attach word document with mail

[shankari]

how to attach word document with the mail..and what are the content types needed?

[Twey]

Don't.
http://www.cs.uit.no/~tobias/NEW/word-rejection.html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

[djr33]

The second article sounds reasonable. The first is terrible advice.

.doc is annoying, but better than the other options suggested:

Plain text (.txt):
Well... it's plain text. Sure, if you don't use any spacing, alignment, text emphasis or fonts, then that's fine. Why would you not just paste in the body of an email then?
Rarely will a document from word fit this.

Rich Text (.rtf):
This is ok, and read by many systems (there should be something on any computer; for example, Text Editor on OSX and Wordpad in XP). But... it doesn't have a great amount of formatting. It's certainly much less than would be available in word, open office, etc.
Best option of those listed, though.

PDF:
Ugh. Why? I had a professor that made the class do this for a group paper. The other students in my group were confused, so I said that I would do it. I had word on my PC at the time, and not on my Mac. I could convert to PDF using the print menu (then 'save as .pdf') on my Mac, but my PC didn't have Adobe Acrobat (expensive proprietary software, worthless except for converting to PDF).
PDF also limits functionality... that you can't... er... change it. You could take a screen capture, perhaps, but that's the only way to get anything from it. Terrible for this. If you're sending a document to someone to review? No...
Additionally, just running this on a Windows machine requires extra software. It's free, sure, but it is, just like Flash or Java, something extra to install in many cases.

.doc:
Well, it's proprietary, sure. I don't love it. But it's not as bad as it's made to sound:
1. Openoffice can use .doc without trouble. And that's free.
2. I've had no trouble with different versions.
3. Most everything in .docs seems to work from several programs, like MS Works or Wordpad, with the exception of things like images, odd layers, and embedded spreadsheets, etc. Other non-MS programs work too. I just can't think of anything right now. For example, Text Edit and Appleworks are able to open the format, it seems.

Webpage:
Ha. The first article actually suggests exporting using the default html converter in word. Nothing more needs to be said about this...


I think .doc is terribly annoying, but none of the options presented are much better. Perhaps .rtf if you don't need any more functionality than that.


From a very basic google search, I see this: application/msword doc


However, Twey is likely correct in this. If you are attaching a word document, there is probably a better way you could distribute this. HTML or RTF likely makes sense.

[Twey]

I gave both articles because they presented both reasons for avoiding MS Word documents: practical and ideological.

Additionally, just running [PDF] on a Windows machine requires extra software. It's free, sure, but it is, just like Flash or Java, something extra to install in many cases.

But non-Windows machines tend to have the software pre-installed; not only that, but there are free readers, so it can be pre-installed without licensing issues. Remember, Microsoft Word documents require extra software too.

1. Openoffice can use .doc without trouble. And that's free.

Not necessarily "without trouble." Things tend to get seriously misaligned (e.g. a diagram on page 3 ends up over the top of a paragraph on page 27). This also happens between different versions of Word.

3. Most everything in .docs seems to work from several programs, like MS Works or Wordpad, with the exception of things like images, odd layers, and embedded spreadsheets, etc. Other non-MS programs work too. I just can't think of anything right now. For example, Text Edit and Appleworks are able to open the format, it seems.

Again, it *kind of* works, but it also breaks any marginally complex formatting.

Webpage:
Ha. The first article actually suggests exporting using the default html converter in word. Nothing more needs to be said about this...

Nevertheless, it's preferable to DOC format.

I think .doc is terribly annoying, but none of the options presented are much better. Perhaps .rtf if you don't need any more functionality than that.

ODF should work. Free programs can open it, and there's even a filter for MS Office.

[djr33]

Not necessarily "without trouble." Things tend to get seriously misaligned (e.g. a diagram on page 3 ends up over the top of a paragraph on page 27). This also happens between different versions of Word.

I covered that. There are cases when advanced formatted and embedded items do not transfer well, but this would not transfer well to any of the other options, either. That's like saying not to use layers in photoshop they aren't available in jpg format. Sure, it's not very compatible, then, but there's not much you can do if you need that support.


You'd rather have MS-style html than .doc? At least .doc is clearly something to be wary of


ODF is likely a good solution, but the trouble is that it requires more software for the user to run it, I assume. For the average user, they have Word, not open office, etc.
Sure, it would be great to convert them, but it's impractical when sending emails to assume they can open the format.

[Twey]

But it's at least fair to assume that they can install the software to open the format correctly, which isn't necessarily the case with Microsoft formats. It may be extra effort for some, but it's at least always going to be possible.

[djr33]

It's really possible that everyone will figure out that they need Open Office, then how to find it, then how to install it, and that they will find this worth the trouble?

I suppose the point is that many of the users who could open the .doc would have no idea how to open the ODF file, etc. In the same sense, those who could open the ODF are likely to not have MS Office. So I think the answer, then, is to send both.

Not sending the .doc is like a hunger strike. Sure, in time, with enough support, it might end up erasing the .doc format (which would be insanely hard, considering its acceptance and prominence), but you would end up hungry... or, in this case, with many people who can't/don't read your document who could have otherwise.

Or the better metaphor is to relate it to IE. Is it bad? Sure. Will it go away? No. If you want everyone to see your document, must you make it compatible? Yes.

[Twey]

It's really possible that everyone will figure out that they need Open Office, then how to find it, then how to install it, and that they will find this worth the trouble?

A footnote could go a long way, perhaps.

I suppose the point is that many of the users who could open the .doc would have no idea how to open the ODF file, etc. In the same sense, those who could open the ODF are likely to not have MS Office. So I think the answer, then, is to send both.

And thus double the size of a file that's already far larger than it need be, considering that a tragic amount of people send a Word document that contains nothing but text and thus actually double the necessary filesize in the first place?

Not sending the .doc is like a hunger strike. Sure, in time, with enough support, it might end up erasing the .doc format (which would be insanely hard, considering its acceptance and prominence), but you would end up hungry... or, in this case, with many people who can't/don't read your document who could have otherwise.

The "can'ts" shouldn't exist. That's what I was saying in my earlier post. There are people who simply can't read Word documents. However, since OpenOffice runs on all modern platforms, and doesn't have licensing issues, there should not be any people who can't read an ODF document. As for the "don'ts," if it's important enough to be worth reading, even if they have to take a little extra trouble to do so, they'll read it. If it's not, well, it didn't matter all that much anyway

Or the better metaphor is to relate it to IE. Is it bad? Sure. Will it go away? No. If you want everyone to see your document, must you make it compatible? Yes.

That's a terrible metaphor. There's no way to definitely make Word documents compatible with OpenOffice -- or even with other versions of Word -- due to the lack of a standard. There's certainly no way to make ODT documents compatible with Word, due to Word's lack of support.