Soon, I’ll be creating a thread in which I will need to show Word documents. My only problem is, I don’t know how to do that.
How can I put Word files on the web so that I can show all of you here at the SDMB them?
In what way would you, personally, would like to be presented with Word files?
You would have to find someone to host the file and then link to it. With my Cox account, I get 10-megs of space, part of which I used to link to this cute picture when I had a post about her some months back. The genuine URL is http://members.cox.net/besterson/Dogs/PuppyFace1489.jpg but as you can see, you can slap any label you like on it with the board’s interface.
As to the format, well not everybody has Windows, and not everyone with Windows has Word. A much more universal format is PDF, and with easyPDF you can convert a Word document into a PDF file easily. It installs as a printer driver; you simply print’ to that “printer” and it shows up as a file instead.
Like any PDF, it tends to get bigger. A 35k Word file I had (with some embedded font characters) swole up to 100k as a PDF.
Not necessarily. If you take the defaults, you probably won’t get an optimized product, but a compromise or worse.
One of the charms of PDF is the ability to make a very compact file. The other advantage is it is self-contained and what you make is what people see. Always – not just for those who are lucky enough to have the same programs, settings, links or fonts you have.
This is true only if you use common fonts or embed the fonts into the pdf file – something I had to learn how to do for technical writing. You can of course make an image pdf as well. These are much larger files essentially created like a scan. They are not searchable for text though
Okay, I can create a PDF, that’s easy.
What would you recommend for hosting it, though?
I’ve seen some sites like Rapidshare, should I use something like that?
Phi2dao, you probably have free web site space as part of your ISP account. Most people do, but don’t know about it so don’t use it, which is why the more general, public sites exist. Myself, I just post stuff (using FTP) to somewhere on one of many web sites I handle. There are many free hosting sites, but I can’t suggest any, since I don’t use them. I’m sure someone else will be along to do that.
If you don’t embed the fonts, why make a portable file that can’t be read by some? The whole idea of Acrobat is widespread dissemination without hassle. Always imbed the fonts to be sure.
Making a scan out of text is a bad idea, since as you said, the file is much larger and not text-searchable. Unfortunately, if you don’t have the source code, you might not have that choice. For example, the ubiquity of PDF has caused industrial-grade scanner/copiers to offer the option of scanning any paper document and creating a PDF, which is necessarily a bitmap. I see coworkers write a document in Word, print it out, take it to the scanner and make a PDF. This is not only more work than just printing the Word doc directly to an PDF creator program, but it wipes out two of the main advantages of PDF in the first place.
To add to what DesertDog said, not everybody with Windows is willing to open a document made with Office 2007. My college does not allow .docx documents, in fact. I agree that a PDF, preferably non-interactive, is the best way to go if you’re trying to get strangers to open something you’ve posted.
