Comments for Why is attaching a Word document to email such a bad idea?

Comment from deb on 2009-08-22

2009-08-22T15:29:45Z

If I attach a document from Word into an email, will the receiver be able to view any other documents I have in Word?

Only the ones you email him.

23-Aug-2009

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A comment on: Why is attaching a Word document to email such a bad idea?

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Comment from Dee on 2009-08-20

2009-08-21T00:37:34Z

Hi Leo,
When I send an email with an attachment, I check my sent mail & open up that attachment. I discovered I have access to all MY DOCUMENTS, Desktop etc from downloading the attachment. Does the addressee have the same access? In addition, I forwarded the email to my address & I was still able to access MY DOCUMENTS & other computer info from Word Documents to Desk Top views from my InBox. Again, my concern is that the addressees can click on any of my documents or open files from my computer. Do they(addressees) have the same access to my computer? Finally, I also sent it to another address my daughter uses on my computer & we still had access. This is scaring me.

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A comment on: Why is attaching a Word document to email such a bad idea?

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Comment from Ravi Menon on 2009-06-30

2009-06-30T09:36:32Z

Any convincing arguments against using .rtf format? I noticed other people suggested it and it is used in usenet and bbs for documents as well.

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Comment from Tim Rice on 2009-03-11

2009-03-11T08:37:22Z

This is very helpful. I love WordPerfect and have struggled working back and forth. I was glad to see that .rtf is such a good accomodation. One of my computers has both Word and WordPerfect, the other, shareware (ThinkWrite, et. al.). Many times I use Notepad, less often, WordPad.

I edit many resumes and may need to purchase the PDF conversion software.

I will continue checking your site for more ideas, advice and info exchange. Thank you.

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A comment on: Why is attaching a Word document to email such a bad idea?

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Comment from Jim on 2009-03-10

2009-03-10T16:58:46Z

Slightly off-topic but speaking of Word, I've used your approach to slimming down my system, which I by and large love, but this article does remind me to raise one question I have: one of the methods you recommend to slim down your system is to delete all documents with the .doc extension -- these are Word documents. If I deleted all of my Word docs, my entire life would be destroyed, as a writer, a teacher, and sometimes a student. Is there ever a situation where one would want to delete all Word docs to slim down a system?

I've never recommended deleting all of your .doc files. Where did that come from?

- Leo
11-Mar-2009

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Comment from Kerry Lund on 2009-03-08

2009-03-08T21:53:36Z

If the document is saved as .rtf, it will open in Wordpad and should not carry macros with it.

Kerry

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Comment from Richard FDisk on 2009-03-04

2009-03-05T00:27:30Z

not only is adding word .doc attachments a generally bad idea, also any other "attachment" that could be simply put in the body of the email text is a bad idea,
a word .doc can be anywhere from 3 - 10 times the size of the actual text it contains, some people still have inbox & storage limits especially those imposed by corporate IT Dept. if you're close to that limit and an email with a huge .doc attachment comes in it might not be delivered or some of your previous emails might be purged before you want them purged,

my general rule is only send attachments at the request of the recipient.

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Comment from Phil Corbin on 2009-03-04

2009-03-04T16:14:30Z

I have a problem with folks who e-mail bids or quotes using Word documents or Excel spreadsheets. How easy would it be for me or someone else to make a significant change in their price, print it out, then attempt to hold them to it? Print anything you don't want modified as a PDF, and/or lock down the file if possible to prevent just such a scenario.

So I'll just modify your PDF instead - even the locked one. It's been a long standing concern of mine that digital documents are easily manipulated by those with enough know-how. There are approaches, like digital signing, that can prove or disprove authenticity, but they're not at all commonplace.

- Leo
05-Mar-2009

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Comment from Terry Hollett on 2009-03-04

2009-03-04T13:35:22Z

I have a relative who received a .doc attachement, a shedule for his daughter from school. He had just gotten a Vista system and couldn't open it at first, you have to save it on your hard drive first.

Then when he did open it it was just a jumbled mess. I assumed it was in a format not compatible with his basic word program. I found the link to the Microsoft Word Viewer, he had to download a 25MB file on a dial-up connection.

He downloaded it and was able to read the attachement.

[link removed]

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Comment from Gary on 2009-03-03

2009-03-03T17:09:38Z

Soon we will be using online documents, ala Google Docs and won't have to send any documents to co workers..

There are a lot of reasons that will not be universal ... at least not for a long time. (Privacy, corporate policies, the assumption of internet connectivity, among others.) But I agree it is often a better approach than sending docs around as attachments.

- Leo
04-Mar-2009

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A comment on: Why is attaching a Word document to email such a bad idea?

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Comment from IT Supporter on 2008-12-08

2008-12-08T14:38:14Z

I'm so annoyed by people who do the following, when they need to send support requests:

Instead of simple attaching the image, they first embed the image into a word doc, making me having to first open the dic, then sav it as html, then finally open the image. Word is a very bad image viewer, and this ridiculous practice makes no sense.

People: THINK! You don't need Word to hold your hand to attach an image to an email. Please, just attach the image.

I'd say that about 1/3 of all screenshots I receive are embedded in a Word doc. What a waste of bandwidth and my time!

Thanks,
Hayduke

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A comment on: Why is attaching a Word document to email such a bad idea?

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Comment from Alice Benham on 2008-12-06

2008-12-06T21:52:31Z

I write a weekly column for a newspaper and for the past several years, at the editor's request, have written the column on Word, hit Edit, then Select All, then Copy. I open Email, oped Edit then Paste to attach my column to the Email. The process has worked until yesterday when my attachment notation comes up in grey (not blue) on the Email and I am told after sending that the attachment has been aborted. I've been struggling through several processes to try to determine what has happened - all to no avail - and am at wit's end. I am by no means a truly computer-savvy person. Can anyone suggest a path for me to follow in order to get this matter back to normal? All suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Alice

Not without knowing what email program you're using and pasting into.

- Leo
07-Dec-2008

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Comment from Ed on 2008-10-23

2008-10-23T09:30:24Z

Even if the recipient has MS Word he may not have the same version and the same fonts installed. This will result in different appearance. If you want to preserve the appearance you can use PDF. But how the recipient will edit it? I recommend sending pdf files and using Smart PDF Converter for conversions between pdf and doc.

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A comment on: Why is attaching a Word document to email such a bad idea?

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Comment from steve on 2006-04-11

2006-04-12T05:05:14Z

Also, personal privacy - many times your personal information is stored as part of the word document - found under by looking under properties.

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Comment from Leo on 2006-03-12

2006-03-13T03:28:38Z

That comment saddens me, because it clearly values form over content, and IMO, that's just WRONG.

I also know it can be true, because I got a GREAT grade on an essentially content-free term paper back in college because I was the only one at the time to use a word processor.

I believe it's a fundamentally flawed long-term strategy. Good well written ideas should shine - even in plain text unformatted emails. Hopefully that cream will eventually rise to the top.

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Comment from John Benson on 2006-03-12

2006-03-13T03:12:33Z

I started to rebut every one of Leo's points, but decided to hit the high point. If you are sending a short email to confirm a lunch, then he has some valid points.

But if you are interested in maintaining your image in the academic or business world, then the formatting found in Word is vital. Typography is important. Take a look at
http://www.aspiramedia.com/fadtastic/?p=79
for some additional information.

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Comment from Mark on 2006-03-11

2006-03-12T05:24:19Z

While I agree with most of the above, the compatibility issues can also be easily avoided by simply saving Word files as RTF documents. Most people will be able to open and read the file, but also maintain the ability to edit and copy/paste, something not nearly as likely with the infamous PDF's.

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Comment from Cliff on 2006-03-10

2006-03-11T06:44:54Z

I got an e-mail from someone not too long ago, and each of the quotation marks was a three-character string of gobbledegook. I made a sideways remark about Mac owners, and he told me that those are from MS Word! for Windows!! When you have the fancy quotes turned on and then paste it into the e-mail body, this is often what your readers get.

I stopped doing that to people many, many years ago. I generally need for what I write to make an impression, so I've learned to make *all* my writings as readable as possible.

Years ago, when I was working online for WordPerfect Magazine, I developed my own system for using only the keys on the keyboard to format. I even use this system for submitting rough drafts to editors, it's so intuitive.

First, I ignore any and all accented characters. If they're needed, the editors will put them in. Spell checkers will catch them no problem. But on this end, there's no telling what will end up on my editor's screen if I try to make a fancy accented letter from my end. Meanwhile, my friend's wife is named is Renee, and y'all know what I'm saying even without the accented "e"!

Of course all paragraphs are separated with a blank line. We all know that, too.

All quotation marks become the "feet" and "inches" marks that live on the keyboard. Most word processors come with a way to convert them. If not, most editors have automated this process somehow.

An em-dash is a space, two hyphens, and another space. This makes sure that nobody thinks I'm putting two words together with a hyphen, and also makes sure that the em-dash wraps at the end of the line rather than halfway through the em-dash, with one hyphen above and the other on the next line. Ellipses are three periods (dots, for all you youngsters out there -- just kidding!).

If I want to indent, I simply
put three spaces before each line
and use hard-returns at the end
of each line, like this.

Again, the editor will intuitively
know what to do with it!

I use the asterisks for *italics* simply because I don't like to disrupt the "grey" of a page: others use _underscores_ for their own reasons. Almost everybody knows what either of these mean. When I want to do a footnote[*] or endnote[23], it goes in square brackets with no space after the word in question.

If you use Word or WordPerfect to type your letters, etc, using this method, be sure to turn the automatic curly-quotes off. I used to put an extra button on the main button bar that toggles this feature, but nowadays I don't use it at all. Instead, I simply convert any doc that does need the fancy typesetters marks. (On converting a doc, with WP, the trick is to turn typesetters quotes on and then search and replace the single "feet" mark with another "feet" mark, and then search and replace the double "inches" mark with another "inches" mark. I don't know how to convert a doc in Word, but I do know that this trick works in more than just WordPerfect, and has to do with how the the program knows to insert which typesetters marks while you're typing.

That's all I can remember for now. Take care!

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Comment from Lakhan on 2006-03-10

2006-03-11T05:46:19Z

I agree that Word files are bloated and are unsuitable as attachments.But if one likes to send a good document using ALL of Word's features, the better thing would be to create a Word document, convert it to .pdf format and send it as an attachment.That way you would have achieved your purpose of a good presentation as well as having a light attachment.

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A comment on: Why is attaching a Word document to email such a bad idea?

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