Emails

[agmlego.livejournal.com]

As promised here, below lie links to the various boilerplate emails I send out for various issues, including...

• ...the sending of Office attachments (first, second times): here
  
• ...the sending of Office attachments (third, fourth times): here
  
• ...the sending of Office attachments (fifth time): here
  
• ...the sending of Office attachments (sixth time): here
  
• ...the sending of unsubscribe (or personal/sensitive) messages to lists: here
  
• ...the polite asking for help in fields I am not familiar with: here
  
• ...the rude asking for help in fields I am not familiar with: here
  
• ...(NEW, adapted from here) the spamming of lists/address books with panic emails: here
  

Note that, though the files linked above are HTML files, the actual emails sent are in plaintext format. The rationale behind the HTML files above is the increased efficacy of hyperlinks when viewed in a web browser. The pages linked to are either reference materials (Google, Wikipedia, Snopes, ATLAS, etc.,) or rationale pages (like this), which are almost guaranteed to be up at all times. If you do use these documents, especially the rationale pages, please consider mirroring them on a server more personal to you. Feel free to modify these documents and the rationale pages as you see fit--I release them into the public domain.

Enjoy!

--
"Memento Mori Ergo Carpe Diem"

Comments

[simoncion.livejournal.com]

ghostandp was mis-informed.
Check this out:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference.html

[shifuimam.livejournal.com]

Regardless of the possibility of creating applications that can convert to PDF, it is not as universal a format as, say, plain text. The only way that someone can be guaranteed that anyone can view a document is to save it in plain text. However, this is frequently impossible, particularly when you're dealing with complex Excel spreadsheets or carefully formatted Word documents.

Not everyone has easy access to utilities to convert files to PDF. Users on company-managed hardware are many times at the mercy of the software available to them. Since you can't convert stuff to PDF in Windows without third-party software and many users in work environments have locked down machines with no installation rights, converting to PDF is not really an acceptable catch-all option.

Nor is saving to HTML, since a document may contain watermarks or logos. The user would then need to zip up the HTML and all accompanying files and send you the archive, which could end up getting stripped out by overzealous spam filters.

You demand that someone read your pretentious monologue on Office formats, yet can't be bothered to open their damn file in the appropriate software. If I ever came across someone who was asshole enough about being a Linux user to actively delete any message with an Office-format file attachment, I'd just quit sending them stuff entirely. It's not really worth the time to try and appease the kind of douchebags who take open source that seriously.

[simoncion.livejournal.com]

Regardless of the possibility of creating applications that can convert to PDF, it is not as universal a format as, say, plain text.

If the measure of a format's universality is the number of installed editors for that format, then I agree with this statement. Regardless, your point is a reasonable one.

The only way that someone can be guaranteed that anyone can view a document is to save it in plain text.

This is not always true. Some editors can't handle Unicode. There can be character encoding issues with 8 bit per char files. ;)

users on company-managed hardware are many times at the mercy of the software available to them.

The GPP mentions that this recommendation is aimed at college professors.

You demand that someone read your pretentious monologue on Office formats,

I have made no demands. As I have said elsewhere the only things that I have authored here have my username attached to them.

If I ever came across someone who was asshole enough...I'd just quit sending them stuff entirely.

I suppose that you didn't read the *entire* series of "please don't send me Office files..." templates? Check this one (http://frondeur.homelinux.net/public/emails/nooffice_5.html) out. It's the fifth in the series of six. Notice the phrases "without a valid reason" and "forced to block your address". I'd be grateful if you'd have a beer or whatever while you mull over this. Please turn down the heat a bit when you come back, k?