricting the use of Word attachments, they're not going away, no matter how many nice e-mails I send out.

(It's also interesting that the worst case of cross-platform non-interoperability I've encountered is a Windows user who received an .hqx attachment from a Mac user. Trying to explain the concept of file formats to this man was, as they say, like teaching a pig to sing.)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Word Files are Bad, yes

[the eric conspiracy]

What is even worse are winmail.dat files leaking out of sundry and various Exchange servers!

Let's make it real

[GreyPoopon]

While I definitely agree with Richard's point of view (I hate getting Word attachments), I think we need to get a little more realistic. As several posters have pointed out, most people on the 'net these days are not programmers, Unix users or anything like that. They are merely using word because that is their word processor. When you make statements like: "You sent the attachment in Microsoft Word format, a secret proprietary format," you might as well be a shouting it from a street corner. People are going to label you as a freak, and idiot or both. Yes, it's true. But being right doesn't necessarily change the perception of the masses.

You really need to come up with something better to tell people. There are several good reasons to avoid sending Word attachments that even the non-techie types should understand, even if they are avid Microsoft supporters.

1. Not everybody can read word attachments. This is probably the biggest reason. If you are a MAC user, you may not have Word installed. If you bought a computer with Microsoft Works or an older version of Word, you may not be able to read the Word file. And few people know enough to install the Microsoft Word filter that lets other programs read Word files. You are practically forcing the recipient to go out and buy Microsoft Word if they want to read your message.
2. Word attachments take up more space and take longer to send. By needlessly sending something as a Word attachment, you rob all of the systems between you and the recipient of network and storage resources. You also may waste your recipient's time by forcing them to sit through a longer download of their e-mail -- especially if they use dialup.
3. Word attachments may contain viruses. You can't expect everyone to feel comfortable about opening such attachments.
4. It may actually take up more of YOUR time to compose a document in Word and then attach it to an e-mail message. Just typing the thing into e-mail in the first place is usually a quicker solution.

Based on any combination of these points, it should be fairly simple to come up with a standard reply that states a good argument against sending Word attachments without alienating any of the senders.

You have sent an attachment in Microsoft Word format. Word attachments are saved in a proprietary format and may contain viruses, therefore requiring more care and effort on my part to read them. Because of this extra effort, I give messages with Word attachments lower priority when reading and responding to e-mail. Please consider re-sending your attachment in a non-proprietary format, such as Rich Text (.RTF), which handles most common formatting features and can be loaded and saved by most word processors, including Microsoft Word.

That would save us some bucks

[JPS]

We have ONE single Windows Box in our company whose goal is essentially to be able to read and write Word documents. So yes, if people could use PDF or ASCII as a standard, that would allow us to get rid of this computer ;)

On the other hand, Word is pretty good to select candidates. When someone is sending his resume in PS or PDF, it's clearly a better start than when it is sent in Word...

How to make RMS happy

[sulli]

Call them GNU/Word attachments?

RTF not a perfect solution

[LordNimon]

I used to send my resume out as an RTF file, but then I changed its layout, and RTF could no longer handle it. It had something to do with the bullets in my lists. I now save my resume as a Word 95 document (StarOffice export). It's not as universal but still better than anything else.

Of course, this could be a limitation in StarOffice rather than the RTF file format, but either way, I can't use RTF for the one document that I need to send out the most.

this is amusing...

[3am]

Okay, I don't necessarily agree with Stallman's point, and I definitely don't agree with his proposed responses to the problem.

But I did run into this ad while checking my hotmail account, and I thought it was pretty funny in light of the current discussion

Re:RMS is full of shit

[Ereth]

So, my father, who's computer did not come with Office but came with MS Works, should go out and spend another $400 on Office so he can open one email attachment (yes, he can use a viewer, but in this case he was asked to make corrections to the attachment and send it back).

Or, he should steal it?

Isn't politely asking the user to send it in another format, one that they have in common, a better answer?

PDF is not so open, either

[LordNimon]

The latest version of Acrobat Reader for OS/2 is 3.0, which is now two versions old. I can't read any PDFs created with Acrobat 4.0 or 5.0, and the number of such PDFs floating around increases daily. So I don't think PDF is such a great idea either.

Doesn't work for me

[Fred Ferrigno]

Yeah, yeah, sure, if you're collecting resumes from job-seekers who will bend over backwards to make a good impression, then you can force them to convert it for you. However, the bigger problem for me is submission requirements. In my writing class at college, the professor requires us to send Word attachments. A Windows or Macintosh PC with Microsoft Word is a requirement listed in the course syllabus.

Would RMS rather have me flunk the class because my professor has "become a buttress of the Microsoft monopoly"? But hey, I bet if I explained that Word documents are "a major obstacle to the broader adoption of GNU/Linux", she'd be just fine with it.

Re:Doesn't work for me

[elflord]

But hey, I bet if I explained that Word documents are "a major obstacle to the broader adoption of GNU/Linux", she'd be just fine with it.

It's worth a try. Obviously, you aren't in much of a position to fight about it, but you could ask if you can submit rtf, and point out that Microsoft word can transparently handle rtf files.

Re:Doesn't work for me

[redhog]

Or just submit .rtf documents renamed to .doc, and they won't see any difference :]

Re:Doesn't work for me

[damiam]

Save as RTF and rename to .doc. She won't know the difference.

Right Idea, Wrong Reasons

[istartedi]

I swear, RMS could tell people not to stick their fingers in a light socket, and they would actually have a desire to do so when he was done.

Now, I dislike Word just as much as the next guy, but for different reasons. First, there is the macrovirus issue. I don't like closed formats either, but that's a technical issue that a lot of people don't understand. Refer to Word as a "secret format" and people will think you are smoking crack. For Joe Blow, Word is not a secret format, "it's Word format. What's the secret?".

Instead, if I get this stuff, I say:

I don't use Word. Could you please send plain text or HTML.

That's it. No diatribe. No technical jargon. If this becomes the socially acceptable way to transmit documents, people will learn it because they are inconvenienced having to send the message twice, not because they want to join the Glorius People's Revolution, which most us would actually like to avoid. I wouldn't subject myself to PDF or any print-oriented format unless they said it was the only alternative. That's for a little ideological reason of my own: These formats are a PITA to read on the screen, and printing them out is bad for the environment. I have nothing personal against Adobe. If Reader were more screen friendly I wouldn't hesitate to suggest PDF.

Re:RMS is full of shit

[Chris Burke]

Don't forget a computer as well! After all, I don't want to have to damage any of my existing Linux installations. :)

More clueless Redmond astroturfing

[coyote-san]

Over the past few weeks I've become increasingly convinced that Microsoft is astroturfing Slashdot ("I hate to say it, but Microsoft's XYZ does this and more!"), but this response is so over-the-top that it's clearly either astroturfed by a clueless droid or written by an idiot.

Word processors predate MS Word by a LONG time. Ever hear of .nroff? Or Word Star? Or any of a dozen other applications?

Microsoft didn't invent word processors, or even WYSIWYG editors. Hell, Word was a pathetic joke for many, many revisions - back when there was a true market in word processors Word was an "also-ran."

But Word (and Office) came to dominate this market for one reason, and one reason only: it became mandatory. You buy a business class system from any major OEM, and it came bundled with Word. You could not get a system without it. Since everyone already had the software on their system, the PHBs didn't see any point in paying for a "second" word processing system.

Unless they actually have to deal with text for a living. E.g., I think most lawyers still use Word Perfect.

Fortunately, none of this matters since your world apparently started in the mid-90s when the last of the legacy competing tools became "also rans." That allows you to pretend that Office has no competition, and has never had any competition, than a few unnamed emacs knockoffs.

Here's a clue - the competition to Office isn't emacs, it's emacs + docbook + SGML processing tools. Office wins the "hello world!" competition, but my experience maintaining 50+ page technical documents is that DocBook is FAR easier to use than Office. Office is WYSIWYG, but it's terminal technology. Information goes in, but then it can't be processed by anything other than Office or Office add-ins. Docbook doesn't give me immediate feedback on what it will look like on the paper, but I can use any XML processing tool in the world to extract information from that document, to fold in additional information from outside, to scan the text for all uses of registered trademarks, etc. In the real world, that saves me *far* more time than the time I lose compiling DocBook to HTML or PS for review of the formatted material.

Good reasons to send Word attachments

[Da Schmiz]

Thank you.

I use Word attachments every day. I couldn't do my job without them.

Is Word the best thing since sliced bread? No.

Is Word worth using? Yes.

The main thing I use Word for, besides all the fancy formatting stuff which is not even strictly necessary, is collaboration/reviewing. I write professionally, and I need to be able to track changes through several review cycles (editors, client, legal, publication). To my knowledge, no other widely-available word processing solution supports these features, at least not the extent the .doc format does.

But it's still not enough to make me use MSWord for all my editing (although I keep a copy in my VMware Win98 just in case). I use StarOffice 6 and love it. I really only have two qualms about it:

1. SO's "notes" aren't quite as useful as MSWord's "comments", since you can't highlight the text you're discussing. But it works well enough.
2. And then there's this bug which thankfully has a fairly simple workaround and looks like it will be fixed in the next version.

When I first switched to using Linux full-time for work, nobody at the office noticed. (I telecommute, so no one could actually see my desktop.) At the time, I was using Mandrake + KMail + StarOffice 5.2 -- the only one who knew about it was the editor directly above me, and he's cool with Linux. (Even he wouldn't have known if I hadn't told him.)

What I mean to say is: the Word .doc format has a number of very useful features I couldn't live without. But that doesn't mean I have to use Word. In Evolution, I can open Word attachments in StarOffice seamlessly -- and since StarOffice doesn't quite support VB, I've yet to find a document which could cause damage to my system.

I do agree, however, that you shouldn't use .doc files when something simpler or lighter (like plain text) would do the job as well. I'm involved with PR, and I've seen embarrassing things happen to clients when someone stupid converts a Word doc to HTML and posts it on their site. One page had internal tracking info in the title which actually referred to a different project which had been used as source material. On the website, this information was paraded across the title bar.

Tangent: why does Word include a "title" field in the document properties which it never displays to the user? Word's titlebar just shows the filename without path -- for me, a completely useless piece of informaiton, since I often have identically-named but very different files in separate sections of my file tree. StarOffice's title bar (which displays the contents of the "title" field) is much, much better... yet another reason to use .doc, and just not use M$Word.

Hey, sorry to ramble on like this.... just my two and a half cents.

Re:RMS is full of shit

[Sj0]

I run linux because I believe it's a better system. My computer doesn't crash, I don't have to upgrade my system every time a new version is released, and I have massive amounts of free (as in beer) software to play with. The fact that I agree with much of the ideology is a bonus, but wasn't enough to get me over to linux until I found that it suited my needs much better than Windows did.

I think that's why most linux-users use linux. I recall that the reason I first used it was because Windows 95 sucked really badly(crash, crash, crash. Even when I wasn't moving the mouse, even with a fresh, clean install. Call it hardware problems, but every other OS ran without any problems.)

Later I found out it was free and the code was available, and I thought "Cool! I legally own this software!", and it was a bonus.

The person above has apparantly never needed to pay for his software, nor does he have a problem with people being forced to buy redundant copies of software(I use lotus wordpro or Cetus WordPad -- why the hell should I be forced to pay for software I consider inferior, especially when it's so damn expensive?)

This is an Open-Standards, not Open-Source, issue.

[emil]

The very day that Microsoft starts generating RFCs on the MSWord format, then I have no problem with it in email.

Until that day, we should remind others that grafting MSWord into an email defeats the purpose of open-standards, and is yet another example of embrace-extend-extinguish. I'm somewhat surprised that RMS didn't point this issue out.

But then again, if we say this, then we should ban 3/4 of the available MIME types...

The usual snobbery

[Bugmaster]

So, as far as I can tell, RMS's solution is to reply with the comment that essentially states:

You are inconveniencing me by sending this Word attachment, and you are stupid to boot. Please read the following highly technical documents that explain in detail why you are a pawn of the Microsoft hegemony

As far as I can tell, this is how a common, non-technical user will perceive the comment. This will accomplish nothing but an increased resentment of snobby open-source hippies (as the common user perceives us all).

The problem here is that an average person does not care about making the future better for everybody. They just care about saving time and money. Now, an average linux user does care about making the future better for everyone, but linux users are few and far between. Instead of trying to guilt-trip the user into submission, it might be better to say,

Sorry, I could not read the Word document you attached. Can you please click "File | Save As" and save it as RTF or HTML ? I apologize for the inconvenience

Gui for TeX

[Eric Green]

See LyX or kLyX, that will fill many of your needs. I usually start files as LyX files then, when they get too big to easily handle in a WYSWIG editor, export to LaTeX and break the document up into multiple files and continue on in "raw" LaTeX from that point (it is quite easy to cut and paste out of an existing LaTeX doc, somewhat troublesome to create a LaTeX doc from scratch w/o a template).

Re:Gui for TeX

[fperez]

Just curious, why do you consider a file 'too big for Lyx' at some point? I've written things over 100 pages long with 50+ complex figures and hundreds of equations with zero problems. Of course, I break up the whole thing in chapters and only build the master file once in a while, but I've never seen lyx buckle under the weight of a large file.

I'm honestly curious.

Re:recruiters and Word documents

[bluGill]

If you catch ANYONE altering your resume like this sue them. Your resume is copyright you, and you have the own the legal rights to it. If anyone alters it without permission you have an easy to win law suit.

Yeah that recruiter will never work with you again, but you should have won enough money out of them that it doesn't matter. (If you need something to do, and not just a job, there are plenty of open source projects looking for help) Perhaps you can run those dishonets recruiters out of buisness, which would be nice.

RMS is incorrect

[rabtech]

"And because Microsoft changes the Word file format with each release, its users are locked into a system that compels them to buy each upgrade whether they want a change or not. "

This statement is incorrect... Microsoft redefined the file format with Word 97 to make it extensible. SO the basic text, formatting, images, etc are all compatible between Word 97, 2000, and XP. I can save a Word file in WordXP and open it in Word 97 without any sort of conversion or downgrading... its just that the "extensions" not supported by Word 97 won't be displayed or might be displayed incorrectly.

The differences between 97 and 2000 are especially small... we have about 85% of our users on Office 97 and they exchange documents both ways with our other users of Office 2000. Of course they don't do anything special with fileformats (remember: these users think their keyboard can 'get a virus') -- the Word 97 users can open the Word 2000 files without conversion.

Re:RMS is incorrect

[Gummbah]

its just that the "extensions" not supported by Word 97 won't be displayed or might be displayed incorrectly

So it does kindof compel users to upgrade, wouldn't you say?

a.

Re:RMS is incorrect

[rabtech]

The list of extensions to the Word format from Word 97 to Word XP number a handful.

95% of all documents use simple text and formatting, with a few frames and pictures thrown in.

Even "advanced" stuff like mailing lists, custom pages sizes, multicolumn pages/layout, superscript-subscript, watermarks, etc are all part of the BASIC format, and thus a page with all those things created in WordXP can be read by a Word 97 client.

To not allow extensions to the file format means NO NEW FEATURES can be added -- that is a ridiculous idea at best. Of course there have to be changes. What you are failing to realize is this:

The binary layout of the file from Word 97, Word 95, and all previous versions is different for each one! There aren't just a few extensions or changes, you CANNOT open the files >AT ALL. That is the key difference.

Re:RMS is full of shit

[xonker]

*sigh*

Elitism is not the same thing as disliking or even hating proprietary software. Please, for the love of whatever God you worship and the good of humanity, buy a fscking dictionary and look words up before you use them. It degrades the language when you don't use it properly.

(And that is probably a good example of me being an elitist language snob, which doesn't bother me in the least. I have a funny idea that people should be able to master their native language...)

RMS isn't asking that people use *Free* Software to send email, merely that they don't use proprietary formats. That's not unreasonable. Granted, RMS would probably prefer it if you did, but that's not the discussion here. Discussion works much better if you limit yourself to the actual discussion rather than trying to re-frame the discussion.

Yes, let's not be software Nazis. Let's all use software that can communicate in open formats so that everyone can use what they want. I agree with that. That doesn't discount Word, either -- it just means that they have to hit "save as" and choose text or HTML. Unfortunately, when someone chooses to send Word docs, they're forcing me to:

A. Give up my preferred program for reading email and open the attachment in another program. (I also despise HTML and PDF for this, but that's just a general hatred of attachments...)

B. Adopt a program I don't like and do not wish to pay for.

C. Not read the attachment.

Asking people to send a non-proprietary format is not unreasonable.

Asking that no one dare bring the topic up because it disagrees with your world-view and because you happen to think that everyone should just conform and use YOUR choice is unreasonable.

political? give me a break

[kootch]

"To cure the illness, we must convince people not to send or post Word documents."

Why? Linux users choose to be different than the majority of computer users. Also, Word/Office happens to be the most popular office package currently in existence.

If you want to convert users to free/open source solutions, instead of complaining about how it's not open-source (which doesn't mean anything to the typical user), build a better mouse trap.

You'll never convince users of switching or changing the way they do things without a massive re-education. The best way is to make it so your users (the open source ones) don't suffer and the users that are on the fence about switching are able to do so seamlessly.

This goes back to the old problem that Apple faced... and the reason why Office is the best selling piece of Macintosh software. Apple realized that without MS's Office package, they would lose the majority of their userbase because it IS the leading office package... this is the reason why the deal between MS and Apple (the agreement plus the investment) was instrumental in bringing Apple back to life.

There are still people out there that believe they can't switch to a macintosh because their office documents won't be readable by a mac. I still inform people that "yes, there is an MS Office package for the mac and yes, it will be able to read your word files." Another great piece of mac software back in the day was the one that converted PC formats to mac formats... sorry, but the name escapes me.

Apple realized from a business standpoint what it needed to do to move users over to their side and they did it in a non-political fashion by creating solutions that made transitions seamless. Linux software companies and development houses need to do the same thing instead of griping about how "you need to get your friends to stop sending you .doc files" and how "office is a propriety application and is evil"

You!=Everybody

[JMZero]

Lots of people suggest that there's tons of features that "no one ever uses" - what they really mean is features "I never use".

Our office prepares a lot of fairly technical documents - and there's some features that our people never use. And some that I'm sure we use that you don't. And, and, and...

Here's some things that I've noticed render inconsistently in RTF:

1. A page which is partly in columns, partly not
2. Footers/headers
3. Bullets (especially numbered)
4. Dot leaders on tabs, decimal tabbing.

Someone will say: "It works fine when I do it..." Well, it doesn't when I do it. And these are all features we need.

Re:You!=Everybody

[nathanm]

Lots of people suggest that there's tons of features that "no one ever uses" - what they really mean is features "I never use".

There have been studies done on application usability, where a group of people of varying abilities are given a list of tasks to accomplish in MS Word (& lots of other apps). The Paredo Principle (80/20 rule) generally holds true with any large, complex software like Word; 80% of the users were only familiar with (used regularly) about 20% of the features.

You'd be surprised at the docs I see at work:

large "tables" of info formatted with tabs instead of tables

manually placed numbers at the bottom of every page

lots of carriage returns instead of page breaks

double spacing by using 2 carriage returns after every line

spelling errors and typos (by default it points these out to you!)

and lots more equally ignorant mistakes

One of the reasons I'd guess is that older people tend to use word processors just like a typewriter.

Who gives a sh*t about Word docs

[simm_s]

If someone wants a resume in word format, just send it to them in html format. They will most likely be too ignorant to know the difference.

Now it could be a problem, when they send you stuff back in word format.

Re:Who gives a sh*t about Word docs

[Accipiter]

I wish it were that easy.

I usually send my resume out as a nicely formatted HTML document. I sent it to a company yesterday, and received this as a reply: (Paraphrased)

"Sorry, We can't open your resume. Need a Word doc. Thanks!"

I thought that was pretty disgusting, but I need a job. I sent them an RTF made in AbiWord, which Word reads by default. They were able to open it only to tell me I don't meet their qualifications. Oh well.

Some people don't understand that not everyone uses Word - not everyone uses WINDOWS for that matter. People, businesses in general, need to realize this, and stop demanding that their applicants send them information in .DOC format.

It's bad when people prefer, and actually request a bloated, nonstandard piece of shit like a Word Document instead of a much more standardized HTML document.

Three letters

[word munger]

R T F

File was corrupted, please resend...

[Wesley Everest]

Much easier to just say something like "The document you sent came through corrupted, I've had this problem before with MS Word format files. Can you please resend the document in X format? You can tell MS Word to save in this format under the "SaveAs" option. Thanks."

It's a bit simplistic and perhaps not 100% true but everyone will understand what you're saying, will sympathise, and they might even repeat your bit of wisdom to others.

Re:Usability experts point of view

[bluGill]

What do you mean? I'm a useability expert, and someone just sent me something that might or might not be interesting, but I don't have a program that can read it. He is the one using unuseable programs, since my comptuer follows the standards.

XML and CSS!!!

[Geeyzus]

It's a shame, as XHTML and CSS allows for very clean separation of content from presentation...

Not to be picky, but XHTML and CSS do not separate content from presentation exactly. All XHTML is, is well-formed HTML. Which basically means, if you open a paragraph tag (<P>) you have to close it (</P>), and you can't have overlapping tags.

This allows browsers to more easily interpret the HTML because the structure is not ambiguous as it is in a lot of HTML code...

It also allows for better scripting with things like DHTML and so forth, because the structure is solid.

However HTML still uses tags that are all about the presentation: <P> (paragraph) <H1> (header 1) etc.

Now what you may have been thinking of would be using XML and CSS. This would clearly separate the content (XML) from the presentation (CSS). And oh how the web would benefit from having all of its content in XML, with standard DTDs, formatted using CSS or XSL. Warms my heart to think about it! =) The added search capabilities would be astounding... anyway...

Mark

Re:XML and CSS!!!

[Karellen]

Uh, dude, paragraph and heading tags _are_ content markup and _not_ presentational markup. They delineate the structure of the document; not how it looks.

Bad examples there...

This is so much easier than everyone thinks...

[4iedBandit]

You get a word file. Open it in something that does not read word files. You should still see some text in there. Save the file in an open format of your choice, including all the nastiness that word puts in there. Why should you clean it up? They sent it to you that way. Then send the file back.

I've been doing that with a writing group I'm involved with. I open their files, read what I can, make my comments, than save as rtf to send back to them. I recently had a reply from one of them asking what was up with the file because he didn't send it to me that way. I simply explained that I don't use word and that he did in fact send it to me that way.

RTF looks nice enough for most folks I deal with, the problem with it is that like everything else MS has "embraced and extended" the format. So RTF files from MS don't always work elsewhere.

Whiners complaining about jobs: If you want the job, do what it takes to get it. If your hungry and about to be evicted from your home, complaining that the company you want to work for only accepts word files is stupid. Get over it.

Missing the point

[Arandir]

Most posters here have missed the main point. And though RMS makes some very good points on the political side of things, he still misses the main point.

What if MS Word were Free Software? Would it then be okay to send all your email with MS Word? NO!

Email should always be formatted in a text format such as plain text or HTML. The only attachments in non-text format should be either media files or with the prior permission of the receiver. This is common courtesy. I don't care if the email is formatted in MS Word, AbiWord or OpenOffice. If I get it I will delete it.

Re:Missing the point

[Accipiter]

Email should always be formatted in a text format such as plain text or HTML.

DEAR GOD NO. Plain text is okay, but HTML-formatted E-mail should be illegal.

Consider:

<p class=MsoNormal><span class=EmailStyle15><font size=2
color=black
face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0p t; font-family:
Arial'><![if
!supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]>& lt;o:p></o:p></span></font>&l t;/span></p>

All of that formatting, and what do you get? A single blank space. That's from an actual e-mail message, by the way.

For the sanity of others, just use Plain Text in E-mail.

Re:"a polite reply"?

[marsvin]

Yes, why can't RMS be more like those polite, well-mannered, superb debaters at slashdot?

Sheesh...

In Defense of Microsoft...Yes, Microsoft.

[Bowie J. Poag]

( I've been critical, very critical of RMS in the past. My motivation for writing this post isn't to put him through the meat-grinder..I'm merely addressing some points that weren't addressed in his article.)

" Don't you just hate receiving Word documents in email messages? Word attachments are annoying, but worse than that, they impede people from switching to free software. Maybe we can stop this practice with a simple collective effort. All we have to do is ask each person who sends us a Word file to reconsider that way of doing things."

If these people happen to be your friends, sure. But any sysadmin who's worked more than an hour in any professional capacity can tell you that people simply don't understand email. Yes, to you and I, we know about RFCs, the fact that the email infrastructure of the net was never meant to handle anything but raw ASCII.. They don't know these things, nor do they care to learn why sending binaries via email is a bad idea. They just want to send 80MB .avi files of them waving at a camera to Grandma.

IMHO, what needs to happen is a revamping of the email infrastructure to the net, to turn it into a binary-friendly medium. Its a kludge to do anything short of that. Providing HTML links to binaries stored at the originator's machine, MIME, UUEncode/UUDecode are are simply methods of sidestepping the issue and putting a band-aid on a garden hose. As a side note, the same "effort" you speak of could be directed at revising badly out of date protocols like FTP as well. FTP is a NAT-ignorant protocol.. Good luck trying to move data in anything but an Active mode.

" Most computer users use Microsoft Word. That is unfortunate for them, because Word is proprietary software, denying its users the freedom to study, change, copy, and redistribute it. And because Microsoft changes the Word file format with each release, its users are locked into a system that compels them to buy each upgrade whether they want a change or not. They may even find, several years from now, that the Word documents they are writing this year can no longer be read with the version of Word they use then."

Lame as it is, this is Microsoft's right. If they want to, they can make Word pop up an evil clown covered with blood that randomly insults you every 18 seconds if they feel like it. Its their product. If you don't like the design of their product, you are welcome to come up with something better, as the folks behind AbiWord, KWord, StarOffice and others have done. In my opinion, Microsoft has done an exemplary job in allowing users to import legacy documents. Infact, you'll still have the ability to import documents from MS Works, a cheapo text-based version of MS Office that ran on DOS systems more than a decade ago. I've personally never encountered the sort of situation you're describing. Besides, if they opened up the standard and described how Word documents are formed, any number of parties (ourselves included) would ultimately pervert the standard, intentionally or not. I'm glad they keep that door shut. Theres only one version of Microsoft Word 2002 documents--Not 18 different ones, all slightly different from one another.

"Someone I know was unable to apply for a job because resumes had to be Word files. Even governments sometimes impose Word format on the public, which is truly outrageous."

The government also requires us to ride on/in motor vehicles when we use the highways, regardless of the fact your bike will get you from Point A to Point B. Infact, if you tried to ride a bike on an expressway, you'de be pulled over within minutes, fined, and/or carted off to jail. Whether we like it or not, Word is the standard when it comes to the exchange of formatted electronic documents. That may change. It has in the past, and will likely continue to do so in the future. Even today, we're already moving away from statically formatted Word-like documents and into more sophisticated markup-based documents like HTML/XML. Don't whine about not being to ride your bike on the expressway. Its illegal because nobody wants the disruption and inconvenience... The same reasons rest behind why Word is the current standard format for electronic business documents. It prevents disruption and inconvenience for everyone to agree upon the best standard available at the time the decision is made.

"Example No. 1: You sent the attachment in Microsoft Word format, a secret proprietary format, so I cannot read it. If you send me the plain text, HTML, or PDF, then I could read it."

If you say this to anyone in a business environment, two things will happen. They'll think youre friggin crackpot, and they'll be less inclined to conduct any further business with you. Get serious..The way to get to your goal, Richard, is not to retroactively repeal the existing standard in favor of ye olden days of document exchange. Develop a BETTER standard than Word, make it available to all so that they'de be crazy not to implement it, and in so doing force Microsoft to conform to it. After all, they had to do so with HTML, did they not? And JPEG? And GIF? And DivX, and MPEG, and Java...the list goes on and on.. None of these formats were created by Microsoft, yet, Microsoft was forced into adopting support for them simply due to their popularity and pervasiveness. BMP didn't win out over JPEG. PCX didn't win out over GIF. Get the picture? The best way to get where you wanna go is to put one foot infront of the other and enjoy the slow march of progress and adaptation, not to turn around and do backwards somersaults of disruption till you get there.

This argument was terribly misguided. It identifies a problem that doesn't exist, and suggests and equally pointless and disruptive method of fixing it. I didn't buy a CueCat then, and I'm sure as hell not gonna buy a CueCat now.

Cheers,

Re:In Defense of Microsoft...Yes, Microsoft.

[J'raxis]

The government also requires us to ride on/in motor vehicles when we use the highways, regardless of the fact your bike will get you from Point A to Point B.

Expecting one to use Microsoft Word files in email is more akin to expecting one to drive a specific brand of motor vehicle, and guess what the government doest do that. You think its acceptable for certain government agencies to require communications in MSWord format? Would you therefore think it would be okay for the DOT to require you to buy a Ford next time you want to use their highways?

Re:In Defense of Microsoft...Yes, Microsoft.

[BlueUnderwear]

Expecting one to use Microsoft Word files in email is more akin to expecting one to drive a specific brand of motor vehicle, and guess what ? the government does?t do that. You think it?s acceptable for certain government agencies to require communications in MSWord format? Would you therefore think it would be okay for the DOT to require you to buy a Ford next time you want to use their highways?

"?" ROTFL. I can just picture you, proudly sitting in your Ford landyacht, defending the right of Yugos to use the expressways! Next time, use Tools->Preferences->SmartQuotes->Off, or wherever else that setting is ;-)

Form should follow function

[Coops222]

At the risk of bludgeoning the obvious to a pulpy mess...

This wouldn't be an issue if people used the simplest possible format, most suited to the message. Ideas need well-constructed sentences and paragraphs, separated wisely by whitespace. Fonts and colors frequently serve to disguise poor writing and badly organized thoughts.

At work anything that smells like a document arrives as a Word doc, and anything vaguely tabular becomes an Excel spreadsheet. Why wait for a huge, and expensive, application to load, only to reveal that the information is irrelevant?

If you absolutely need a more advanced presentation then step up to HTML. Just make sure you are improving communication, not decoration.

So there. :)

Re:RMS is full of shit

[sheldon]

"I'm not saying that they're the same, just saying that ideology isn't always a bad thing. "

But by using the analogy, you are saying they are the same.

BTW, I have a dictionary... if you read your quoted definition you'll see quite clearly how applicable it is to your situation.

Here is a revision focusing on those bad viruses

[scruffy]

This is a great idea. Everyone should adapt one of these responses to their liking.

Personally, I think it is better to avoid political issues and focus on security. Here is my revision of RMS's #2 with this in mind. Comments welcome.

You emailed an attachment to me in Microsoft Word format. However, those of us with Unix machines do not have Word installed. If you send me the information in plain text, HTML, RTF, or PDF, then I will be able to read it.

There are many other reasons why emailing Word documents is a bad idea. The most important is that Word documents can carry viruses. For example, http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/acro.ht ml lists over 20 different viruses that could be hidden in a Word document. Although you might have your machine and your Word program set up to avoid viruses, the person you are sending to might not.

A Word document can also include other hidden information (called metadata). For example, text that you think you deleted may still be embarrassingly present. See http://www.microsystems.com/Shares_Well.htm for more details.

Converting the file to another format is simple. Open the document, click on File, then Save As, and in the Save As Type strip box at the bottom of the box, choose the type of document you want. The options should include plain text (might be called Text Only or Text Document), HTML (might be called Web Page), RTF (Rich Text Format), and PDF. You can then attach the new type of document instead of your Word document. Note that versions of Word change in inconsistent ways; if you see slightly different menu item names, please try them.

Re:Editors are not just users!

[SirSlud]

> "Why aren't we told when editors moderate our posts?"

Because you trust the administrators/editors of a site you frequent. If you don't trust them, move on. Even if it did say "moderated by an editor", you'd still have to trust that they were being honest about it. Or that they wern't going in and changing words in people's posts. Or hand editing your karma. Or whatever.

So if you want to know if they are abusing their mod points, extend that trust you already HAVE to possess in order to use /. to include the abuse of unlimited moderation points. Simple as that. I don't think the people that put shit loads of work into this site neccessarily have to defend or justify their methods. It's free, it's fun, it's enjoyable, and I have a hard time believing such a point can ruin your experience here. Have some faith that they use their 'powers' in a responsible manner, or else find another site where you think you can implicitly trust that the electrons being thrown up against your screen do indeed represent the time, work, opinions and responsibility of honest, ethical people.

Re:I *HAVE* a real computer

[sheldon]

Then again you could just download the free Word Viewer from Microsoft. Then you wouldn't need to inconvenience yourself or the sender of the document.

Your example really has more to do with your anti-establishment viewpoint than anything else. That's rather the point.

Re:Editors are not just users!

[SirSlud]

BTW, if they did have to expose that their mods were 'editor mods', they'd probably have to put up with 1000% more flame bait/mail as people would single out their mods.

You might be familiar with the quote: "Visibility breeds criticism"? I think it would be unfair to expect that the people that put so much work into the site don't get to interact with it with the same level of moderation-related anonymity that you do. And as for the 'unlimited mod points', again .. they wrote/admin the thing, so thank em for the wiked site, cause you obviously spend some time here like I do, and trust that they are working in the best interest of the site and it's community.

Re:We have been trying to do that for years.

[dinivin]

Hey moderator (the one who marked the above as flamebait): Fuck off!

Now that was flamebait (or maybe a troll). My original statement, as much as you may disagree with it, was dead on. Just ask anyone who deals with customers.

Dinivin

RMS is spouting off again...

[Squirrel Killer]

I'm sure I'm far to late to get any kind of notice with these points, but...

Most computer users use Microsoft Word. That is unfortunate for them, because Word is proprietary software, denying its users the freedom to study, change, copy, and redistribute it.

No, it's neutral for them, because Word come pre-installed by their company or computer manufacturer and they'll never give two rat's asses about whether or not they study or change Word, and they'll go ahead and copy it whether or not MS likes it.

And because Microsoft changes the Word file format with each release, its users are locked into a system that compels them to buy each upgrade whether they want a change or not. They may even find, several years from now, that the Word documents they are writing this year can no longer be read with the version of Word they use then.

Actually, I just transfered some ancient files off of a 800k Mac disk that were written in some equally ancient MS Word for Mac format (I think 4.x) that transfered over just fine to MS Word 2000 for WinME except for the Mac fonts that weren't installed. Not that there's any guarantee that future versions will be so backwards compatible, but I was sure impressed.

Source for Brazil/Kenya comments?

[cworley]

At the end of the article, Stallman's #3 reply says:

"Microsoft can (and did recently in Kenya and Brazil) have local police enforce laws that prohibit students from studying the code, prohibit entrepreneurs starting new companies, and prohibit professionals offering their services."

I've not seen this in the news.

Can anybody provide a link to specifics concerning what MS did in Kenya and Brazil to stop acedemic study of their .doc format?

----

Re:Source for Brazil/Kenya comments?

[Graymalkin]

I also wonder how true this is considering Microsoft publishes books whose sole purpose is to describe and document Word and Excel file formats. Weird.

Re:RMS is full of shit

[RickHunter]

The only reason you would NOT use MS Office is ideology.

No, the reason I do not use MS Office is not ideology, though I will admit I don't exactly like the various crimes Microsoft has committed. (And they have broken the law, the justice department's just decided to look the other way) The primary reason, though, is financial. A new copy of O2K is, what? $500? I'm sorry, but I just can't afford that. And I can't afford computers that bundle it, which is why I build my own.

And since its illegal for me to buy a copy of older versions of office, I'm rather effectively screwed, aren't I? (As selling a copy of Office you own is illegal, right?)

Re:Editors are not just users!

[SirSlud]

Okay then, see my second post. They'd no doubt have to deal with FAR more flak than they already do if people knew it was editors that moderated them in a way they didn't agree with. I know, increased powers = increased accountability, but I can understand being an editor and not wanting to deal with the 5 fold increase in hate mail because people suddently know it's an /editor/ that modded their post instead of a lowly not-flame-worthy reg user.

Re:Open Source binaries for windows.

[Accipiter]

Ever heard of Wordpad?

Yeah, it's a 179k program that comes with Windows, and has absolutely no problem reading and writing RTF formats.

Re:Editors are not just users!

[SirSlud]

Fair enough. I see your points. :) but one last thing ...

they can log in with a non-editor account

.. I guess my point is, if they can abuse mod points, then they'd just work around the 'editor mod' notices by making user accounts with unlimited mods, or creating new accounts, or .. well, whatever. I don't know if these 'editors' don't have that power, but you also have to consider that the /. team also has to trust each other to some degree, so it's possible that implenting these types of features would just make the staff of /. not trust each other or work as a team, or whatever.

I see your points tho. It's a good idea, but I guess I think it's a little moot given the circumstances. If someone wants to abuse their powers, they will always find a way; and you don't want to start an internal /. staff bughunt. I know from running my own sites that sometimes you have to tolerate the bad apple(s) for the greater good of the team or the community. I don't know if you'll buy that, but it happened to me.

Size of documents and LyX

[Eric Green]

Basically, it boils down to when it becomes difficult for me to refer to previous sections while editing the current section. This becomes somewhat painful in LyX after a while, even with the TOC mode, whereas in Emacs I can pop it open in two different windows and see both at the same time.

In other words, LyX can be used for large files, but my personal editing style and LyX don't mix when it comes to long files. So I generally go with LyX until things get painful, then convert to LaTeX and go on from there.

Of course, any MS Word loser is not going to have this problem. I have used MS Word to write documentation at work. To put it bluntly, if it sucked anymore it would have met the qualifications to be a White House intern during the Clinton Administration (grin). LyX is much easier to use for technical documentation as compared to MS Word, mostly because it sticks with the bare necessities of content rather than bells and whistles.

Re:TXT file with .doc extension

[Tony-A]

WHY (oh why) are we so dependant on the file name!?

All your documents are belong to Microsoft.

Works with a plain text file, too.
No reason a .txt file cannot be an executable. Probably even a way to change file associations so that it runs them instead of opening in Notepad.

Re:I *HAVE* a real computer

[Eric Green]

I did download the free Word Viewer from Microsoft. Once. Installed it. It worked great. Of course, since Microsoft Windows 98SE requires me to re-install my whole system from scratch about once a month because the registry got corrupted because I replaced a piece of hardware or installed/uninstalled a poorly written piece of software, I no longer have MS Word Viewer installed (or most other software I've installed on that system in the past, e.g., sorry, no Quicken, after re-installing it several times I gave up).

Frankly, it's easier for me to give a 2 line note "Hi, I don't own MS Word, please export your document to HTML or text and resend it" than to continually download and install 3rd party software on the rare occasions that anybody sends me a .doc file. Let's face it, few people send .doc files to known Linux advocates (with the exception of that loser Bernie Shifman, of course -- yes, I got his MS-Word format resume!).

And don't even get me started on people who require resumes in Microsoft Word format. I generally shrug and send them the HTML version of my resume. I haven't been unemployed in 6 years now (except for 4 days earlier this year between the end of my previous job and being hired at my current job), so apparently it hasn't been a problem.

-E

Home users and MS Office

[Eric Green]

All I can comment upon is the people I know. One (1) has a legal copy of MS Office. The rest have either a pirated copy of MS Office (that they brought home from the office), or they only use the computer for the Internet and only have what came with the computer (usually Microsoft Works or similar).

It would be interesting market research to see how many home users had actually purchased MS Office, but I'm not interested enough.

My misunderstanding...

[WyldOne]

And here I thought RMS was going to stop adding 'GNU' to everything. aka GNU/Linux

Touche!

[ChaoticCoyote]

Maybe I should join the Slashdot staff? ;)

Translate it into new business

[mwa]

Use it as an opportunity to explain the business hazards of .doc virii and sell them services to set all their office PC's to use RTF as a default format. Then sell them an email gateway that detects inbound .docs and reformats them into .rtf files for the protection of their assets.

Even if you don't actually sell them the service, you've given them valuable advice and underscored the fact that this type of knowledge is why they pay you.

Re:If true, that's bad, I agree...

[damiam]

You are told, he's just suggesting that you should also be told that the moderation was by an editor and not just a user.

How to convert .doc to .ps

[KidSock]

...you've either got to deal with the huge mess that is Word's "Save as HTML" or you lose all the pretty formatting (which does sometimes include important diagrams or tables) when it's saved as text.

Install an Apple LaserWriter Select 360 printer. You don't actually need a physical printer to do this. You just want to make the driver available. This only needs to be performed once.

To generate .ps from a .doc in Word, choose File, Print ..., select the Print to file checkbox and from the Printer pull-down select the Apple LaserWriter Select 360. Hitting Print will generate a .prn file. Just rename it to .ps and send it off. You may need to undo those changes the next time you want to print normally however.

Now the user can open the .ps file with ghostview (gv) in the Unix environment.

Re:Document Format Crucial -- What Gov't Can Do

[C. Mattix]

No government has taken action like this because the states cannot afford to bring down thier entire IT infrastrucure for the change in OS, change in file formats for all of the millions of existing documents, and for the training and support for all of the newbies.

"Free" software is free(beer) when used by an educated individual, but is not free when it somes to an enterprise solution.

Re:RMS is full of shit

[jerw134]

Actually, Works does not include Word. It has an editor that supports many formats, including older word formats, but not the newest. That's why Works is so cheap. And frankly, for most people, it seems to have more than enough power and features.

Works has included the most recent version of Word for a while now. I bought a computer a year ago and it came with Works preloaded, and Word 2000 was right there with it. I don't know how long it has been a part of it, but it IS a part of it now.

LaTeX!

[mboedick]

Use LaTeX!

• free
• open standard
• can be written with any text editor
• can easily be generated programmatically and it's scriptable (do database query, programmatically generate LaTeX, run through LaTeX, dvips, and get beautiful printed report)
• plain text fits in with UNIX philosophy, can easily be scripted, hooked up to other powerful tools (make, perl, sed, awk, emacs, etc.)
• can be truly version controlled with CVS because it's plain text (can do diffs)
• compresses nicely with gzip to take up minimal space
• can convert to almost any format you want (HTML, DVI, PS, PDF, etc.)
• lots of third party packages
• looks 100 times more professional and slick when printed than Word

Open source?

[DrCode]

Say, does that mean my Saturn is open-source?

True Story

[Global-Lightning]

I once received a email with an attachment.
The attachment was a ZIP file;
The ZIP file contained a powerpoint presentation;
The presentation had a single slide;
The only thing on the slide was a BMP picture;
The picture consisted of a scanned image
Of...
a printed email message!

Hopefully XML will sort things out soon

[KlomDark]

With the next StarOffice/OpenOffice outputting files in native XML, I expect/hope to see the typical document format standardizing on fully interchangable XML in the next few years.

Right now there is not an _implemented_ solution out. But once things start going XML, I think even general users will demand it.

Once the new StarOffice comes out, I am going to start sending all document attachments to people in XML format. If Word wont deal with them, then hopefully the general user population will start forcing Microsoft to 'innovate' in that direction.

Can't Word XP save to XML?

[Skim123]

And because Microsoft changes the Word file format with each release, its users are locked into a system that compels them to buy each upgrade whether they want a change or not. They may even find, several years from now, that the Word documents they are writing this year can no longer be read with the version of Word they use then

Word's format hasn't changed since Word 97, no? Also, I don't have Office XP, but I could have sworn I had heard that you could save Word files as XML files. Is this not the case?

Re:This is an Open-Standards, not Open-Source, iss

[BluBrick]

The very day that Microsoft starts generating RFCs on the MSWord format, then I have no problem with it in email.

They have submitted RFC's on the MS WOrd format. Their submissions were answered with:

Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately, we are unable to publish it in its current format. Please resend the attachment as plain text.

Re:RTF file with .doc extension OT

[Dahan]

Or just do printf '\017'
Alternatively, echo ^V^O
(that's control-v control-o, and substitute your favorite lnext character for control-v).
Or use whatever other way you want to output a Control-O (ASCII Shift In).

Re:RMS is full of shit

[monkeydo]

See, what format I send email attachments in is MY choice.

If you want to read them, you'll get the software necessary to do that. Otherwise you won't. Either way, that is YOUR choice.

I don't have any say in what word processor you use, and you don't have any say in what type of attachments I send.

See how we can each make choices for ourselves and we don't have to hold anyone else responsible for making our lives easier (or harder)?

If you choose to do business with me you'll adapt to the way I do business (or if I choose to I'll adapt to you). If you work for me, you'll do what I ask you to do with the tools I give you, or you won't work for me very long.

I don't know what high-school you are about to graduate from, but in the real world if your boss sends out a memo as a .doc and you can't read it (or you send it back asking for a .rtf) so you don't know what's going on, you won't last long.

Re:RMS is full of shit

[DavidJA]

So, my father, who's computer did not come with Office but came with MS Works, should go out and spend another $400 on Office so he can open one email attachment

Does he have Win98, Win2k, WinME or WinXP? If so, he has a copy of WordPad (start => programs => accessories => wordpad.

Wordpad will allow you to CREATE, OPEN, EDIT and SAVE MSWord files.

Real reasons the average user might care

[Kris_J]

I don't like using Word as the format to share documents because;

• I like to use a font called Book Antiqua that hasn't been installed by default with Office since version 95.
• Printer information, including print margins, paper size, tray number, all screw things up just enough to risk major visual changes (or annoying problems like the document printing from the letterhead tray) at the other end. It's quite easy for an increase in printable area (or a change in font, see above) to result in two free-floating boxes printing on top of each other on the first page, rather than one on the first page and one on the second.
• Word attachments can contain viruses. I'm always aware of this whenever I'm forced to send one, even though I keep my anti virus software up to date on a daily basis. I'm particularly careful when I receive one, typically only opening it in "Wordpad".

Meanwhile, my main email address runs through Spamcop which I have setup to strip any and all attachments (there's a warning in my email .sig). Quite frankly I don't need a 300+k Word attachment with embedded graphics to tell me 500bytes worth of "We have received your CV and won't ever bother getting back to you". If anyone sends an unsolicited attachment that could have been important, I ask for a plain-text copy as the body of an email message (I also kill HTML with Spamcop, which has returned the joy to reading emails).

I typically send out my CV as an Acrobat file. About 20% of the time I'm asked for a Word version. That's fine, I've got Word 97 installed and it's what I actually used to write the CV in the first place. I downgraded from 2000 recently and I'm much happier.

Re:Open Source binaries for windows.

[Accipiter]

Why do you need a new one when the existing ones work just fine?

The main point of your parent post was that you couldn't get a pre-compiled open-source word processor for Windows.

RTF is a well documented format. While Wordpad isn't open-source, it handles RTF just fine. What does anything have to do with a new file format? The article certainly doesn't.

And would I hope your grandmother can use Wordpad.

Plus, if you insist on having an open source word processor on Windows, Sun plans to release the source code to StarOffice soon.

Tell them how much it's costing *them*

[Kris_J]

I received a "receipt" email telling me that Company X had received my CV. It was in the form of a Word document with embedded graphics (letterhead/logo). It was over 300k encoded. I informed them that at A$0.17/MB (typical traffic costs after your monthly free limit is exceeded) it would have cost the company I used to work at 5 cents to receive and that it probably cost them something like that to send. Since I know that many IT/tech jobs advertised on local job sites attract several hundred applications, often within hours, I told them that the practice of sending Word attachments probably meant that each year one person at the company didn't get their PC upgraded (Nominal $A1,000-$A3,000 cost). It got their attention, but their HTML solution was so crappy that I think they're still sending Word attachments.

What do clueless managers have against plain text?

Re:RMS spouting off (as usual)

[crucini]

Strangely enough, most organizations do not see long term value in their documents. Documents are written to fill a specific business need. In the rare contexts in which the value of archiving and reusing documents is appreciated, formal systems are set up to accomplish this. This "amnesia" is probably taken too far by corporate America, but it has some validity: how many corporate documents from 1991 have the slightest relevance today?

Megatokyo for tokens

[Graymalkin]

RMS really should put the GNU license on the weed he is smoking. Then everyone could freely examine, copy, and reidistribute it until their little hearts burst. Typical Stallman hypocracy. He gets mad someone would dare charge money for their software so he goes and makes his own versions to play with. The mantra of the FSF's mantra is "if there isn't a free version of what you need, make it and open the code". This would imply that noone ought ever bitch about having problems with anything ever because they shouldb e following the mantra of roll your own. Stallman can make all sorts of free stuff but is beleagured by files in .doc format? Shouldn't be he improving whatever software he has so it works with .doc files?

Re:Megatokyo for tokens

[Graymalkin]

I didn't say he expressed anger about people making money off software. He and the FSF make it explicit that they are not against making money off software. I don't see how I in any way said something to the contrary. Secondly even if Microsoft changed the format of a .doc Stallman has no room to whine because the point of his movement is to make free implimentations of commercial software. If Microsoft changes their format, free software ought to change their filters to handle the new change in the format. That is my fucking point man, Stallman whines about Microsoft owning a format yet in his own diatribes he advocates free software replacing non free software. Sending an e-mail saying "I don't like Microsoft's secret format" doesn't replace or augment non-free software with free software. It is just whining. You might want to work on your reading comprehension before hitting the submit button.

Re:Megatokyo for tokens

[Graymalkin]

Word is an open format in that it is heavily documented. I wish I still had the ISBN for the Word/Excel97 files published by Microsoft press. If it is a burden to not use non-free software why does Stallman keep advocating it as a better model than free software? With non-free software I don't have to worry about opening Word or Excel files. Whining about the closed nature of a file format and how you can't read it isn't a very convincing argument to switch from non-free software to free software. At least not to me. Switching licensing schemes so I can view some source code I'm never going to mess with doesn't mean shit to me, I want/need to get work done.

I meant "without"!

[MoNsTeR]

that should be "computer WITHOUT MS Office installed"

if only it were the other way ;)

Seriously.

[Lemmy Caution]

Word has problems, but no Unix software comes close to enabling anyone who doesn't live downstairs from Donald Knuth to assemble a document with embedded charts, graphs, images, etc. with relative ease. There's no comparison yet, and Gnome Office is a long way off.

I say this as someone who uses AbiWord and Gnumeric regularly, is a big fan of their development, and hopes to see them take off as viable alternatives (although transparent import/export is going to be crucial to their success, if success is defined as practical useability in real-world other-people-inhabited environments. I agree with RMS on a lot - I think that freedom has an intrinsic value whether or not it creates better software - but that only should provide incentive for developing free alternatives, not provide a basis for pretending they are here yet when they really aren't.

Re:Easiest no-confontational way

[Dahan]

"I'm sorry, but I'm paying you $150 an hour, and you can't go and buy a $50 anti-virus package?"

Copy/Paste Works Better.

[suwalski]

I find that non-tech-savvy people prefer the copy/paste approach to exporting. Simply telling them to SelectAll/Copy/Paste into the eMail is usually better, I find.

Re:Why?

[crucini]

You're right. But the flip side is that we can currently read the Word format only because Microsoft has not yet sufficiently obfuscated it. In effect, Ballmer has his hand on a knob which regulates how hard it is for Unix users to communicate with their organizations. Before he decided to twist that knob substantially, it might be nice to shine a spotlight on the knob so everyone is aware of the dynamic. Microsoft prefers to turn such knobs in the dark.

Cool

[Nailer]

If they want to, they can make Word pop up an evil clown covered with blood that randomly insults you every 18 seconds if they feel like it. Its their product.

/me logs a feature request at bugs.openffice.org

Re:RMS is NOT full of shit

[frank_adrian314159]

Wordpad will allow you to CREATE, OPEN, EDIT and SAVE MSWord files.

Oddly enough, the WordPad program, although it does come bundled with the aforementioned OS'es will only allow you to edit a subset of the constructs possible in a full Word document (otherwise, Microsoft would never sell another copy of Word). So the original poster's question still stands. What if he had to edit a portion of the document that Word did not have the capability to edit.

And the only reason why Word is so commonplace is because it is so commonly pirated. But I guess a true Microsoft die hard thinks it's fine to turn otherwise law-abiding citizens into outlaws simply to edit a crappy document.

Yes, this is flame bait. No, I don't care.

My version

[one-egg]

Here's the message I use, which is a combination of RMS's second version (without the polemics) and the version I was using until now. First, though, here's my procmail recipe. I have it inside a group that causes it to reply only to messages sent to college-wide mailing lists, which are the worst offenders in my case. The file "wordattach" contains the message; the file "wordok" is a list of people who are allowed to send me word attachments without complaint (such as a colleague who likes to write papers in Word). The message still comes to me in any case, but I'm saved composing a complaint. Any particular sender gets only one complaint (almost).

Many modifications are possible, of course. (P.S. The indentation is nicer in my file, but the lameness filter won't allow it. Sorry.)

# Autoreply to anything that has an MS-Word attachment
:0
* ^Content-Type:
{

:0 c
* ? $FORMAIL -x From | fgrep -i -f $MAILDIR/wordok
{
}

:0 E
{
:0 c
* HB ?? ^Content-Type: application/msword
| ($FORMAIL -rt -A"X-Loop: ${NOLOOP}" -A"Precedence: junk" ; \
cat $MAILDIR/wordattach; \
echo --; cat $HOME/.signature \
) | $SENDMAIL -oi -t

# Mark that the message has gotten an auto-response
:0 f
| ${FORMAIL} -A"X-Autoresponse: MS-Word attachment"
}

}

Now, my message:

This message was automatically generated by my mail filter.

You have sent a message containing an MS-Word attachment. You may be unaware that Word attachments are not readable by all of your recipients. In addition, Word-formatted mail attachments are often vehicles for viruses, worms, and other malicious software (see http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/acro.ht ml. Word attachments may also contain information that you may not have intended to send (see http://www.microsystems.com/Shares_Well.htm).

I have found that most documents sent in Word format could have been sent as plain text without losing any of their contents or meaning. If that is the case, please re-send your document in plain text.

One way to send a Word document in plain text is to select all of the text in the document (Edit->Select All), copy it to the clipboard (Edit->Copy) and then paste it into your e-mail message (Edit->Paste).

An alternative is to save the file as text: open the document, choose File->Save as, and in the "Save As Type" strip box at the bottom of the dialog, choose "Plain text" or "Plain text with line breaks." Then click "Save". You can then attach the new text document in a safe format that is readable by everyone.

If your formatting is important, you can chose "HTML Document or Web Page" instead of "Plain text" (but again, you will find that some of your recipients have difficulty reading your message).

Re:There is (yet another) decent way to handle thi

[cygnusx]

This is actually a *much* better solution than many of the sniveling "plain text should be enough for everybody" posts I've seen here today.

Re:Petspeed compiler

[jd]

*G* Oh, I've lots of very fond memories of the Petspeed compiler. I never did figure out how you managed to tweak the video display, for the demonstration package. (At the start of the intro, there was a neat animation of some film, counting down. If you broke out of the demo, at that point, you could see the character size vary from the top of the screen to the bottom. This, despite virtually all the video stuff being hardware.)

Other memories... I remember getting a copy of Petspeed, plus a whole bunch of Petspeed rectangular labels, not long after it came out. I went over to Oxford Computer Systems to get a copy. The electronic synthesizer, next to the computer, was fascinating. I wasn't to see computers that handled attack and decay, until the BBC.

The Petspeed compiler itself, as I recall, was extremely powerful. I honestly can't remember any BASIC programs it failed to handle. The first program I had it chew on was Adventure, by Woods and Crowther. Narry a burp, though it threw out a few warnings of suspect code. I still have a copy of the compiled binary, on a single-sided 5.25" floppy, somewhere.

The main use I had for the Petspeed compiler was in trying out some ideas I had for speech synthesis. At the time, the only speech systems for the PET were ROM-based external boxes. Boring! I had the idea that if I could record phonemes in memory, and then play them back over the "sound pin" of the serial port, I could build a perfectly workable (if totally incoherent) purely software speech synthesiser. I used some "bonus" programs I got from OCS (which showed how you could play sounds by rapidly changing one of the pins on the serial port, and using a portable radio to turn the output into sound) to develop the basic idea. However, to be even remotely usable, I needed a compiler to get the performance.

And that's where Petspeed comes in. That allowed me to get a cleaner "playback" speed than I could have achieved in BASIC alone, and my 6502 machine code skills weren't (at that point) up to writing something that complex in hex. (I didn't have an assembler, so I had to use the system monitor. Oh, what fun! :)

My last memory of the Petspeed compiler is that the promotional material, whilst very, ummm, typical of the day, and certainly eye-catching, would likely get a few raised eyebrows today. (Yes, the zipper one.)

Re:Free Viewer for Word

[Lazy Jones]

It is also only available for Windows, so it only changes the problem of having to purchase Word into having to purchase a Windows OS.

I'm all for automatically converting Word attachments into something better (e.g. at the MTA), but there aren't any good filters available yet...

Between the lines

[kimihia]

I'm sorry but I'm unable to read documents in Microsoft Word format because I use Linux.

Reading between the lines do you know what that says? It says: Linux doesn't have even minimal functionality - it sucks. Really, that's what you're saying.

Plus it is wrong. strings(), AbiWord, KWord, and StarOffice all open Word documents. Just fiddle your mailcap if you need to get them opening automagically.

What you should instead is say what is wrong with Word. How about this ...

I'm sorry but I'm unable to read documents from Microsoft Word because the risk of receiving a virus through one is too great and I will not buy the ridiculously high-priced software to read it.

All Windows boxes can open word documents...

[E-Rock]

for free, as in beer. Wordpad opens word documents. So EVERY user in the windows world can open them.