You gotta read this article!

[evilcartman]

You gotta read this article! (http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/01/10/1711238)


Surprised ?! No! I agree with Mr. Stallman and I will begin to use his reply examples in my mails. Hope you will too.... ;)

[Stween]

i like that article ...

i agree entirely with that. Its actually a nice way to put up some sort of resistance to microsoft's attempt at making .doc some sort of 'internet standard for sending documents'

Although its not often i get sent .doc files, ill definately say something next time i get one :D


Stween

[Super Bakemono]

I too don't recall EVER having someone send me an attached .doc file...thank god. But if some one does, I'll speak up :)

[bugfix]

What's wrong with people using RTF? Better than plain ASCII.

[Shadoglare]

Ya, I'm the Steve that wrote about using .rtf's, and I got a response that .rtf sizes "blow" if you insert images...
How that differs from .doc I'm not sure, but that was the only response so far.

[evilcartman]

The most important part is we cant examine and develop a good word viewer because doc's algo is secret...

[Strike]

Originally posted by bugfix:
<STRONG>What's wrong with people using RTF? Better than plain ASCII.</STRONG>

Nothing is better than ASCII. Note that ASCII stands for the American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Which means that when you want everyone to be able to read your document, you use the Standard Code for Information Interchange. There are plenty of wonderful document formats that allow you to see the information easily in plain ASCII text. RTF is not one of those formats.

Also, as pointed out in the article, for small documents (which is all I really want people e-mailing me - I wouldn't want a 2MB document even if it was in a more preferable format than MS Word), a binary format system will often add considerably to the heft of a document.

About the only type of binary file I'd be more than happy to receive for a document is a gzipped/bzipped version of something that is plaintext.

PS - and if you are going to argue that ASCII should only be used if you're in America since that's what the A is for, then I'll do you one better and say that Unicode should be used everywhere anyway, but the acronym elucidates the point more clearly

[jaygee432]

Windows users have the same problems because, as the article mentions, M$ changes the format over time, and the formats of different windows word processors can be incompatible with "the standard," e.g., wordperfect.

[Malakin]

I agree, everyone should use ascii unless it's absolutely necessary to include images or formatting in the document then html is the next logical step.

Oh and I hate pdf's. I'd rather get a word doc then a pdf.

[ 11 January 2002: Message edited by: Malakin ]

[evilcartman]

XML might be the choice for the future whıo knows

[camelrider]

What the heck are .dat files and how do you open them in Linux?

[Strike]

Originally posted by camelrider:
<STRONG>What the heck are .dat files and how do you open them in Linux?</STRONG>

Where did this question come from?

[teeitup]

ascii text is the only way to go.

It is the only true platform and technology independent file format.
From the oldest 286's to the largest mainframes they can all read it with out the need for any additional software. What a concept.

.doc files are the scurge of mailbox and user space on servers.

The same information in .doc format can take as much as 20x the space of a simple text file.

I personally think Office and Outlook are the reason Microsoft can't be expelled from corporate America. No one cares about the OS. Office and Outlook run most company's information flow.

[Captain Caveman]

ASCII is of course great and all if you want just plain text, but what if you want formatting?

PDF's not the way to go... you've got to have a Reader.

HTML? most people have web browsers now, so that's probably a safe bet.

RTF? Any wordprocessor above the level of Notepad (or it's type) should be able to handle RTF.

ASCII is great and should be the file format of choice if style formatting isn't important.

But if you need style formatting, I'm gonna have to throw my vote in with RTF. (But I'd also settle on HTML.)

[Strike]

Originally posted by Captain Caveman:
<STRONG>ASCII is of course great and all if you want just plain text, but what if you want formatting?

PDF's not the way to go... you've got to have a Reader.

HTML? most people have web browsers now, so that's probably a safe bet.

RTF? Any wordprocessor above the level of Notepad (or it's type) should be able to handle RTF.

ASCII is great and should be the file format of choice if style formatting isn't important.

But if you need style formatting, I'm gonna have to throw my vote in with RTF. (But I'd also settle on HTML.)</STRONG>
And what about users who don't have an RTF viewer? There is not an OS out there that doesn't have a text editor (as far as I know, and I'm betting the exceptions are more of hobby things instead of meant for serious use). HTML is a fairly good choice for simple formatting, but it's a horrible choice for creating complicated documents. XML/SGML/DocBook is a much better choice for that. They are also plain-text markup languages and are capable of 5 million times the formatting that RTF is capable of (actually, due to the extensible nature of them all, they have infinitely more formatting options).

Repeat after me: binary bad, plain-text good (for documentation)

[Syngin]

Hmm, was the information that Star Office could read MS documents an error?

[evilcartman]

I think we should go for XML :o

[AdaHacker]

Originally posted by Syngin:
<STRONG>Hmm, was the information that Star Office could read MS documents an error?</STRONG>
No, it wasn't an error. StarOffice can read some MS formats, but only some. Last I checked, it could read and write Word 95 format, but nothing newer than that.

[Captain Caveman]

And what about users who don't have an RTF viewer?

That's why I said plain text is better if formatting isn't important.

By the same token, what about users who don't have a XML/SGML/DocBook viewer? (If you've got a base Windows install, you've at least likely got Wordpad, which can handle RTF. On the other hand, could it handle SGML XML or DocBook out of the box?)

I figure on RTF because any ol' idiot (self included) would have a fairly good chance of getting it to look OK in any word processor (word processor as opposed to text editor).

On the other hand, if you know the person can handle it, then some other format might be a better choice.

Yes, plain ASCII text is better if you don't know what the person on the other end is using and you don't know what they're using.

But if you need some formatting and don't know what they're using, RTF is a good choice too.

(This is based on what I've experienced... I've sent formatted documents, including resumes, to various people and no one has ever had trouble opening any of 'em. YMMV, of course.)

Oops. I didn't mean to sound like a format war or anything. :eek:

Maybe we could all just agree to use tin cans & string or something ;)

[Taizong]

I vote HTML. Elegant, small, and efficient. As for some comments made on newsforge, making your HTML WT3c complient is easy. And if your word processor does it for you, well, then there isn't a problem.

[Strike]

Originally posted by Captain Caveman:
<STRONG>By the same token, what about users who don't have a XML/SGML/DocBook viewer? (If you've got a base Windows install, you've at least likely got Wordpad, which can handle RTF. On the other hand, could it handle SGML XML or DocBook out of the box?)</STRONG>
It's plaintext! A text editor can view it!

The document itself is plaintext, you can "compile" it into certain other formats for presentation - HTML, PDF, PS, DVI, RTF, you name it.

[evilcartman]

Anything like HTML/XML/DocBook seems universally readable...

So no *.doc no *.pdf or no *.rtf so its ok :)

[Shadoglare]

Originally posted by AdaHacker:
<STRONG>
No, it wasn't an error. StarOffice can read some MS formats, but only some. Last I checked, it could read and write Word 95 format, but nothing newer than that.</STRONG>

Just FYI I was playing around with the 6.0 beta a few weeks ago, and it appears that they've now added support for Office 2000 file formats - I didn't test every app, but Word2000 documents certainly appeared to load just fine.

[PunkTiger]

Originally posted by Shadoglare:
<STRONG>Just FYI I was playing around with the 6.0 beta a few weeks ago, and it appears that they've now added support for Office 2000 file formats - I didn't test every app, but Word2000 documents certainly appeared to load just fine.</STRONG>

I have an issue with using StarOffice, anyway. It seems to be more of an "environment" rather than an office suite. But, then I'm nowhere near what's considered a "power user".

As for the little "format war" I'll throw in my hat and say that I prefer ASCII, but RTF is probably the most advanced document format that I'd use for e-mail. RTF is relitively safe... isn't it? I'm unsure if virii can be hidden in an RTF file. I know it would hard as all get-out to put them in a plain ASCII file. If I need pictures, attach a JPEG file or two and say "See attached pictures" in the document.

Peace;
- PunkTiger!
(Luddite-in-training)

[Captain Caveman]

It's plaintext! A text editor can view it!

The document itself is plaintext, you can "compile" it into certain other formats for presentation - HTML, PDF, PS, DVI, RTF, you name it.

But if you're gonna do that, why not just send ASCII text? If you want something the other person can most likely read with some formatting, I'd still pick RTF if I wanted even odds that the other person could see what I meant for them to (with formatting)... :)

Perhaps I should've said it as "I'd use RTF if it was important to me for style formatting to remain intact."

OTOH, I did read yesterday somewhere, that, in spite of RTF being an open standard, MS has taken steps to "embrace and extend" it... :(

so maybe it's not a good choice anymore.

Is there anything they won't try to take over?