Email attachments without viruses

Microsoft Word may be the word processor of choice for most folks, but its files can contain nasty macro viruses...

Did you know, though, that you can save a document which has all the look and feel of a native Word document, but none of the virus-carrying potential?

It's called RTF - Rich Text Format, and Word can save such a file very easily. Once you've decided to save your document, select File > Save As and when the dialogue box comes up select the RTF file type from the drop down box.

The result is great for email on two counts: One, it's smaller (usually) than the equivalent Word file, and two, it's guaranteed to be macro-virus-free.

Other benefits:

• An RTF file opens automatically into Word, just by double clicking on it.
• If everyone emailed RTF files rather than Word files, macro viruses would have nowhere to breed.
• RTF files are not dependent on Word - they can be read by just about every word processor currently known to man.
• RTF files maintain formatting - they look as good as the original did.

David Dorn