E-mailing
documents as attachments is a great method of sharing information in
an expedient manner – sure beats snail mail! But, what happens if
you’re unsure which type of word processing package the recipient
uses? If you send a Word document to an associate who is using
WordPerfect or WordPro, or whatever how will he/she be able to open
and save your document?
Or what happens when you’re sending an attachment to several people
using various word processing packages?
The solution to this problem for all word processing packages is
simply – RTF!
RTF refers to rich text format. When you save a
document in a rich text format it can be opened in virtually any word
processing package. This means no more worries about converting to
another version of your software or attempting to convert to an
entirely different software package.
When a WordPerfect document is saved as a "rich text
format and emailed as an attachment to a Word user, the Word
user can save and open the attachment – and low and behold there’s a
legible readable document in Word that can be saved, revised, printed,
or whatever.
Before e-mailing the document as an attachment, save it as a RTF
file type.
Change file type: Open the Save As dialog box and in
the Save as type/File type box open the drop-down
menu and select the file type – RTF. See below for
samples of Word & WordPerfect Save As dialog boxes.
Now that the document is saved as a RTF, it can be e-mailed
as an attachment and opened by virtually anyone. (Unsure of how to
send an attachment, read tips on
Sending E-Mail Attachments.)
OK, now that you’ve sent a RTF, what do you do when you
receive a RTF file?
Answer: Save the attachment to your hard drive as you normally
would save any attachment. (Unsure of how to save an attachment read
tips on
Opening and Saving E-Mail Attachments.)
Open your word processing package (if not already opened) and open
the Open dialog box. In the Open box change the files of
type to either RTF or All Files, find the file and open
it. File will open as a RTF file. See below for samples
of Word and WordPerfect Open dialog boxes.
Being able to save and open RTF files gives you the ability
to send e-mail attachments to practically anyone without worry of
asking yourself "does everyone I’m sending this to have the same word
processing package as I do?"
(If you e-mail a RTF file and are concerned that people will
not know how to open it, include a direct link to this article)
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