Grassroots Response to .doc E-mail Attachments?

LurkingAbout asks: "Maybe it's just me, but it feels like people are sending Word .doc files as attachments more then ever. Typically it's a friendly acquaintance who doesn't realize that .doc is one of Microsoft's ploys to force the few remaining holdouts, like me, to shell out for a copy of Word (or better yet Office). This morning it was the director of my daughter's preschool with the monthly parent newsletter. I've taken to responding with a polite-but-educational message requesting that the sender save the file as RTF or HTML and resend. If I'm feeling long winded I sometimes go into a diatribe about the Evil Empire. Today I started thinking that maybe there's an opportunity for some grassroots organization here. Maybe a concise well-written boilerplate paragraph for just this situation? Or a link to a web page to help educate the masses who think .doc is like air. What do other Slashdot readers do in this situation?"

Comments

It's easy to make them paranoid about using DOC

[stienman]

"Dear Sir or Madam,

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

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

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

Thank you for your time.

-Adam"

Re:Arrrrghh!

[jc42]

Doesn't this sound a bit rude? ... Deal with it.

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

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

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

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

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