Word Docs get funky when sending to Windows XP user

[bclink]

I'm running Office v. X on my iMac with OS X.?!? Every time I send a
Word generated doc to a client running Windows XP he opens to find
garbage. Other clients with XP seem to have no problem. I'm quite
sure it's a setting on his computer but his I.T. guru (Fortune 500
company so they can't possibly be wrong) says it's because the doc is
generated on a Mac. Any suggestions? Can I save the doc as another
Word type? I've been sending PDF's but that doesn't give him the
opportunity to make adjustments.

 

[John McGhie]

The Fortune 500 IT department may well be right, if you are encoding your
attachment as either BinHex or Stuffit. PCs can't handle either unless they
have been configured to do so, and in the Fortune 500, they usually are not.

Assuming that you are sending from Entourage on the Mac, check your "Encode
For" settings on the Attachment bar. "Any Computer (AppleDouble)" and
"Windows (MIME/Base 64)" will work properly. The others probably won't,
depending on the recipient's configuration: you could send any of them to my
PC without complaint but that's not the norm in the Fortune 500, which would
rather save a buck than make things easy.

While you are in that dialog, ensure that you set Compression to "None".
Again, you could send Stuffit to a home PC without a problem: it would ask
for the Stuffit Expander, the user could download it for free, and they
would be able to receive Stuffit for the rest of time. Large companies do
not permit this.

Sounds like the recipient is opening the document by double-clicking it in
his email program.

If he does that, the system will often (particularly if the system is Lotus
Notes) mis-handle a Mac file.

Since you are using Mac OS X, and if you have OS X.3, you have the
opportunity to make an "archive". Simply select the file in the Finder and
right-click, choose Create Archive.

You will be presented with a .zip file. Send that to the recipient, and
tell him to save it to his hard disk before he attempts to open it.

The most important tip I can give you is "Never, EVER tell a Windows user
that your file has come from a Mac." If you don't tell them, it will just
work, and they will never know. If you tell them, they do strange things,
it doesn't work, and they blame the Mac.

Windows has been ignoring file name extensions for years; it simply doesn't
need them (except for plain text).

Cheers

I'm running Office v. X on my iMac with OS X.?!? Every time I send a
Word generated doc to a client running Windows XP he opens to find
garbage. Other clients with XP seem to have no problem. I'm quite
sure it's a setting on his computer but his I.T. guru (Fortune 500
company so they can't possibly be wrong) says it's because the doc is
generated on a Mac. Any suggestions? Can I save the doc as another
Word type? I've been sending PDF's but that doesn't give him the
opportunity to make adjustments.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Bill Weylock]

That advice should come stamped on the packing crates from Apple.

The most important tip I can give you is "Never, EVER tell a Windows user
that your file has come from a Mac." If you don't tell them, it will just
work, and they will never know. If you tell them, they do strange things,
it doesn't work, and they blame the Mac.

Panther 10.3.6
Office 2004
Windows XP Pro SP2
Office 2003

 

[Phillip M. Jones, CE.T.]

John,

This is an additional tip of interest. In recent years. Aladdin (now
Allume Systems) has added zip. This last go round they even add yenc as
well.

The only thing it doesn't do is compress the file. Even OSX make archive
(zip format) doesn't compress the file.

Maybe I am confused or don't know better. Back in yee olden days, when I
worked for a school system and had to "yuck" work on PC's as well as
Mac's, there was PKzip and PKunzip(back before MS bought it). They did
the equivelent of DiskDoubler or Stuffit they actually compressed files
while they were zipping them. Sometimes to 1/4 their original size. On
OS9 for Mac There was a version of Zip that would actually compress files.

Both OSX's zip facility and Aladdin Stuffit (or DropStuff) only encode
to zip format and the actual file ends up Larger. Sometimes even
significantly Larger.

Is this the norm even on MSZip?

The Fortune 500 IT department may well be right, if you are encoding your
attachment as either BinHex or Stuffit. PCs can't handle either unless they
have been configured to do so, and in the Fortune 500, they usually are not.

Assuming that you are sending from Entourage on the Mac, check your "Encode
For" settings on the Attachment bar. "Any Computer (AppleDouble)" and
"Windows (MIME/Base 64)" will work properly. The others probably won't,
depending on the recipient's configuration: you could send any of them to my
PC without complaint but that's not the norm in the Fortune 500, which would
rather save a buck than make things easy.

While you are in that dialog, ensure that you set Compression to "None".
Again, you could send Stuffit to a home PC without a problem: it would ask
for the Stuffit Expander, the user could download it for free, and they
would be able to receive Stuffit for the rest of time. Large companies do
not permit this.

Sounds like the recipient is opening the document by double-clicking it in
his email program.

If he does that, the system will often (particularly if the system is Lotus
Notes) mis-handle a Mac file.

Since you are using Mac OS X, and if you have OS X.3, you have the
opportunity to make an "archive". Simply select the file in the Finder and
right-click, choose Create Archive.

You will be presented with a .zip file. Send that to the recipient, and
tell him to save it to his hard disk before he attempts to open it.

The most important tip I can give you is "Never, EVER tell a Windows user
that your file has come from a Mac." If you don't tell them, it will just
work, and they will never know. If you tell them, they do strange things,
it doesn't work, and they blame the Mac.

Windows has been ignoring file name extensions for years; it simply doesn't
need them (except for plain text).

Cheers

--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |MEMBER:VPEA (LIFE) ETA-I, NESDA,ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112-1809 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

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<http://vpea.exis.net>

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Phillip:

This is an additional tip of interest. In recent years. Aladdin (now
Allume Systems) has added zip. This last go round they even add yenc as
well.

I thought they had Zip for a while?

The only thing it doesn't do is compress the file. Even OSX make archive
(zip format) doesn't compress the file.

You want to "test" that and get back to us? Things might have changed a bit
in the ten years or so since you last looked

I have a Word 2004 file here of 206 KB. I use OS X "Create Archive" and
it's 176 kb. That's normal: half of the file size of the document is
uncompressible pictures. Word 2004 documents are pre-compressed anyway, so
they're not a particularly compressible file.

On plain Text files OS X gives a normal Zip compression of about 70 per
cent.

Maybe I am confused or don't know better. Back in yee olden days, when I
worked for a school system and had to "yuck" work on PC's as well as
Mac's, there was PKzip and PKunzip(back before MS bought it). They did
the equivelent of DiskDoubler or Stuffit they actually compressed files
while they were zipping them. Sometimes to 1/4 their original size. On
OS9 for Mac There was a version of Zip that would actually compress files.

Both OSX's zip facility and Aladdin Stuffit (or DropStuff) only encode
to zip format and the actual file ends up Larger. Sometimes even
significantly Larger.

Using the same Word file of 206 kb, and Aladdin Stuffit Standard 8.0.2, it
ended up as 176 kb in .sitx, and 176 kb in .zip -- exactly the same degree
of compression.

Is this the norm even on MSZip?

No. Check your settings. Of course, if you convert a Stuffed file to a
Zip, it "won't" get noticeably smaller unless the file was huge to start
with, in which case the maximum Stuffit compression will be a few per cent
smaller than the maximum Zip compression.

On the PC, Zip has a higher level of compression available, but it's a
proprietary format that can only be decoded by WinZip.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Phillip M. Jones, CE.T.]

Hi Phillip:




I thought they had Zip for a while?

I as refering to yenc as a recent addition.

They have had Zip for several years now.

You want to "test" that and get back to us? Things might have changed a bit
in the ten years or so since you last looked

I have tried a file recently and it actually gre in size not decreased.

I have a Word 2004 file here of 206 KB. I use OS X "Create Archive" and
it's 176 kb. That's normal: half of the file size of the document is
uncompressible pictures. Word 2004 documents are pre-compressed anyway, so
they're not a particularly compressible file.

On plain Text files OS X gives a normal Zip compression of about 70 per
cent.



Using the same Word file of 206 kb, and Aladdin Stuffit Standard 8.0.2, it
ended up as 176 kb in .sitx, and 176 kb in .zip -- exactly the same degree
of compression.




No. Check your settings. Of course, if you convert a Stuffed file to a
Zip, it "won't" get noticeably smaller unless the file was huge to start
with, in which case the maximum Stuffit compression will be a few per cent
smaller than the maximum Zip compression.

On the PC, Zip has a higher level of compression available, but it's a
proprietary format that can only be decoded by WinZip.

--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |MEMBER:VPEA (LIFE) ETA-I, NESDA,ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112-1809 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://home.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://vpea.exis.net>