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Use your browser as a universal document viewer
Have you ever sent a document to a friend or coworker only to have them call you and complain they can't open it? The problem is you created the document on one word processor, and the other person is trying to view it with another.
This little tutorial can help you avoid some of those problems with Windows users, and adds an extra trick to help Mac users.
One application that ships with every computer today is a web browser. Most modern word processors have an option to save your document as html, the language of web browsers. The key is to save your word processing document in a format that the web browser can view.
Take the example below. I typed this into ClarisWorks and saved it as an HTML document.
When I open it in a web browser, this is what it looks like:
I can send my text document, with font styles, tables, even embedded URL's to any computer user and have them open it with a web browser to read and print it.
If you're a Mac user, you can set the document so that double-clicking it will open the browser. Here's how:
Open your document in ResEdit. Like my example, there may not be any resources. That's ok.
From ResEdit's File menu, select Get Info for...
 Change the documents creator code to your choice of the following:
MSIE for Explorer
MOSS for Netscape
  Save your work and quit ResEdit. Now when you double-click on the document, the assigned web browser will open it. In my example, I created the document in ClarisWorks and changed the code to Explorer. Notice that the desktop icon changed to match the application!
That's a nice solution for crossplatform viewing of documents. And unlike expensive Adobe pdf encoders, everyone has the necessary programs already on their computer. |
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