[ad#acronisti]Dear Computer Lady,
If the Microsoft .doc is essentially an .rtf file, will any application that can write and read an .rtf file open a .doc file?
Perhaps too simple to always be true, but at the moment, that is the opinion I hold and thus save anything that I might expect to send elsewhere in .rtf format.
You provide a very welcome service via your website and newsletter.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH
Jerry
Dear Jerry,
Actually any Windows computer can read an RTF file with the built in WordPad program, so you have a great solution when saving your files as RTF (which stands for Rich Text Format) files.
While Microsoft Word document files are rich text in that they store your text with formatting, they are saved with instructions that are specific to Word. If you tried to open a Word file with WordPad, you would see your text, but also a lot of strange characters that WordPad did not know how to use.
Saving your Word document as a Rich Text file is easy, just click on “File” and then “Save As”.
In the Save as File type section, click the drop down list and select, RTF (Rich Text File) and continue to save your file.
Elizabeth
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If the Microsoft .doc is essentially an .rtf file,
If you wanted to make the comparison, then it is better to say that an RTF is a very much dumbed down version of a DOC file. That comparison is VERY LOOSE, in that both formats can save text formatting. The DOC file can do MUCH more than a RTF file.
Using RTF as a generic file format for sharing simple formatted document files is a good choice. Even people who don’t have Word/Office on their computers often have a free or cheap Office alternative that can read the DOC/DOCX file format. So you should ask the recipient what format is most convenient for them. Using a DOC format will allow you to have more formatting than a RTF can support.
Specifically for Resume’s the best format is probably PDF. That way you will much more certain that what the reader sees is the way you laid the file out. Many unfortunate minor display differences can happen when you open a DOC on another computer. So if your resume is formatted “just so” to display everything you want, they may not see it the way you expected, making you look dumb.