Unannoying e-Mail Attachments

Many people send e-Mails with attached documents. The problem is that too many senders assume that all the recipients will see the attached document exactly as the sender intended. I get lots of those, and it is very annoying, because reading what the sender wants me to read can be quite a chore.

Here's what happens: the sender creates a document using certain software, and that software is configured in the way to sender likes the software set up. For all recipients to see the attached document exactly as the sender intended, the following must occur:
1. all of the recipients use the same software as the sender
2. those recipients who use the same software as the sender must have their software configured similar to the sender's software configuration
3. the sender must use fonts that ALL recipients have installed on their computers

Those are some very big assumptions. For instance, attached documents sent from a PC using Microsoft Word might be unreadable for several reasons:

• on a Macintosh computer, because MacIntosh users tend to prefer software other than MS Word
• not all PCs have the same word processing software installed
• PCs and Macs do not use all of the same fonts
• Not all PCs and Macs have Microsoft Word installed

Then there is the issue of malware(especially viruses). The most common method of transmitting malware is to attach viruses to documents (especially MS Word documents) - and then sending those infected files via e-mail.

The list of problems goes on and on.

There is a solution. The sender should send documents in a 'universal' format, and the recipients' computers should have the ability to read documents sent in a universal format.

That part is easy. There are three widely-used universal document formats. Most (as in 99.9999999% or more) PCs and Macs have software for reading both of those universal formats.

The formats are

• plain text - text with no formatting (think of a typewriter) no special fonts, no embedded images, etc
• HTML - the lingua franca of the Internet
• PDF - Portable Document Format

Yes, I know there is RichText Format - RTF - a glorified plain text (allows centering, font effects such as bold and italic). RTF is NOT universal for the same reasons that MS Word is not universal.

There are many free, easily used programs that will create universal files - text, HTML. and PDF from scratch or from existing files. The easiest to create is PDF. Here's how to do it on ANY PC:

1. Download and install Primo PDF.
2. Create & Save a document using ANY Word processor.
3. Primo PDF installs itself as a printer (stay with me...).
4. Print the document, but instead of printing to your usual printer, select PrimoPDF from the list of available printers.
5. Primo will ask you to name the new file and to tell Primo where it can put the new file. Tell Primo what it needs to know.
6. The document thus created will be a universal PDF file that virtually anyone with any computer can read. Primo will maintain your document's format - including fonts. Your file will appear the same on any computer.

Rather than attach the original - most likely not a 'universal' - file, attach the 'universal' PDF file that Primo created for you.