Tip #3176 - Format Your Documents
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Format
Your Documents
When I started working
for the labor department in a Career Center a few years ago, I noticed
that the file formatting of documents was causing a lot of problems among
job applicants, clients, counselors and employers. Counselors reported
that they would receive documents from clients through e-mail, but they
would not open. Clients would bring in their résumés on
portable storage devices that they had written at home in the WordPerfect
program that could not be opened on our public computers that were only
loaded with Microsoft Word. Employers could not open files from job applicants,
because they didn't have the correct programs on their computers. Some
people were forced into getting MS Office programs, because they didn't
have the correct compatibilities. The list goes on and on, but I think
you get the picture.
In short, it was a
problem that cost a lot of people a lot of time, money and job opportunities.
And even worse, it had a surprisingly simple solution, which I am going
to share with you today so you never have to run into a situation like
the ones described above.
Since I have freelanced
quite a bit over the years, I have loaded Works, MS Office, Corel (with
WordPerfect), Quark and whatever else I needed for software on my PC.
Now, I am by no means a techie, because if I were, I probably would have
known this solution quite a long time ago. (My embarrassment is short
lived, however, because no one else at my place of employment knew it
either!) So, I sat in front of my PC one night with all my wonderful software
icons and thought, “There has to be a way to get these programs
to talk to each other.” (At the very least, you’d certainly
expect Microsoft programs to be able to talk to each other!)
The answer lay in
formatting the file. Let’s say that you’ve written a document,
such as a letter or résumé, and you want to send it to Jane
Counselor and Joe Employer, who have who knows what for software on their
own respective computers. A lot of home PCs, for example, come bundled
with Microsoft Works. Let’s say you open Works and decide to use
the Word Processor.
Here you’ll
start composing, for our purposes in this tip, a letter.
Your letter will be
far better than mine, of course, but it gives you an idea of how this
will work. Once you have written your document, you will need to save
it.
You’ll notice
here that when you go to File, Save As,
Works defaults (or automatically goes) to a file type (under “Save
as type”) called “Works WP.” You can see that
in this instance, I also have other Works Word Processing files saved.
See the little pencil and paper icon to the left of the file names? That
means those are Works files. Let’s give this document a File name
of "EmployerLetter."
If you send this document
as this type of file, it will probably be called "EmployerLetter.wps."
That “wps” file extension means that it is a Microsoft Works
Word Processing program document, but here’s the thing: It will
only open in Microsoft Works. That means if the recipient doesn’t
have Works, he or she cannot open your file.
Let’s see how
this works with WordPerfect 9 in Corel, for another example.
Here we’ve started
our letter in WordPerfect. Now, let’s save the file.
WordPerfect wants
to save it as a WordPerfect file (or “wpd” extension), of
course. That will be fine, as long as the recipient has WordPerfect. They
might not. So, now let’s look at the workaround (and no, it’s
not to run to the store and buy different software). We’re going
to name this file "EmployerLetter2," but we’re also going
to look at some options under the File type options.
After you’ve typed in your file name, notice that there is a drop
down list (a little black arrow) in the File type field. Click on it and
you will see a list of options.
Check it out! Just
because WordPerfect defaults to saving your document as a WordPerfect
file format, it does not mean you must save it as a WordPerfect file.
Let’s choose Rich Text Format (RTF) as our file
type instead.
Click Save
and your document is saved as Rich Text Format or with an “rtf”
file extension.
Now, let’s go back and look at the Microsoft Works document. You
can still call it “EmployerLetter,” but let’s look at
the file types we can choose to save it as.
There’s the
RTF again! It doesn’t say “Rich Text Format” here, but
trust me, it is. Let’s choose that.
You’ll notice
that the icons next to the file names are no longer the Works pencil and
paper, but are now something more familiar. Perhaps, something that looks
like Microsoft Word? Let’s check out Word.
Here is a Microsoft
Word document. Let’s save that just for fun.
Here the employer
is saving a document in Word and of course, it is defaulting to save it
as a Word document with the familiar .doc file extension on it. But, Word
has options as well.
There is the Rich
Text Format again! It's a common file “language” that these
programs all speak. So, if our employer has Microsoft Word open, let’s
see if they can open the Works letter, which we called "EmployerLetter."
There it is! How about
WordPerfect’s "EmployerLetter2"?
There it is!
If you’re unsure
whether the recipient of your document is using the same word processing
software you are when you e-mail a document, the best way to be sure they
can open it is to use Rich Text Format (or RTF), which is a universal
file format. You will find it in the drop down list under “File
type” when you give your file a name. It will save you all a ton
of time and hassle!
~ Lisa Shaw
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