Microsoft Word

[VicParticipant @vic]

My wife received a poorly formatted document the other day so we had to direct the sender to this page. Some of you may find it of interest!

**LINK**

[VicParticipant @vic]

[Thor 🇳🇴Participant @thor]

I usually use PDF when sending/publishing files, works on most computer systems.

Thor

[VicParticipant @vic]

I usually only send PDF and JPEG files. I didn’t know about the security issues with Word though.

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

i don't see what his problem is I'm currently using MS office 2003 and regularly send word docs to members of my club without any issues, also i receive word docs from senderswith more modern versions of word.

H

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

The advice given is somewhat dated (maybe 10+ years old) – the word macro vector for viruses is usually checked by the necessary windows security programs – the latest docx files are now nearly always fully readable by Open Office or similar though possibly formatting won’t be the same (it never was eg between Windows + Macs when in past there was Word for Mac) – the major difficulty these days between latest Word + the free Open Office is in more complex excel spreadsheets as the calculations may not be handled in same way
There used in the past to be some government forms that would only work with Word but think the UK government has now rewritten these to be agnostic re document systems (eg using standard HTML) – local government may still do so without realising the problem.

Edited By Frances IoM on 17/03/2019 16:03:32

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Thing is you can write something equally damning about any other word processor, just pick teh ground you want to stand on.

For example you can argue that formatting to the recipients settings is part of the job for a word processor. Or not.

Neil

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

I have to say that I have long been unhappy with Microsoft and its attempts to control what everyone does. Like other people, I now use pdf's but in the past have resorted to using a non-Microsoft word-processor which has, supposedly, compatible .doc formats.

But, I wonder? Has anyone tried returning a .doc document to the originator, especially officialdom, saying that you cannot read it, and would you please re-send using a standard format? Or even sending a document in a non-Microsoft format? I should imagine that there are a lot of Microsoft users out there who have no idea how to either send or receive in an alternative format.

Unfortunately, I'm not in any sort of position now to be able to do it, otherwise I'd love to do it.

Peter G. Shaw

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

LibreOffice is free and is increasingly being used by authorities, schools etc.

Martin.

[Pete WhiteParticipant @petewhite15172]

Posted by blowlamp on 18/03/2019 13:33:01:

LibreOffice is free and is increasingly being used by authorities, schools etc.

Works for me, as does Linux, through my windows out 16 years ago.

 

 

 

 

Edited By Pete White on 18/03/2019 13:49:22

[egaParticipant @ega]

Plus one for LibreOffice!

PDF: am I right in thinking that it was only relatively recently that Adobe put the format into the public domain?

[VicParticipant @vic]

I haven't used MS word at home for many years, I use Free Office. I still would’nt send anyone a free office document either though for the same reasons. As said in the link assuming someone else is able to view your document correctly is just plain wrong. Saying “I’ve sent out loads of documents and not had any problems” proves nothing.

I argued against sending out word documents to customers where I used to work and It did take several years for them to get the message. Increasing numbers of customers were complaining that the documents sent to them were unreadable or simply didn’t look right. The company finally stumped up for Adobe Acrobat and the problem went away. PDF has been around for decades and the reader is free and available for a large range of different platforms including windows. Microsoft don’t like competition though so have never really approved of PDF. Apple on the other hand have always supported PDF and it’s built into the operating system so it’s easy to generate an adobe compatible PDF. I’ve seen many PDF documents generated on windows machines using dodgy “PDF printers” and the results can be truely awful.

There are other options though as mentioned in the link so you don’t have to use PDF.

Here’s another link. A PDF is a Document, a Word file isn’t:

**LINK**

And another.

**LINK**

[AdrianRParticipant @adrianr18614]

+1 Libre Office

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Just a VERY important point here. I don't want this discussion to encourage people to send me PDFs!

I'm happy to receive submissions for MEW in the popular word-processing formats .DOC, .DOCX, .ODT, .RTF.

Mac users often make a point that they can open and save Word documents in Pages but Word users can't do the opposite. This is actually because Apple keep the .PAGES file format proprietory, but Microsoft allow the .DOC and DOCX format to be used by others. You can often salvage text from a PAGES file by changing the extension to .ZIP but the formatting is lost*.

What I can't do is handle PDFs, because they are not easily edited unless you have a full version of Acrobat and I don't. Cutting and pasting out of a PDF is very hit and miss.

PDF is what to use for invoices, legal documents, client reports and publications that need to appear the same everywhere. It is not suitable for documents that need to be readily edited.

So PLEASE submit your articles in one of the four formats in bold above (or if you really must as .TXT files).

Thanks

Neil

*Not a complete disaster as one of the first things I have to do to submitted articles is remove or replace most of the carefully applied formatting so I can send the designer 'vanilla' text, however, some formatting like bold headings and picture references does make my task easier…

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

Neil – the standard Linux pdf reader allows easy copying of segments of text – obviously formatting is generally lost but often the whole pdf doc can be rendered into a txt file with just a save-as.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 18/03/2019 18:46:38:

Microsoft allow the .DOC and DOCX format to be used by others.

.

Thus making these a de facto standard …

[ that's a typically clever bit of market manipulation ]

MichaelG.

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

Michael – Microsoft dominance was threatened as organisations + governments required that software complied with intl standards – ODF had been standardised – Microsoft ‘packed’ an ISO standards committee by paying for voting members from countries that normally put no input into these committees to accept docx (for which they had to publish a workable standard) and unbelievably for doc for which the stands had that it needed to follow the behaviour of a specific MS program! – one of the many reason many associated with open software do not trust MS

Edited By Frances IoM on 18/03/2019 19:42:52

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I was first aware of docx. and xlsx. a couple of years ago when I wanted to send pensions-related documents home from my work computer, in preparation for my retirement; and discovered they had been automatically converted to this locked form, like a pdf image-file. Luckily I found saving documents and spread-sheets in early formats seemed to bypass this little racket.

(The spread-sheets did include some lunch-break work, as change-wheel tables for the EW lathe, and one of somewhere-useful equivalents for my small Denbigh horizontal mill with its one 8tpi and two 6tpi, lead-screws!)

Also, I had a frustrating time as a society committee-member, when fellow officers circulated reports in all sorts of different appearance formats and file types, including those "x" ones. The latter were impossible to edit so I could not compile them all neatly into single meeting handbooks.

I noticed the docx. files invoked a pop-up from Adobe, with a big blue "Convert" button under a file-type menu. It was, how shall I put this politely, disingenuous! The Convert button actually opened a sales page making clear you do not buy Adobe Acrobat outright but subscribe to it at tens of ££/month. OK perhaps for a company but not for a private user needing such software only ad-hoc and occasionally.

WinZip has gone the same way, at about £30 – £40 / month, according to its own pop-up ads saying my "software is out of date".

Sharks!

[Brian GParticipant @briang]

To be fair, Microsoft offer a free compatibility pack for earlier versions of Office software, and there are plenty of free online file converters (although with many .docx and .xlsx files all you need to do is change the file extension to .doc or .xls to open in earlier versions).

I wonder, does everybody who objects to the fact that Microsoft's (and for that matter Adobe's and Autodesk's,) proprietary standards are becoming the de facto standards for documents refuse on principle to use Morse, Jacobs and R8 tapers, Brown and Sharpe cutters or ER collets?

Brian

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Brian G on 19/03/2019 07:43:21:

To be fair [ … ] I wonder, does everybody who objects to the fact that Microsoft's (and for that matter Adobe's and Autodesk's,) proprietary standards are becoming the de facto standards for documents refuse on principle to use Morse, Jacobs and R8 tapers, Brown and Sharpe cutters or ER collets?

.

Brian,

Having made no such objection, but simply having remarked upon "a typically clever bit of market manipulation" … I don't feel able to comment on that question.

MichaelG.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

A good point, Michael, but I don't think that's the problem. As engineers we are all used to the principles established by Sir Joseph Whitworth.

The difficulty is not industry-standards: we all benefit from them. Rather, it is the underhand actions of the computer and telecommunications trade, including its wilful attempts to render working systems and files obsolete or difficult within spans of years well within physical reality.

You buy a machine-tool and its tooling as one-off purchases, knowing whether they are brand-new or fifty years old (as long as they have not been abused or simply worn out), they will fit together and work properly.

You might buy by hire-purchase (credit-card or bank loan), but you do not hire the equipment on open-ended contracts – and once you've paid the debt off, that equipment is yours and fully-useable indefinitely.

You might hire rather than buy a concrete-mixer to lay your workshop foundations, but that again is a clear, transparent and honest transaction.

You subscribe to ME, MEW or any other magazine, or to particular TV channels, but whilst prices do rise over time, these too are transparent contracts. Also, you know you can keep printed literature and re-read it easily years hence.

Each model of machine-tool has a production life like any other large manufactured item, so spares are eventually no longer made new even if the maker is still trading. However, you do not expect the manufacturer to try to force you to buy new by rendering the existing machine and tooling unusable.

Nor will the maker or dealer demand you hire the machine at rates that over, say, 10 years, will total far more than the original single-sale value; and unlike software run by a remote monopoly, the machine will not stop working because you have not installed unsolicited "up-grades". (Unless it's a CAD/CAM machine, perhaps!)

So whilst I agree we do not object to engineering standards, and might not object to software standards, they are not the problem. It is how they are exploited, that is.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 18/03/2019 22:21:51:

I was first aware of docx. and xlsx. a couple of years ago when I wanted to send pensions-related documents home from my work computer, in preparation for my retirement; and discovered they had been automatically converted to this locked form, like a pdf image-file. Luckily I found saving documents and spread-sheets in early formats seemed to bypass this little racket.

(The spread-sheets did include some lunch-break work, as change-wheel tables for the EW lathe, and one of somewhere-useful equivalents for my small Denbigh horizontal mill with its one 8tpi and two 6tpi, lead-screws!)

Also, I had a frustrating time as a society committee-member, when fellow officers circulated reports in all sorts of different appearance formats and file types, including those "x" ones. The latter were impossible to edit so I could not compile them all neatly into single meeting handbooks.

I noticed the docx. files invoked a pop-up from Adobe, with a big blue "Convert" button under a file-type menu. It was, how shall I put this politely, disingenuous! The Convert button actually opened a sales page making clear you do not buy Adobe Acrobat outright but subscribe to it at tens of ££/month. OK perhaps for a company but not for a private user needing such software only ad-hoc and occasionally.

WinZip has gone the same way, at about £30 – £40 / month, according to its own pop-up ads saying my "software is out of date".

Sharks!

Perhaps or perhaps not…

When DOCX and XLSX came out Microsoft released a free patch that allowed all previous versions of their programs to save, edit and open them.

As for winZip, there has been a paid for version for, possibly, decades, windows can now handle zip files natively so you don't need it unless you want all the fancy extras of the pro version, so the free version is now redundant.

Neil

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 19/03/2019 09:31:45:

Each model of machine-tool has a production life like any other large manufactured item, so spares are eventually no longer made new even if the maker is still trading. However, you do not expect the manufacturer to try to force you to buy new by rendering the existing machine and tooling unusable.

Isn't that exactly what happens when something new like camlock or INT taper is introduced? If you use the newer machines you have to accept your older tooling will become redundant.

Neil

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Yes, to a point. For a start, engineering standards don't change so often that they worry us as amateur engineers.

Also, the new standards do not mean we cannot find new owners for our equipment, because rather than rapid replacement they tend to add to the range.

We can use Morse or R8 tooling for example, because although industry now generally uses the INT series, there are still plenty of users and buyers of older machine-tools and fittings still serviceable decades after manufacture – and there are plenty of the smaller machine-tools and tooling using the Morse, possibly also R8, tapers still being made.

I know some tooling standards have fallen by the wayside (I never identified my IXL/ Erhlich lathe's spindle taper!), and BS / BA fastenings are disappearing, with the American inch-based UN series possibly following suit – but these are gradual, evolutionary rather than revolutionary, changes.

The IT trade's model is to make sweeping changes every few years and render anything in its older forms as unusable as rapidly as possible. Some reflects genuine electronics development but a lot of changes are just tinkering for nakedly commercial reasons.

People like Whitworth introduced standards to help engineering, not hinder it, by ensuring both interchangeability and long-term continuity.

MS and its ilk manipulate standards to obstruct while maximising profits, by technically-needless changes that stifle interchanging and prevent continuity.

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