Email attachments

kantara · Newbie Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 1

Hi all

I'm new to OpenOffcie and Linux. Dumb question follows. If I send an OpenOffice document as an email attachhment and the guy receiviing it is running MS office, can he open it?

Thanks

erikanderson3 · Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 9:29 pm Post subject:

Not a dumb question -- As my old bio teacher used to say, no question is dumb if you don't know the answer. Wink

And the answer is:

If you saved your document in .doc format, then great, your email pen pal will be able to open it just fine. If it's in the OOo native .sxw format, they won't be able to see much. You can use just about any old zip program to unzip the .sxw file, and then a text editor (I think even Word) to view the xml files within, sans WYSIWYG formatting, of course.

Bear in mind, though, that the MS Word export is not perfect -- complicated layouts will look different in Word than they do in Writer. Things should still be perfectly legible, however. Smile

If you need the formatting to be rock solid, and the end user doesn't need direct access to the text (i.e. for editing), then I strongly suggest you save to pdf format, as that's the only one practically guaranteed to look right on the other end (unless of course your friend can also be persuaded to install OOo Very Happy

).

HTH,

Erik

Guest · Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 9:51 pm Post subject:

Great!!

Thanks for that.

antonbijl · Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 11:59 pm Post subject:

I would also suggest that if you only want your friend to read the document (and not edit) that pdf might be a good format to use, since OOo features a nice pdf export filter. In that case your friend will need to have a pdf viewer like Adobe Reader, but most people have this.

HTH

Anton

Gerhard_Wien · Newbie Joined: 27 Feb 2004 Posts: 4

Pdf is great, if the recipiant just has to "see" the document. BUT you can't edit a pdf-file.

If you work together with people that (still ?) use ms-office, convert your files to the rtf-format (Menu: "save as", the select "rtf" as document type).
You can even set "rtf" as your default type. Make the people, that send YOU files, also convert theire doc-files to "rtf" when sending them.

Gerhard

8daysaweek.co.uk · Super User Joined: 29 Nov 2003 Posts: 2130 Location: UK

The drawback with using .rtf format is that any images in the document are not saved embedded in it, but are saved as separate files...

See these previous threads:
http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4830&highlight=rtf+pictures
http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=523&highlight=rtf+pictures

...worth bearing in mind if you take up Gerhard's suggestion.

BFN,
_________________
James
www.8daysaweek.co.uk - A User-Focused OOo site

Gerhard_Wien · Newbie Joined: 27 Feb 2004 Posts: 4

James is right!
You must send those pictures together with the file. Beware: its not only pictures but also logos or things like that you might use in the header/footer or as watermarks.

Gerhard

Gabor · Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 6:37 am Post subject: characters

Furthermore, if you use a language which has accented characters they will most likely appear as Tahoma instead of the original font is you save as RTF an the open in Word. If you save as Word this will not happen.

Furthermore, the top margins will largely increase if the file is saved in RTF, and most likely page numbering will be lost.

I have insisted on using rtf for over half a year but I had to give up.

Kaaredyret · Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 8:31 am Post subject:

Don't use the RTF filter in OpenOffice or StarOffice unless you have no choice.

The OpenOffice RTF import/export filters uses some older definition of RTF, that nothing I have come across supports. I even saw the programmer behind AbiWords RTF import in the RTF-issue on OpenOffice.org, complaining about the OpenOffice.org programmers use of an old RTF standard.

RTF specs provides two different ways to insert pictures in an rtf doc, both inline and in a separate file. In the real world with real users, everybody prefers inline images, perhaps linked images are fine for huge documents though.

Beware: if you receive a RTF file witn inline images from sombydy, OOo will strip out the image and save it as a linked file. Not good id you need to send the file back to the sender, eh?

The OOo team really got response on this one, the RTF filter will be improved in OOo 2.0!
_________________
www.kaaredyret.dk - OpenOffice resources (templates, extensions, tutorials and more) !
Stay updated on software and OpenOffice.org news via Twitter

J. Till · Guest

There is a macro for sending a .doc email attachment.
http://www.ooomacros.org/user.php
I have not tried it yet.
J. Till