From hirchert@ccs.uky.edu Tue May 23 19:54:14 2000 Received: from mailhost.ccs.uky.edu (mailhost.ccs.uky.edu [128.163.209.59]) by dkuug.dk (8.9.2/8.9.2) with ESMTP id TAA64811 for ; Tue, 23 May 2000 19:54:13 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from hirchert@ccs.uky.edu) Received: from hirchert (hirchert.ccs.uky.edu [128.163.209.36]) by mailhost.ccs.uky.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id NAA18439; Tue, 23 May 2000 13:54:32 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.20000523135445.0082d100@perseus.ccs.uky.edu> X-Sender: hirchert@perseus.ccs.uky.edu X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 13:54:45 -0400 To: Malcolm Cohen From: "Kurt W. Hirchert" Subject: Re: (SC22WG5.1805) Use of Word to distribute documents Cc: sc22wg5@dkuug.dk In-Reply-To: <200005231617.SAA64524@dkuug.dk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Let me play devil's advocate for a bit: At 05:17 PM 5/23/00 +0100, Malcolm Cohen wrote: >Lawrie Schonfelder said: >>Everyone can read pdf, the reader is freely available, but you need >>relatively expensive prorietry software that is not all that widely used >>(relative to word) to create it. As far as I know 90+% of people who use PCs >>or MACs are likely to use WORD. If you are using Linux or solaris then there >>is the free downloadable star-office product that can read and write word >>format documents perfectly well. This is also available for use on PCs if you >>happen to prefer CORAL or LOTUS wordprocessing products. > >I take your points completely, but in my opinion these are outweighed by: > >(1) The "Word virus" issue [killer issue 1] I believe there is a way to configure Word so it doesn't automatically execute any macros contained in a document (to avoid the virus problem), so I wouldn't quite rank this as "killer", but given that this configuration is not the default, it's definitely a serious issue. >(2) The "recovery of deleted text" issue [killer issue 2] As I understand it, this is only possible when the sender is sloppy. If you do a save to a new file or disable fast saves, the document you send should be devoid of deleted text. > >plus the minor points of > >(3) New versions of Word create (by default) output files incompatible with > all previous versions. a. This isn't true in general. E.g., Word 2000 produces documents compatible with its immediate predecessor. On those releases where it has been true, Microsoft has made available free filters to allow the old version to read files produced by the new version and for the new version to produce files in the old version's file format. b. PDF has suffered the same problem. There have definitely been times when I couldn't read a PDF document until I downloaded a newer version of Acrobat Reader. > I for one have no intention of buying Word 2000 when I already have Word 6. > >(4) I don't particularly want to install some huge great star-office product > either. Particularly just to read something like an agenda which ought > to have been distributed in plain text in the first place! > Again, I don't want to have to go installing all this stuff again for > Word 2001, Word 2002, etc. > >As for the document editing question, the issue here is whether we impose on >everyone who wants to *read* the document the burden of Word format. Those >creating simple documents (i.e. not standards etc.) won't particularly miss >the all-singing all-dancing typesetting capabilities; and for the (few) project >editors, the burden of producing pdf (or finding someone to convert PostScript >to pdf for them) is not particularly great. Particularly since they'll want >to do that anyway for the version that goes to ISO Secretariat. You may be underestimating the cost of not using Word (if that's what you're used to) and of installing PDF production software, especially if you weight the costs by the number of people affected. Somehow, it sounds a bit strange when you claim that your being forced to install additional software is a major issue but it's no big deal to force everyone to install software to match what you want. > >Cheers, >-- >...........................Malcolm Cohen, NAG Ltd., Oxford, U.K. > (malcolm@nag.co.uk) Exit devil's advocate mode: Ultimately, it doesn't matter much to me -- I have both Word and Acrobat Reader. I might suggest that a fallback position could be to request that all distributed Word documents be in .rtf format rather than .doc. To the best of my knowledge, a .rtf file won't contain viruses or deleted text, and since it is a textual format, it is at least marginally readable without any Word-savvy software. -Kurt -- Kurt W. Hirchert hirchert@ccs.uky.edu Center for Computational Sciences +859-257-8748