Stop sending .DOC files as mail attachments There is a better way | Hacker News Reader

Stop sending .DOC files as mail attachments There is a better way

blogs.computerworlduk.com

50 pointsGarbage69 comments

Or even better: just send the damn text WITHIN the actual email. You know, just how sane people do this :) .

You might be surprised how many people simply won't read a long email, their eyes sort of glaze over, but will happily read a much longer document when the email just says "please see attached". It's like flipping a mental switch between "short note" and "real document".

How about attaching text files then?

RTF files are more likely; "normal" users have come to take formatting for granted.

The sort of documents that need to be reviewed are usually in a prepared-to-print format, plus the amount of garbage that would accumulate in an email after 10 reviewers would be horrendous.

Yes, those could go as attachment, but I would strongly advise a workflow system that keeps track of changes and other stuff. Email is very troublesome for that. One changes something, another one sends an old version and that change is lost...I am working in the print industrie for a decade now and have moved a few companies from email workflows to a decent workflow web based system. It is way better. Trust me :) .

But most of the stuff I get is normal text that could easily fit into the email itself. Some people sent 1-sentence doc attachements regularly :( .

How does that work with, for example, a spreadsheet with 8,000 rows and 9 columns?

It's a shame we don't use HTML for most office documents. Readers are ubiquitous, they degrade nicely in older/slower machines, they're open, etc.

PDF are supposedly better for printing, but that's only if you need documents to come out exactly the same everywhere; for most, a slight difference in text reflowing doesn't really make a difference, and CSS does the rest for the most part.

There's also the problem with embedding content, but nowadays you can just use data:// URIs and put everything in one file.

In theory there are some features in word processing packages for security (either password to open or password to edit) and for collaborative working (edits are marked) that you don't get with HTML. In practice, those security features are often broken.

HTML and CSS would be an excellent solution, and in tune with the original idea (device-agnostic) of HTML. You don't know what software, or OS, or machine the receiver is viewing your document; you don't even know if they're using a screen.

I get a bit frustrated when websites do weird[1] things like force a display size (too narrow for most real monitors and too wide for most portable monitors, thus annoying both markets.) Maybe if HTML had taken off for print documents people would spend less time tinkering with the fonts and the 8px margins and more time on the content?

[1] You all know the stupid website decisions I mean.

Unfortunately, HTML isn't a rich enough container. If you try to add a diagram to HTML, suddenly you need two files. The "webarchive" file formats get around this, but they're not standard.

It seems to me that we need something like PDF, but that isn't so hung up on the idea of formatting physical pages. If I'm reading on a phone, I want it to reflow.

I bet you're wrong. There is nothing more than just a container, a space and memory hog, that word processors and Adobe suites provide. I believe that HTML is far more powerful than currently tapped.

There is nothing more than just a container, a space and memory hog, that word processors and Adobe suites provide.

Which is exactly what OP was complaining about. HTML documents need multiple files to work correctly. .DOC and .PDF provide this. There is no standard for HTML containters.

I believe that HTML is far more powerful than currently tapped.

Key term for this chapter is "than currently tapped". The problem is, .DOC and .PDF solve all the problems HTML documents have.

The take-home assignment is to make an HTML container that can be read and edited in software that everyone has, then convince the world (and hiring managers) that everyone should stop using Word even though it works perfectly fine. Extra credit if you make it as rich and feature filled as Word without making it more bloated than Word.

That's a tough bet, but not undo-able. Looking at capabilities extended by HTML5, and the containers that the browsers already are, I don't feel (though I could be wrong) that day is too far.

Yep, someone has to build a standard for HTML containers to contain documentary elements like Word/PDF have done so far.

HTML isn't a container at all but what you're describing is basically ePub3 - HTML and resources inside a container, designed for reflow and other advanced scenarios which clash with PDF's basic philosophy.

That's true; ePub is certainly trying to do the right thing here. I haven't used it much myself, so I don't know how well it works. For my own uses, I'd like to get decent equations and LaTeX-like special characters (e.g. \nabla), but I can live with embedded PNG or GIF.

(Not that that really alters the basic point, which was that HTML, by itself, isn't enough. The object tag might be a good enough solution, I don't know.)

If you try to add a diagram to HTML, suddenly you need two files.

That's not strictly true. You can embed inline object data in object tags (http://www.w3.org/TR/html40/struct/objects.html#h-13.3) using the data: URI scheme (http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2397.html). Whether that is good enough, I don't know. The data needing to be physically inserted at each point of use certainly isn't great for space usage and performance.

But then, in the context of email, why not just use MIME?

PDF is definitely better for printing. HTML is not so hot for docs that use, say, page numbering.

Plus, imagine for a second that you are not already an HTML whiz. Now in order to edit the HTML doc I sent you, you need to buy expensive, crappy WYSIWYG editing software like Frontpage or Dreamweaver.

Word can actually open and edit HTML documents; the problem is that the support is shitty, particularly because they don't treat it as a normal document. But that was my point: it's a shame HTML is a second class citizen in office land.

Actually, at work i try to send restructuredText + a neatly generated .pdf. Looks better, is easily editable.

As one of the few Linux/LibreOffice users i HATE(HATEHATEHATEHATE) .doc and especially .docx. It's a nightmare to work with and collaborate on it between MS Word and LibreOffice Writer. Something always gets screwed up.

Please, Office people in the world: Uninstall the nightmare that is called MS Office. LibreOffice will do everything you will ever (everevereverever) need.

And if it doesn't have to be WYSIWYG: restructuredText is a pretty, awesome, lightweight, cross platform, easily editable solution to a lot of crap that i can find in my inbox (including rst2pdf and rst2odt and rst2html, etc etc ;) ).

What is the difference between sending a .doc or a .odt? I say this as someone who has not used office since staroffice released working binaries for redhat (3.0.3 I think).

Not much, except that .odt is a true open standard, that the "editor" is free and that the "editor" is available for every major platform. And practically does everything you need, as well.

Now, do you think i would pay money for MS Office? Even if i would, i couldn't because it's Windows/Mac only anyway.

I'd say, sending .odt/.docx around is the least preferable option but .docx additionally has far more downsides for me as well..

"Far more downsides for me as well." Sadly most people in the world do not care about what is easier/cheaper for you (and me). The most widely distributed office program is MSOffice, not libreoffice. MS Office users would have to bear the costs of installing/learning a new office product.

Yes, i know that. It saddens me that so much money goes to some (in my eyes) inferior product (and makes my work harder ;) ).

I have to vigorously disagree. I used OpenOffice exclusively my entire college career and am an avid LibreOffice user now, however you are simply incorrect when you state that LibreOffice comes even close to MS Office. If you're going to say that LibreOffice smacks MS Office then I'm going to posit that you have never used a pivot table in Calc, and that you do not work in a corporate environment. In addition, for the 10 years that I have used Open/LibreOffice, I have not once had a problem opening any of the hundreds of .doc and .docx files sent to me via email.

In addition to pivot tables do not forget trying to do anything with MS Access. I have also noticed that opening powerpoint presentations can grind LO to a halt. Most recently the Stream Ciphers lecture from Boneh's class took forever to open in LO on a 6 core AMD with 8 gigs of ram...

I agree that most of the time opening .doc/.docx with OO/LO is problem free. But you never used StarOffice, back in the day things were not always so easy:) Plus StarOffice was not guaranteed to stay open;)

May i ask if you edited every of those files with Writer, saved them as .docx again and they had no format changes in Word? If so, i don't believe you. Happens far too often for me.

Also, all the excel sheets i have in my inbox contain just simple calculations. In my experience Excel is used by most corporate persons for simple things. Make a Todo List, add some numbers, structured text more or less..

And still, some things don't work out. The last powerpoint i got, had weird text formattings (making it unreadable) in LibreOffice. The last Excel i got contained 2 emails embedded (drag&drop windows stuff). Hooray.

As a consultant i am working all day with corporate people in very different areas, and i bet that most of them don't even know what advanced features can be used.

Also, in my opinion, Excel should only be used for the simple cases. If you want to do some deeper analytics on data, i don't believe it the right tool to do. But that's probably just me...

Btw.: http://help.libreoffice.org/Calc/Creating_Pivot_Tables

for the 10 years that I have used Open/LibreOffice, I have not once had a problem opening any of the hundreds of .doc and .docx files sent to me via email.

My clients currently love sending me change requests as .doc files which contain a table of fields describing the work they want done. For some reason LibreOffice only displays the first page if the table is split between more than one page. After a while of annoyance, I noticed I if I use "select all" it would select even the off page text (despite LibreOffice saying "page 1 of 1") and I can paste it (table and all) into a new document and everything works fine. I don't know why this problem occurs, but to me it is a minor annoyance when they send me .doc files (and was a major annoyance before I found the workaround).

Wow there is an amazing amount of animated advercrap on that page.

Had the same feeling. Not taking any advice from anyone that would even think to write on a site like that. Heck, they even had a "loading page", what the fuck?

Felt like I was entering a web-based rectum

couldn't see the article over the advercrap -> closed page. Why do sites do this ??

Weird. I wrote this (almost) exact article last week. I brought up much of the same posts and it got a decent amount of votes too (got up to the front page).

http://maxmackie.com/2012/03/19/Stop-distributing-.doc-files...

I wonder if he read my article...

So the message is. Lets all switch to LibreOffice!

Seems like nonsense to me. If you are running Windows, which most people are, you are almost certainly going to have Word / Wordpad etc.

A far better solution to .doc attachments is to ask if your content really needs to be in an attachment. A lot of the time it simply doesn't.

To be honest though this isn't really a problem is it? When Microsoft first brought out their .docx format it seemed like there was a lag before other free applications could read the files. I found that a problem.

Today, everyone has an application to open a .doc file. A lot of people are using gmail. I just click the preview button. I assume that Windows Live Mail has something like this which makes use of Office365 functionality (might be wrong on this). It really is a non-issue.

MS Word is expensive. MS Office is even more expensive. Many people don't need all the features and would be fine with Abiword / Gnumeric or LibreOffice. (I'm interested in what features MS Office has that are not available in LibreOffice. Elsewhere in this thread someone mentions pivot tables. What else?)

Many organisations would do well to save money on MS Office installations and switch to LibreOffice. (Hopefully LibreOffice will get some designers to help with the interface, and writers to help with the documentation.)

Editable PDF files are better than .DOC? Wow.

Please don't send me an editable PDF instead of a DOC. wtf. PDF files are designed to load slow and make my hard disk thrash.

If you send me a DOC at least I can edit it in google docs..

Much better send me a link to a google doc or some other online document.. zoho or whatever

> PDF files are designed to load slow and make my hard disk thrash.

You are aware you don't have to use Adobe software to read PDFs right? I've got 7+MB PDF books (as in 500 pages or so), OSX's Preview loads them in a fraction of a second. Even "The Macintosh Way" (40MB of scanned images) takes barely half a second. That's not enough time to start an empty instance of Word

Or, on Windows, Sumatra PDF is lightweight and works well for most of the documents I come across.

or use Google Documents instead of Hybrid PDFs where again you need LibreOffice to edit them.

I don't know if GDocs still has this problem, but when I first started using it, it seemed like they would do some update every few months that would break all my formatting. I used it mainly for storing guitar tablature, so when the formatting broke, I lost the music, some of it forever (if I couldn't remember the timing). I stopped using it a few years ago because of this.

Actually I just checked my resume that I have stored there (that copy was last touched in 2010), and the formatting is destroyed. I just exported a spreadsheet to PDF, and the cell alignment has shifted. Hmm. I also have a document that seems to be shared with me (shows up in my GDocs list) and I have no idea who the person is who created it.

> when I first started using it, it seemed like they would do some update every few months that would break all my formatting

You can now use it to store arbitrary files in their original format and view them through their webinterface when convenient. It has certain limitations like not displaying tables (or their contents) in .doc files but otherwise works well, pdfs generated from latex are displayed flawlessly as far as I've tested it.

Never used Google Docs. Don't you, in that case, require

a) that I have a Google account (not sure)

and

b) limit my access to the document that you sent me to times when I'm online (unless I go ahead and export it to another format and save it locally. Probably as text or pdf, depending on whether I want to edit or read)?

I assume b) is a given. If a) is true as well then I'd consider sending Google Docs links just as rude as .doc etc.

a) I think, depends on the level at which the document is shared. If it is public, anyone can find using search and edit it. If it is accessible to anyone with the document link, then anyone who can discover the document can edit it. If it is shared with a list of people (or a group) then you need to login to authenticate yourself. The last is, I believe, the only solution to the problem.

I don't think there exists a ubiquitous solution for sharing printable-well-formatted documents that require no special skills for formatting. .DOC will require the person on the other end to have MS Word and .ODT Libre Office (which is no way good enough for anything ATM). There are also other replacements to Google Docs, I haven't tried any as Google Docs fulfilled most of the requirements of my minimal collaborative editing but I am told that Zoho works really well.

a) The person publishing the document has full control over who has access and can edit it. You can allow anyone to view it, only people with a link (still no Google Account required from them, the link itself acts as a key/password), users from your domain... it's pretty flexible.

b) You can download the original file or, when Google format are used, export to a format convenient for you.

I use Google Docs that way constantly. It's by far the easiest and most reliable way I found to share a document, especially spreadsheets, with someone I haven't worked with before.

Such crap. This only gets voted up because it bashes Microsoft.

I disagree. This kind of thing is a real annoyance/problem for a lot of people. Same goes for powerpoint slides.

It doesn't matter where you put blame, or if there's any blame at all; it's still a problem.

Are you kidding me. I would love .DOC since Whenever I get documents from family (especially the Mum!) they send my .DOCX

Despite telling them hundreds of times to stop!

Are we still hung up on .docx? Older versions of Word have compatibility to convert them, and LibreOffice and Google Docs can open them. Instead of trying to get them to always remember to save in another format, why not tell them how to change the default saving format?

Changing every time is a pain, since Word has a dozen different options (Word 95, Word 98, Word 2000/2003, .docx, rtf, txt, etc). It gets confusing.

No, I won't stop. There is nothing better than Word to collaboratively work on a manuscript in a research environment. Yes, this is "Editing - Emailing - Editing" cycle, but no one has suggested anything better that actually works.

Google Docs works rather well for this workflow. You can add comments, edit concurrently (like SubEthaEdit), press a button to open a video hangout with your collaborators, and you get a full revision history. And, you don't have to email the doc around!

Google Docs is most often blocked by organizations.

I assumed by "research institution" he meant a university, which doesn't really care about "leaks" like Big Corporations do.

Then again, there are quite a few big corporations on Google Apps.

Citation? Google Docs is often used at organizations (they even pay for it!). There's a reason why Microsoft is moving into the same territory with Office 365--businesses require collaboration and emailing docs around is incredibly bad at accomplishing that.

Even more telling is MS stopped Office Live which didn't edit online in favor of Office 365 which does edit online. It's just a matter of time before it switches and the desktop version is an add-on while the cloud version is standard.

Federal Organizations

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/government/trust.html

The GSA itself is a Google Apps customer. NOAA also made news this year by moving over its 25,000 users.

I am talking about the federal government that may handle sensitive information - not local government. Where important things are done they do not use Google Apps. They use Microsoft Exchange for email and .DOCX for word documents.

NOAA is the federal government and is pretty important. Unless issuing tornado warnings and forecasting hurricanes is not important, that is.

This is very true. We've tried using Google Docs and it just doesn't work the same; this is esp. true with less tech savvy users. If I am working on different page and someone is editing the top of the doc then it pushes everything I am doing down and interrupts my train of thought.

View > Document view > Compact

Yeah, Google made a mistake in changing the default to Paginated. Still, Docs is light years ahead of Word + trying to emulate git's CVS via file names and mental notes.

+ Google Docs does not have EndNote support.

TeX+git

I hope this is meant as a joke.

I've worked in research for several years and we almost exclusively kept LaTeX documents in a Git repository. This worked perfectly: Multiple people can edit the document at the same time and you can also add additional comments to the document that don't show up in the output.

That may be true for math and CompSci research, but I think you'd have rather hard time convincing panel of, say, climatologists to learn LaTeX and git.

I do research in physics. Typically we use git and latex. That's because it is easy to branch out and change the structure of the document, you can include the scripts and data used to generate data in the same repository and there's a nice, easy-to-use front end in Github.

You get most of the features of word, and the math looks better. And it's platform-agnostic! It doesn't matter whether you make that document on Windows, Mac or Linux, and it doesn't matter which software you use either. And cross-linking in the document is easy and a file-based database can be used to store the bibliography.

Word is very hard to you use once you get used to that system...it's too inflexible and a complicated document gets mangled when crossing the OS boundary.

> I do research in physics. Typically we use git and latex.

That's only convenient for an already existing research group. The usual workflow of incidental cooperation, like a course instructor sending additional materials to students, is to generate a pdf from the LaTeX documents they wrote or otherwise obtained and e-mail it.

The fact is that it's much harder to train people who haven't had programming experience (e.g. biologists or medical doctors) to use this stuff. Word does the same thing pretty well (better imho, the reviews interface is intuitive), and has plenty of citation managers too

It's also close to impossible if the journal or conference doesn't give you a LaTeX stylesheet, which is uncommon outside physics/math/CS. Sure, you can in principle produce your own stylesheet conforming to the formatting requirements, but even most seasoned LaTeX users find the stylesheet language to be black magic (I dread having to make even minor edits to a stylesheet).

Matching citation styles used to be a problem also, but tools like Jurabib and Biber have mostly solved that problem.

Me neither. A lot of what I do (proposals, specs) requires multiple people making simultaneous changes to a document.

I do however not have to do the edit-email-edit thing. We use SharePoint at work, which lets all of us make changes to a document in realtime.

This works inside and outside the company. The partners we typically collaborate with authenticate using identity federation. It works really well for us.

> There is nothing better than Word to collaboratively work on a manuscript in a research environment.

Use version control, or wikis.

Google docs works infinitely better for this. The feature set may not be as comprehensive, but it nails ~97% for me, and the ease of collaboration is far superior.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com