campaign “shut down”
2010-05-12
Ok, we all agree, the operating system Windows is used by a considerable part of the population. However Windows answers a certain policy of monopoly of a multinational.
To insult all the Windows users, or to fall into an exacerbated criticism as one could find a lot of it on Internet, that is what we will avoid here. Our goal is to give advises about using to the users of Windows so that the Microsoft precepts did not noise the life of those who choses other operating system - generally of the UNIX family.
Of course, our opinion is directed as the title indicates it ...
exchanging documents
There are chances that you land here because you sent to me a mail with a Word (.doc) or Excel (.xls) document joint.
The format of a Word document, i.e. how it is coded, is Microsoft property and it is secret, which implies that without Word one cannot have a look to such a document. Thus when you send a document in this format you suppose that the whole of your interlocutors have got Word, and not that they can read your document.
While communicating with Word, which are the risks you will incur?
- Your interlocutor did not take note of your document.
- More generally, he succeeded in opening the document. Either with a preceding version of Word or with small and free software which tries to include/understand the Word format. In the first case, Microsoft changing the format of Word between each version, the presentation of the document, to see even a part of its contents, is perhaps very faded. In the second case there are obviously the same problems, in a way more marked even.
- The formats Word, Excel constitute a fertile medium for viruses, that you may retransmit.
- Lastly, the Word format contains information on its author, and even of the parts of texts you erased during your drafting ! Problem in sight ...
In addition to these risks -- which are more than critical within a professional framework, to buy Word is not an obligation for your interlocutor, like having the last version.
The solution? To convert your file of the Word format into a known format, readable by all. There are many :
- the format text (.txt), format HTML (.html) directly
accessible while using
save asin Word. - the format pdf (.pdf), which one can find converters
free. Accessible by
printing, choosing printing pdfin Word.
While communicating with one of these three formats, you prevent marginalizing people who did not choose the same solutions that you (and will know that their solution is much cheaper) and avoid the risks previously mentioned.