Re: N2525 and N2526

From: Anto'nio Martins-Tuva'lkin (antonio@tuvalkin.web.pt)
Date: Fri Nov 29 2002 - 13:31:46 EST

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    On 2002.11.26, 16:28, Doug Ewell <dewell@adelphia.net> wrote:

    > > Hm. Is is OK to distributite documentation in such a proprieatry and
    > > virus-prone format when a safe and platform-independent equivalent
    > > (.rtf) is readily avaliable?...
    >
    > but isn't "virus-prone" a bit of fear-mongering?

    <OT>
    No. It is sheer realism. I'm bit away from that problem, since I do not
    use Outlook for my e-mail operations, sed I get daily my fair share of
    SirCam and BugBear infected messages for John Doe out there (I delete it
    on server, thanks! ;-).
    </OT>

    > Are there any Word users out there who *don't* have macro virus
    > checking turned on?

    <OT>
    Yes, there are. As well as users of Word95 and (some releases) of
    Word97, with macros enabled by default. As well as many users of
    versions Outlook and OutlookExpress with script execution from the
    pre-view panel enabled by default. Etc.
    </OT>

    > In theory RTF is more platform-independent than Word format, but in
    > practice I really don't know how many non-Windows systems are able to
    > read RTF.

    Apparently many, judging from the other replies. But my point was not to
    promote RTF in favour of PDF -- just that one can, as easily as saving
    something from MSWord in its native format, save it in RTF instead (F.i.
    I use MSWord a lot and I dont keep a single .doc file in my machines.)

    > (Indeed, HTML is probably the format I'd use to distribute such a
    > document, if I didn't have access to Distiller.)

    Same here, but users of MSWord (such as in the original example) may
    find more cumbersome to generate a PDF than a RTF -- and the way MSWord
    creates HTML is probably the worst thing one can make to support the
    cause of HTML... ;-)

    -- ____.
    António MARTINS-Tuválkin | ()|
    <antonio@tuvalkin.web.pt> |####|
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    http://www.tuvalkin.web.pt/bandeira/ só me invejo de quem bebe |
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