anti-word

Steve Holmes steve at holmesgrown.com
Mon Jan 14 11:52:08 EST 2002


Yes and that reminds me of a similar experience I had at work one time
where I had to practically walk through the procedure with a documentation
gal on how to save the document in something other than word.  At the
time, I had little or no access to windows yet and I needed this file in
.TXT format.

Same problem, isn't it.  They just don't use these features.

On Sun, 13 Jan 2002, Gregory Nowak wrote:

> Yes, I do. However, you seem to be missing the point I'm trying to get across here. So, let me give you an example.
> A professor of mine was handing out something that he had written for the class. Since I knew that he had written it by himself recently, I asked if he could e-mail me a plain text file instead, so I wouldn't need to mess with scannning the handout. His answer to me was: "you mean a word document?" I said "no, I mean a .txt file, a plain ASCII text file." He was still confused, so I said, "like the files that you create with notepad." He said "oh, ok."
>
> My point is as it was before. If all they know about their computer is how to turn it on and off, then how are they supposed to know about other platforms if they don't even know for sure what a text file?
>
> If some of you on this list want to blame the ignorant professor, then maybe you should blame universities, employers, and the way we learn and work today. Universities and employers are the ones today who tell you they want your papers in 12 point font, and formatted this way or that. Now, how are we supposed to achieve that in something like notepad/emacs/pico? And if someone else is wondering how the hell this guy became a professor without knowing crap about what kinds of files he could produce on his computer, then that is a new question to examine the answer to.
> Greg
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 13, 2002 at 12:29:50PM -0500, Janina Sajka wrote:
> > Gregory, I keep telling you this answer, but there's some part of it that
> > you seem to still miss. What part is that?
> >
> > They don't need to know a damm thing to retrieve either a text doc (no
> > formatting), or an html doc (much formatting).
> >
> > They need know nothing special in order to do that. Do you understand this
> > yet?
> >
> > On Sun, 13 Jan 2002, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> >
> > > And how do you expect them to know about the other platforms if all they know about their windows computer is how to turn it on and off?
> > > Greg
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sun, Jan 13, 2002 at 12:17:03PM -0500, Charles Crawford wrote:
> > > > Hello Amanda, Janina and other interested listers,
> > > >
> > > >          Well, looks like the world of advocacy is impinging on planet
> > > > Linux.  It is correct to point out that in the ideal there should not be a
> > > > word processing standard imposed by a company, but as we all know, the
> > > > sender of a word file getting a text file back might not see the world in
> > > > the same way.  Don't you just hate it when that happens.  Smile.
> > > >
> > > >          I guess my view is that if word users want to communicate with
> > > > those who don't use word, then they have to adjust to the realities of
> > > > other computer platforms.  Consumer choice still has it's place!
> > > >
> > > > -- Charlie Crawford.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > At 11:09 AM 01/13/2002 -0500, you wrote:
> > > > >Amen! to that Janina!
> > > > >
> > > > >Amanda
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >----- Original Message -----
> > > > >From: "Janina Sajka" <janina at afb.net>
> > > > >To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
> > > > >Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2002 11:06 AM
> > > > >Subject: Re: anti-word
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > > On Sat, 12 Jan 2002, Steve Holmes wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > Yes and if a word document is sent to you for your input and editing,
> > > > >I'm
> > > > > > > sure the original party would expect the thing to come back in Word
> > > > >format
> > > > > > > along with the built-in formatting, styles and such.  Some of this whole
> > > > > > > anti Word sounds arogant to me.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I rather think it arrogant to presume everyone wants and reads Word. I
> > > > > > regard it as arrogant to presume we all pay tribute to Microsoft. I
> > > > > > further regard it arrogant to treat a proprietary, non-consensus, file
> > > > > > format as some kind of standard.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
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> > > > >
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> > --
> >
> > 				Janina Sajka, Director
> > 				Technology Research and Development
> > 				Governmental Relations Group
> > 				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
> >
> > Email: janina at afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175
> >
> > Chair, Accessibility SIG
> > Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
> > http://www.openebook.org
> >
> >
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