How can I email Word documents without the format being messed up?

I've never had this problem before, and in the past week, I'm suddenly having trouble emailing Word 97 documents. The recipient opens them and the formatting is not the way it's supposed to be. The documents are in columns with a shaded box around part of the text. Everything looks perfect on my PC, but when I email it, the person who received the email tells me that the paragraphs are not in the right place and the box is not around the text in the proper place. What is happening and how can I fix it?

How can I email Word documents without the format being messed up?
Make sure you click on Save As. Then check to see that the file type is 97-03 word document. Also check to see if they have an older version of microsoft word.
Reply:When you email a file, any file, the recipient gets an *exact* copy of the file you sent (generally), so it's unlikely that email has anything to do with your problem. The problem is likely because of different software on your computer and the other persons, in this case MS Word 97 and whatever software the other person is using.





You might want to check what software your correspondent is using, and see if there is some common format which both of you can support. You know, of course, that Word 97 is now twelve years old, right, and it is likely that others are using newer versions. While in theory newer versions can read files prepared by older versions, Microsoft is not always good at this, and Word has trouble sometimes even reading its own files, in my experience, especially when it comes to formatting.





So... my suggestion is to find out what software and version your correspondent is using, and then either buy the same software / version, find a common format or try using Open Office (http://www.openoffice.org/) which is free and can store documents including word processing files in a number of formats, including new versions of MS Word.

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