From: "Rod Gasson" 

"andrew clarke" 
wrote in message
news:110343681{at}f267.n633.z3.ftn...
> Sun 2004-03-28 20:18, Rod Gasson (3:800/221) wrote to All:
>
>  RG> What's wrong with viewing doc files of unknown origin with
>  RG> something like Quickview where no macros can be run?
>
> Or WordPad.  Or Microsoft's Word viewer, which is freely downloadable from
> their web site.

Yeah, there are a shitload of SAFE alternatives to reading word docs.

> I think a lot of people just assume that they need the full version of
Word to
> display any .doc file at all.

It's worse than that, a lot of people just assume that *everyone* uses Word
for any type of doc file.

For a long time, whenever anyone sent me one of these I'd simply return them
with a request that they resend it in PLAIN TEXT, or some other
non-propriety format (such as RTF).

It wasn't because I couldn't read doc files, but simply because it really
pissed me off that everyone assumed that Word was the only game in town.

Since OpenOffice was made available for Windows (and can read MSdoc files) I
now accept 'em without complaint.

I Don't (and won't) install  Word/MSoffice on any of my machines -
OpenOffice is a LOT more stable while still keeping all the functionality of
the MS products (and since it doesn't handle Word macros it is also safe
from this type of virus).

Cheers
Rod



















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