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Thread ID: 86159	2008-01-06 20:17:00	PDF's	gary67 (56)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
627921	2008-01-10 10:31:00	Don't dog on the PDF, it's one of my top three favourite file types TBH. It's a file format that fills a need none other could really. And with tools like the 800 KB Sumatra PDF viewe (blog.kowalczyk.info)r, the recently well reviewed PDF to Word converter (www.hellopdf.com) and websites like Scribd (www.scribd.com/) and pdf-mags (http:) spreading PDF love, it's easy to see that PDFs flexibility couldn't be replaced by any other single format.	sal (67)
627922	2008-01-10 10:56:00	If you don't want "wheels and bistles," then plain text is what you want. Plain text is actually the best format for sharing data, as it's guaranteed to be able to be read by any computer running any OS. However, people like to be able to "play" with the layout of the text. Add bold, italic, font changes, etc. And this is where the problem lies in distributing documents -- if you want the recipients to have your text formatting (for whatever reason) and you send the "raw" file that you used to create your layout, your recipient may not have the program required to read the file. So you save it as a PDF, which (a) preserves layout, and (b) is cross-platform. Note I'm not talking about logos, fancy colours, things like that when I use the word "layout" ... I'm talking about things like Section Headings in reports, italics for names of books, tabular columns, headers and footers with page numbers. Again, this is only for distributing documents. What you actually create them in is totally separate, and your choice (tho', again, I suggest Word isn't actually the best one, but I digress...). [As an aside, PDFs have much less "crap" in them than a Word document ... and a plain text document has none! :) But no text formatting, obviously ... unless you save it as an RTF ... oh, another can of worms! ]	davehartley (3487)
627923	2008-01-10 11:09:00	I use PrimoPDF. The reasons I use PDF files are because they are harder for people to edit and as I email a lot of quotes and not everyone has Office 2007 so wouldn't be able to open the file I sent them. A PDF of a word document is a lot smaller too so is better for emailing.	CYaBro (73)
627924	2008-01-10 11:34:00	davehartley: I know distributing txt files was big back in the day ( Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of plain text too but I'm not going to agree that plain text is the best format for sharing data. I'd much rather read the latest ChangeThis manifesto (http://www.changethis.com/" target="_blank">www.textfiles.com/) but outside of email, real documents require a lot more formatting options than notepad. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of plain text too but I'm not going to agree that plain text is the best format for sharing data. I'd much rather read the latest ChangeThis manifesto (http:) as a well structured PDF than a plain text file any day. And besides, text is only a part of the story when talking PDFs. Vector support alone within PDFs extends its functionality and awesomeness 10 fold. Another online PDF tool I forgot to mention in my last PDF "link post" is PDF Hammer (http://www.pdfhammer.com/), an online PDF editor.	sal (67)
627925	2008-01-10 22:02:00	sal: If you're talking about sharing documents, then I'd still contend that text files are guaranteed to "work" on anybody's system :) However, I accept that people today want "more" than simple plain text, and I think you can read into my previous posts that I advocate using PDFs. :thumbs: (Especially over using Word!)	davehartley (3487)
627926	2008-01-11 02:55:00	The reasons I use PDF files are because they are harder for people to edit and as I email a lot of quotes and not everyone has Office 2007 so wouldn't be able to open the file I sent them. CYaBro, you do know that in Office 2007 you can change the default file type docs are saved to so that previous versions of Word (etc) can open them? You don't have to save in the new .docx format. Some of our office have switched to Office 2007 and I have made sure everyone is saving to .doc format still - we do a lot of Word document sharing between various parties and I would hate for clients to struggle opening a new version of a Word doc we sent them (even with the compatibility pack...). davehartley - Thanks for the link on why Word is a bad doc exchange format. Made for some interesting reading. You wouldn't believe the amount of times I've seen Word docs with rather interesting comments left in them. I guess MS have caught on now as they have a new "Inspect Document" feature in 07 that lets you check for tracked changes, comments etc.	susann (12077)
627927	2008-01-11 03:40:00	CYaBro, you do know that in Office 2007 you can change the default file type docs are saved to so that previous versions of Word (etc) can open them? You don't have to save in the new . docx format . Yes I do thanks . But not everyone has Office of any version, not just 2007 . Did you know that there is an update you can download that allows older versions of Office to open the . docx, xlsx etc files?	CYaBro (73)
627928	2008-01-11 06:18:00	Yes I do thanks. But not everyone has Office of any version, not just 2007. Did you know that there is an update you can download that allows older versions of Office to open the .docx, xlsx etc files? Do you want to post a link to it then save us all some searching	gary67 (56)
627929	2008-01-11 06:35:00	I believe this (www.microsoft.com) is what you're looking for :) It allows Office Xp and 2003 to open the new office formats.	davehartley (3487)
627930	2008-01-11 07:32:00	Yes I do thanks. But not everyone has Office of any version, not just 2007. Did you know that there is an update you can download that allows older versions of Office to open the .docx, xlsx etc files? Ah, good point. Yup, that's the compatibility pack I mentioned. I downloaded it for everyone in our office back in March, expecting a whole heap of .docx format Word docs to come thru when people upgraded to 07. But hasn't really happened yet...	susann (12077)
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