<br><br>Not so esoteric as that, but close edit: come to think of it, I have taught a course called Visions of the End, and now that I'm almost finished reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road, I want to teach it again, with that book right at the center of the course. What a fabulously well written novel that is!<br><br>&#63743; &#63743; &#63743; &#63743; <P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by yoyo52 on 01/25/08 00:16 AM (server time).</EM></FONT></P>

Off topic--<br><br>I know what RTF (rich text format, right?) is as I have seen it as an option when opening a document by a program for which is is not native. I also know that it is an option as a "save as..." command.<br><br>But beyond that, I have know idea what it is and don't know why someone would opt for that format when .doc is universal.<br><br>Er... well... umm... it was universal until M$ decided that the latest versions of Office saved docs in a format other than .doc<br><br>

The MS .doc format is proprietary, I thought.<br><br>&#63743; &#63743; &#63743; &#63743;

I was being sort of half-sarcastic. <br><br>Truth is-- I knew that it was proprietary, and I knew that it was so widely used that it practically was universal.<br><br>But when other applications were written that allowed documents to be saved in .doc format I got a little confused about the issue.<br><br>I guess I just never paid too much attention-- not being the geek that I have become for must of the past ten years (and not nearly the geek that many here are!)<br><br>

before switching to Google Docs i used to have many students who used Microsoft Works (not Word). when they saved files, they were not .doc files and i had all sorts of trouble opening on my Mac -- this stretches back 8 years even. so, i just told my students i'd only accept RTF, which ensured that i could open the files.<br><br>

MS Works is a pain in the keyster. However, OpenOffice will open those documents, and Zamzar will translate them.<br><br>&#63743; &#63743; &#63743; &#63743;

I've had Scouts send me Eagle project workbooks saved in Works too. It is a pain. These are usually from Scouts whose parents do not work at a place that has a use-at-home agreement or do not work in a business environment and don't feel able to shell out the big bucks for Office. Fortunately NESA (the National Eagle Scout Association) makes the workbook available in both .doc and .rtf format. While .rft is understood by a great many applications, I have observed that the document size tends to grow very large when graphics are added to it. For an equivalent document, the .doc format seems to remain smaller. That's significant due to the number of times we exchange these projects via email.<br><br>Who serves his fellows, is of his fellows greatest - Chingachgook (by legend) <br><br>Scout

That bloating when adding graphics to a .rtf file sure is problematic as sometimes my whole writing could greatly benefit from some embedded images and graphics. However, one huge reason for for instance my previous employer having as a company policy to save Word files in .rtf format was macroviruses. Or actually the lack of them with the .rtf format so the reason was basically about file security. Actually at some point some email filters we and our clients had, might've blocked all .doc file attachments. Further, .doc format can also bloat with all the 'neat' special gimmicks and stuff allowed to put it in it with Word. Well, the Works format is probably the worst of all otherwise, well not to mention the uselessness of Works for much word-processing even I do writing my essays and thesis and such. Having said that, I use rtf as my personal default format in Word.<br><br>And well, as far as having just text in the document, doc format can be about three times as large as an rtf. Just tested this actually on a short essay of about 3-4 pages. The doc is about 30kB while the rtf is around 11kB. And well, a 24 page piece was 132kB as doc and 91kB as rtf. Not that it really matters on those sizes with todays hard drives. <br><br>

yeah, but i'd rather put the legwork on my students. <br><br>(side note: i wanted to use a different word than legwork, but i can't spell it -- i wanted to put the [sounds like: oh ness] on my students. i can't even look it up as i must be way off with my guesses -- honess, oness, ohness, ohnes, etc.).<br><br>

Onus <br><br>[color:purple]A lopsided man runs best along the little side-hills of success<br>- Frank Moore Colby</font color=purple>