autoecart — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 19:29:01 +0000

Word files contain tons of extra code and can hurt your sites ranking if published as a web page. If you plan of placing these online you should have them converted to a non word html file

JeevesBond — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 13:28:34 +0000

Am not sure about Word, but I just tested with OpenOffice Writer and that does store the author and a comment (in this case: "StarWriter" another name for the software). You'd better get your php geek to test himself (am afraid I don't have MS Office anymore).

A shame they wont move to ODF, it's scary that neither a charity or organisation using tax payers money will even consider Free/Open Source Software! Mention it to them again when they need to upgrade their MS Office.

mrgrimes — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 07:35:40 +0000

Thanks guys. However I have to use something other than pdf or ODF as UK schoolteachers need to be able to edit them and use them. Therefore it has to be in a format that opens in Word (being the most widely used word processor), and often in very old versions of it. And unfortunately there's no way I could persuade my organisation (a charity) to move from MS to open source (I've already tried!). I'll keep my eye on that MS converter, but in the meantime it seems I have to use either .doc or .rtf - or both.

Incidentally, does an rtf file saved from Word still contain embedded user information?

JeevesBond — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 23:56:10 +0000

Greg K wrote: And how long before they start sticking their own crap into the files anyhow? Word can save as a web page too, ever look at the source code?

lol, that's a good point. Although this is Open Source (yes, Microsoft actually went to Source Forge and opened a project!), and MS are sponsoring it. They had to be bullied into it by all the organisations that were switching to ODF though.

Agreed on the OpenOffice points Greg, although there isn't much of a familiarity hurdle as Word and OpenOffice Word Processor are pretty similar.

I would opt for pdf if you have to choose a format. There's a free converter available: http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp that works in Windows just like a printer. This will be fine unless the documents need to be editable. In which case you could use OpenOffice - or Word until that converter is more widely available.

Greg K — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 22:56:51 +0000

JeevesBond wrote: There will be an add-on for Microsoft Office to save documents in this format

And how long before they start sticking their own crap into the files anyhow? Word can save as a web page too, ever look at the source code? :blech:

While I can see the point of ot limiting people to just Word, it was pointed out that they do only use Word.

Gotta give credit to Microsoft, let colleges have it cheap, let students get it for like $10, and then by the time they have their degree, "familiarity" is already set in. I may not always agree with Billy boy, but he does know how to do what he does.

Myself, I prefer Word Perfect. I have been installing Open Office for freinds lately though, and from what I have seen, unless you are really using something WAY advanced and specific to Word/Excel etc, Open office will do just fine, just has the familiartiy hurdle.

What is your PHP developer offering as an alternative to word format? Just RTF? I wouldjust allow them to use word if they want, but be sure to have disclaimers on the site and advise college to make sure they have current virus protection.

-Greg

JeevesBond — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 21:57:31 +0000

Sorry, didn't see your second post Michael, you posted as I was still writing!

Viruses are a valid concern. Luckily MS have included a prompt which allows the user to select whether they wish to run macros in the document or not. This does not protect against every issue though, and more flaws are always being found: http://blogs.securiteam.com/?p=586 .

For sharing (if not everything), keep away from MS Word (in fact avoid MS when doing anything involving the Internet!).

JeevesBond — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 21:48:06 +0000

Word files are also bad for sharing as they are a proprietary format. Meaning only people with a copy of Microsoft Word can open those files.

PDF is a relatively open format (compared to Word), most people should be able to open those files. Sharing using MS Word is a bad idea.

You might want to consider ODF (Open Document Format). There will be an add-on for Microsoft Office to save documents in this format, or you could try out OpenOffice.org. It's Open Source so anyone can use it.

The great thing about ODF is that the format is totally open, anyone can write software using the ODF standard. It recently became an ISO standard. ODF has/will be adopted in some important places: City of Birmingham UK, City of Bristol UK, Commonwealth of Massachusetts' more examples at: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Major_OpenOffice.org_Deployments

As for his other concerns, I have never really known them to be a problem (I'd be more concerned about vendor lock-in). Although he does have some valid points, as does Greg above: You don't want to let people try to upload huge files to limited web space!

Try mentioning that format and see if it passifies him at all. His real concern might be that using a proprietary format is going to lock you into that format.

mrgrimes — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 21:38:38 +0000

Thanks Greg, it's a good point (we would impose a file size limit anyway though, as a standard procedure). Is it a good reason to avoid them though? Either I have to educate about optimising images or about using rtf files. The former needs to be done anyway - as colleagues are increasingly responsible for creating pdfs and maintaining web pages - whereas there seems little obvious reason (in their eyes) for duplicating every document as a rich text file.

Have you had any problems with embedded information or viruses?

Michael

Greg K — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 21:02:55 +0000

One big problem can be filesize. A lot of people have no idea how to properly resize images for proper use, and will insert a large full size picture into a word document just to "resize" it down to say 1" wide. Now I have a 4megapixel camera that I don't even use on highest quality, and those pictures are 900k each.

A few "full size" photos inserted in a document can really add to the final word file.

-Greg