NZMac.com - Supporting the New Zealand Mac community

I have to send minutes and agendas out to quite a few people who are members of a committee I belong to.

I'm finding it frustrating, as sometimes they are unable to open the documents.

I use Word 2004 for Mac, and have the preferences set up for compatibility Word 97 through Word 2003 for Windows, and Word 98 through Word 2004 for Mac.

When I attach the documents to an email, I ask it to save as a Windows friendly attachment.

I would have thought that even the most recent versions of Word would be able to open these documents.

Anyone got any suggestions?

Thanks

SEONAID

Have you been able to provide the file to them directly without emailing it (eg on USB drive)? Can they open that file?
I have not had any issues with word documents, on problems seem to crop up in how the mail is handling the attachment (more often than not at the other parties mail server/client)
I do know that embedded images can cause some grief with PPT files. Interesting that one software house can have so many incompatibility issues with its product. Now with Office 2007 we have the old format issue again (on windows alone, nevermind mac)

Another solution may be to send the agenda as a PDF

Hi, thanks for the reply

I don't have a USB drive, and have up to 20 committee members to distribute the agenda and meeting minutes to each month.

I have suggested that they save the attachments to their hard drive, then launch Word, and try and open the documents via Word that way instead of doubleclicking.

Be interesting to see if that works.

Cheers

Hiya

Yes, though about the PDF thing. May have to resort to this - however, I am chairperson, and need to be able to share docs with the secretary and treasurers for editing etc. So ideally need to get the Word thing sorted if possible.

Cheers

Have had a reply re,- getting them to save the attachment to the hard drive etc. Some aren't very technical at all ?‚Äö?ᬮ¬? they don't know how to do it and have asked me to make it so they can just double click LOL! Grrrr ?‚Äö?ᬮ¬?

Cheers

Problem is usually with extensions.

Mac OS X, Linux etc are usually smart enough to know what program should open a file even if it doesn't have an extension (i.e. word docs end in .doc).

Sometimes Word for Mac doesn't save extensions to files. If a windows user receives the file windows doesn't know what to do with it. They can easily just add a .doc to it and it should open.

I've never used mail's "windows-friendly" but always made sure that every file I sent via email had the proper extension. Easiest way to make sure if select the file in finder and hit apple-i (or right-click and choose 'get info', under 'name & extension' make sure that there is an extension (i.e. .doc) on the file. Then just send via email.

I'm a computer lab admin at Massey and have to send files a lot and have never had a problems with windows users since always checking to make sure there is the proper extensions.

Let me know how it goes.


Jay.

You didn't say which email client you're using - that can make a difference. Check the Attachment settings for what format it's using.

A really good idea would be to stop sending out Word attachments. Instead either use a free Basecamp account (or the cheapest plan - US$12 per month) for general project management, including sharing files, or use Google Docs.

Basecamp has the advantage that you can notify everyone by email about the files (just check a box). Those few who are clued up (if any) can also get an RSS feed.

Google Docs is a far better way to work collaboratively on Wordprocessing and spreadsheet files as you email it or upload it to the Google Docs server then others can log in, make edits (if they're authorised to do so) and save, without the whole bother of handling attachments.

Cheers,

Miraz

Have you tried using something like Google Docs for those needing to edit the document?

They can edit online making any changes even if it is in use at the time by someone else (only Office 2007 can do this) so there is always a current document being edited.

Then once all the changes have been made you can convert the final doc to PDF to everyone.
http://docs.google.com

Of course as Chairperson you could always force the company to use Macs.

Is it worth bringing your baseline file format more up to date? i.e. taking compatibility back to 2000 instead of '97. Don't forget the extension.

McD