I’ve been having a few problems with my server the past few days – and one of them seems to have been an issue with getting my last ProBlogger Newsletter out. If you didn’t get it feel free to download it (as a word document) via:
About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Hi Darren
If you want to consider saving such files in the pdf format, instead of as Word documents, you can download a free office suite called OpenOffice.org. It’s at http://www.openoffice.org/ and I notice there is also a version for the Mac. As a pre-requisite (for some features) you would need to download the “jre” (java runtime environment) from http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html
With the pdf format people who can’t afford to buy MS Word would only need the free Adobe Reader from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/
As well as being able to save to the pdf format it can save and read MS Office formats as well, though they are still polishing off a couple of formatting bugs with that (like bullets).
For PDF creation I use PDF 995. It allows for “printing” to a PDF file. It’s ridiculously easy and because you are “printing” you can use it on webpages, emails, word docs, whatever. You can pay for it, or if you’re cheap like me use it for free and deal with their pop-up window everytime you print to pdf.
Of course since Darren is on a Mac, PDF creation is built-in to the OS without needing any additional software. :) ‘File’ -> ‘Print’ -> ‘PDF’ -> ‘Save asPDF’.
Peter, there is a MS Word viewer (also MS Powerpoint viewer etc) from Microsoft which i think is free. It’ll allow users to read the Word files, but not edit them.
Word is a proprietary document format. Most documents do not need to be saved in word format – rtf or pdf are much better options.
If you’re not so bothered about precise formatting, PDF probably isn’t the best option – it tends to create weighty files. OK I guess most people reading this are on decent connections, but a RTF would be adequate, or even an HTML file with CSS.
That’s interesting about pdf creation being already in the Mac OS. I didn’t know that.
Have fun