Microsoft Word Question

[trebor78]

A couple of days ago I posted the following question:

“I have written several documents in Word from the Office 1997 Suite. I want to burn these documents to some CD's which I would then mail to people who are interested in the subject I have written about. One of these documents/files is about 350 pages in length.

My question is this: Some of the people who receive my CD's may not have Word installed on their computers. Will they be able to read the Word documents even though Word is not installed on their computers?”

In reply to my question I was told that Notepad which comes with all versions of Windows will open most Word files, but maybe not images and tables. Several people recommended including a portable version of OpenOffice on my CD. This is a free open-source Office suite. http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_portable

As suggested I did download “OpenOffice_Portable_2.2.1_en-us.paf.exe” to my CD, but I’m not sure what to do next. How is this used to read the Word files that are also on the CD? Should I open the file on the CD, before mailing it. Should I leave the unopened .exe file on the CD and expect it to work automatically for the person receiving the CD ? Or, should I instruct the recipient to download the .exe file to a folder in his hard drive. If the latter, should it go under Program Files or where? I’m very sorry to have to ask all these questions, but this project is very important to me and I’m trying to make it work without any major problems.

[spacesurfer]

Your question is in the wrong section.

Anyway, no need for openoffice. Use the Office Viewers (free download): http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/download...=CH011085901033.

They can view the office documents but not change them.

[TheFlash428]

Well, "Wordpad" (not "Notepad") would probably work better to open word docs--although both are provided with windows and both will open text files, but as stated before, tables and/or graphics and formatting may be lost.

As far as OpenOffice, what you want to do is set it as suggested here:

OpenOffice.org Portable from CD

[neo]

Word Viewer

View, print and copy Word documents, even if you don't have Word installed. This download is a replacement for Word Viewer 2003 and all previous Word Viewer versions.

It supports:

# Word Document (*.docx)

# Word Macro-Enabled Document (*.docm)

# Rich Text Format (.rtf)

# Text (.txt)

# Web Page formats (.htm, .html, .mht, .mhtml)

# WordPerfect 5.x (.wpd)

# WordPerfect 6.x (.doc, .wpd)

# Works 6.0 (.wps)

# Works 7.0 (.wps)

# XML (.xml)

Download: Word Viewer

Download this and burn in the disc with your Document files.

[Arie]

Or simply convert the documents to PDF.

[IcemanND]

Or simply convert the documents to PDF.

second that. most users have acrobat reader on their machines already from either previous need or the OEM loading it on the machine at the factory.

[trebor78]

Thank you. Neo said---

"Download: Word Viewer

Download this and burn in the disc with your Document files."

Will the recipients of my CD be able to read my Word documents with Word Viewer on the CD or do I need to tell them to download Word Viewer to their Programs folder or elsewhere on the hard drive?

(I have tried converting to PDF files without success. Some of the Word formatting is lost in the conversion.)

Thanks again!

[Mijzelf]

Will the recipients of my CD be able to read my Word documents with Word Viewer on the CD or do I need to tell them to download Word Viewer to their Programs folder or elsewhere on the hard drive?

When the recipients cannot read/view the word documents, they'll have to install the Word Viewer, by executing the file you provided. After the installation is finished (they only have to click 'Agree', 'Next', 'Next') they can view the documents.

As for pdf files, did you try an pdf printer?

<http://www.bullzip.com/products/pdf/info.php>

Edited December 12, 2007 by Mijzelf

[spacesurfer]

You need a good PDF program in order to maintain the formatting. The gold standard is the full Adobe Acrbat but it's huge and expensive. Using a third party, inexpensive program - some formatting may be lost. But most, I assume, do a decent job. For Office 2007, you can download a plugin that can do it.

You have to install the Word viewer program. It's not portable (meaning a version you can execute without installing.) All of your users will have to install the viewer to view the docs in their original formatting. Moreover, it's just a viewer, not an editor. They will not be able to make any changes.

[spacesurfer]

Update:

I checked Wordpad supplied in Windows XP Professional and it can open Word .doc documents and it retains the tables. I could not find a way to create tables but it can display tables. I also tried copying and pasting a table and it worked.

The Wordpad supplied in Vista Home Premium does not open Word .doc documents.