.doc rant

[lavendersparkle]

Why the fuck to people still email out papers in .doc format?

I am by far not the most computer savvy person in the world. I don't know how to use Latex (or how to type a Greek letter chi) and if I had a PC I'd probably write most stuff in Word. However, I understand that not everyone has Word or even the particular version of Word you have and if you are an academic I'm pretty sure you have some kind of pdf writing on your computer. So fucking use it rather than making me open your stupid .doc file in NeoOffice, in which all your formatting is going to get fucked.

Here endith the lesson.

Comments

[julierocket.livejournal.com]

Yikes. I wouldn't have known how to do that or have thought to do that. I didn't know about NeoOffice :(

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

NeoOffice is a free piece of software that can read and edit .doc files. It's what I use to read them because I don't have Word on my laptop as it's a Mac and I didn't want to have to pay for Microsoft Office to be installed on it. On top of that, even if you have a copy of Word, it's no guarantee that that you'll be able to properly read other people's Word documents because the different versions don't always talk to each other very well.

.pdf files can be read on Adobe acrobat reader which can be downloaded for free and the formatting is unlikely to go screwy. On my computer it takes about 10 seconds to turn a word processed document into a pdf, it's an option in the drop down menu. Lots of undergrads and ordinary folk don't necessarily have a pdf writer on their computer, but if you're an academic you're bound to have one because sometimes you have to submit things in pdf form. It just seems to be thoughtlessness to not bother to do it when you're circulating a seminar paper.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

The idiots should still know better, but Open Office sometimes works, as another weapon to have for this eventuality.

[julierocket.livejournal.com]

I'm in graduate school. I actually had no idea how to make a PDF file, nor do my professors because I'm always trying to email things to them in five different formats so they can read it.

[emperor]

Office is evil. Where I can get away with it, I ask for other formats.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Hear hear!

[mummyfrances.livejournal.com]

i was going to suggest open office - opens docs well, thoguh i have difficulty saving things in it so that they can be read by other programs

Should be mac compatible, and is freeware

[amphibian23.livejournal.com]

I feel like an incompetent Luddite reading that .... ;) But in my defence, I usually email word docs to colleagues who would have the same MS programmes.

[aimee.mychores.co.uk (from livejournal.com)]

ORLY? I usually find that OpenOffice handles doc files pretty well these days. I was really impressed recently when it happily did change tracking between me and someone who was using Word.

Which version are you using? What formatting does it not handle well?

[aimee.mychores.co.uk (from livejournal.com)]

If only Microsoft Office would conform to the open document standards ... we can but dream ...!

[hatam-soferet.livejournal.com]

I've gained a reputation for being extremely annoying and insisting on .rtf, .txt, or .pdf. It feels rather good.

[spreadsothin.livejournal.com]

I like Open Office so much better than .pdfs- I don't have Acrobat, so I can never edit those documents. I can read them, but not respond.

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

It depends what the thing being sent is. If it's a paper I'm supposed to be collaborating on then, yes, I'd be annoyed if it were a pdf. If, on the other hand, it's a seminar paper being sent around for people to read before the seminar, it's easier if it's sent out as a pdf because it's easier for everyone to open.