One question that comes up a lot is about what types of files we can work with. So perhaps we should have titled this, “How Microsoft Is Making It Difficult to Share Files.” While we want to be able to accept all kinds of files from our clients, given the plethora of different programs, including files from the newest and greatest (and incompatible with 90% of the world) Microsoft Office Suite, we can’t.
Why Plain Text Is Your Friend On The Web
When we add content to the web it’s usually rendered by your browser as HTML or Javascript. These text or copy of your content is coded into HTML so it looks nicely formatted and easy to read. A lot of programs though, like Microsoft Word, Clarisworks, and even “web design” programs like Frontpage or Dreamweaver, add a lot of junk to the text that you type. And while it may look like plain Jane text when you are typing it, behind the scenes the program is adding a bunch of encodings that will really screw it up on the web when your browser goes to read it.
Word processors like Microsoft Word are meant for sending documents to the printer. That’s why they do such a poor job for creating web documents. So instead of sending iDotMind a Microsoft Word “.doc” file, you should copy your content and paste it into a plain text file. In the next few paragraphs we’re going to explain just what that means.
Notepad in Windows
First of all, EVERYONE on Windows has a plain text editor built in. Whether you use the Notepad application that comes native with Windows you are using a plain text editor. It saves its files with the “.txt” extension. You can find Notepad in Start –> Programs –> Accessories –> Notepad. It’s easy from there. You just copy the text out of your Microsoft Word file, paste it into the Notepad file, and save.
We really appreciate this for a few reasons– first of all, we don’t really work on Windows computers when we design web pages and code programs. So it adds an extra step into our workflow to take your “.doc” file and convert it into a “.txt” file. And while we don’t mind making $80 an hour to do that for you, we also don’t mind if you learn how to do that and save yourself some money.
Another reason it’s good to save files as plain text without the formatting is because they are universally readable by anyone. You probably have run into problems when you’ve gotten the newest greatest Windows Vista which comes with the newest upgraded version of Microsoft Office. You’ve saved files out like you have always saved them, and sent them to your friend. But your friend hasn’t upgraded– and guess what? You got it– your friend can’t open them. What a sneaky tricky thing for Microsoft to do. We also think it’s deceptive and unnecessary. That’s why we suggest you use OpenOffice.org instead. It’s free, it’s open source, and it does everything Microsoft Office does, AND it’s 100% compatible by saving its documents in an open format, or any format you want: “.doc,” “.rft,” “.xml,” etc….
How To Save Plain Text Files On Mac OS X
Macs are a little different. While the Text Edit program that comes standard with Mac OS X is very simple and appears to be plain, it really saves them as a proprietary Mac Format “.rtf” (Rich Text Format). When you upload that to a Unix server it’s got tons of junk encoded in it that’s hard to clear out. So, without a little tweaking in the TextEdit preferences: TextEdit–>Preferences to set it to save new files as “plain text” you will get special Mac encoding that you don’t want in your plain text web file.
Fortunately, that’s really easy to do just set your preferences like the pictures below and the files you save using TextEdit will be plain text.
New Document Preferences
Open and Save Preferences
Pictures and Images
Pictures and images on the web are tricky too. Large file sizes load slowly, too small files look pixelated, some file formats don’t work at all, and some work better than others depending on which browser you are using: Firefox, IE7, IE6, etc…. With all of these variables it’s hard to know exactly how to share files with us unless you follow a few easy steps.
Step 1: Saving Big Images Smaller
Your screen resolution is set at 72 dots per inch (”72 dpi”). So if you upload a picture that is saved at 300dpi, it’s going to appear HUGE as it’s rendered down to 72dpi. And if your code tells your browser to shrink it, it’ll take forever to load since the file size is so big. So there’s no benefit to having images that are perfect for print but too big for the web. In fact, there’s a real downsize to that– people will get sick of waiting for your images to load and push the back button.
Ok, you might be wondering now, “Why does this affect me, I’m not the one doing the web coding.” The reason why is that it’ll take a long time for you to send the image to us, and it increases the amount of work we have to do that anyone with a computer could do. So instead, ask us what the dimensions should be for the images, and then save them down to that size first.
Step 2: Images That Are Too Small
The only thing we can say is either take a new image, forget it, or it’ll look like it’s all pixelated. Once an image is made into a thumbnail, it can’t be brought back up to size. That’s just the law of the universe. Nothing can be done about it.
Step 3: File Format
We like images as “.gif”, .”jpg” and .”png” While we rarely use “.png” on the Internet because of Internet Explorer 6 (IE6)’s inability to render them correctly. Hopefully soon people will upgrade their browser to IE7 or even better upgrade to Firefox. If you haven’t upgraded your browser to Firefox, do it now. As far as Safari users, you should upgrade too. Safari has tons of bugs, isn’t standards compliant, and has been known to contain flaws that make for easier hacking the Mac. Only 4% of the Internet is seen on Safari. We’re doing our best to further reduce that number.
That was really easy
See, it’s not hard. We like plain text and “.jpg,” “.gif,” and “.png” files. Take a little extra time to send them to us the right way and you’ll see a big savings on your bill. And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to call and ask. And of course, if this is too complicated for you (of if you just don’t want to be bothered) we are in the business of providing these types of services for a fee, and we always appreciate your business!
Written By Nestor Wheelock
Systems Architect and Client Support Guru
http://www.iDotMind.com
This article be freely shared non-commercially under the Creative Commons
How To Submit Files To iDotMind by iDotMind is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
