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Paul Sutton wrote: > > I agree, sending a word documents assumes > > a) the recipient has not only MS word but a file compatible version Same as PDF > b) the recipient is in general using windows, Word doesn't just run on Windows. Indeed the platforms Word runs on are all to do with the Microsoft monopoly. > c) the recipient has a word viewer if not MS word, or is actually > allowed to install it The same assumption underlies most formats. > while PDF is truly cross platform, and just assumes the end user has > PDF reader which is a free download anyway, plus its available for a > lot more operating systems than word viewer. The only major difference with formats I see, are things like HTML, which are written open, have a lot of readers available, and are designed to degrade nicely if your viewer doesn't support a feature. As such I would tend to use HTML first if I needed to convey something that plain text doesn't convey. Although to be honest, plain text has a lot going for it. I'd concede PDF has advantages over HTML itself (although I'm not sure about other things like ODF) when it comes to content intended to be printed. Adobe have done a lot of nice things with fonts, layouts and such like, but I'd still prefer to keep content in formats that are easier to manipulate and machine if possible. Note with GNUPG, you can make a plain text file (or any other file, including Word documents) non-modifiable (or at least show unauthorised modifications have been made), whilst still allowing the normal search, cut and paste, and other features of that format, which so many PDF viewer mess up with. Indeed this approach is better than the PDF one, as it proves authorship, one non-modifiable PDF is very like another.
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