Computer and Web Articles

Sure, emailing your Microsoft Word documents is easy.  Sure, you do it all the time.  Sure, you didn’t know about the many problems related to the emailing of Word documents.

Though emailing Word documents to your friends and colleagues is usually a perfectly appropriate thing to do, it’s best to use caution and not assume that everyone will be able to read (or even open) your files.  Why use caution?  Because. . .

• The message will be larger than it needs to be; Word documents are B-I-G.  Why do you care? Because you’re essentially forcing your recipients to receive and open oversized documents.  Also, emails with larger attachments take longer to send and longer to download.
• Your recipient might not have Word.  For example, many people read their emails on their Treos, Blackberries, or cell phones-none of which have Word.
• Many mail programs won’t allow Word documents to be opened directly or even saved to disk on account of the rampant virus-spreading via Word documents.
• Emails with Word attachments are more likely to be filtered as spam or potential viruses; this means it’s entirely possible your email won’t even make it through to your recipient.

If you’re sending important information via email in a Word document, it’s usually best to either paste your Word document’s text directly into the body of your email.  If this isn’t realistic, consider following up with a separate email or phone call to determine if your recipient received the Word document you sent.