Rich Text? plain Text?

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1-20-26, 10:40am
iris lilies

Rich Text? plain Text?

I find myself in this position a lot: transmitting text documents from a Mac environment to a recipient who does not use Mac.

When they send me documents, my Mac is smart enough to read their PC generated docs but apparently that is not true going the other way. I wish I could learn and remember which version always works for my transmittals, is it Plain Text or Rich Text?

Don’t bring up Google Docs as the environment we should all be working in to share documents because my group, largely senior citizens, just don’t do that. I’ve seen more than one organization try to lead their members to Google Docs and no one’s having it. Ya gotta meet the people where they are.
1-20-26, 11:05am
iris lilies

I keep forgetting I have ChatGPT or even regular Google search would probably tell me the answer.
1-20-26, 8:34pm
iris lilies

The answer, for my purposeS, is Rich Text.
1-20-26, 10:14pm
Tradd

IL, are you trying to send a document you wrote in Pages? Just curious.
1-20-26, 10:44pm
iris lilies

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tradd

IL, are you trying to send a document you wrote in Pages? Just curious.

Yes
1-21-26, 9:31am
kib

As the only person in North America still using Word Perfect, I can tell you that it will translate Rich Text (and a large number of other languages, but not plain text). I believe RT is still more or less universal.
1-21-26, 9:32am
iris lilies

Quote:

Originally Posted by kib

As the only person in North America still using Word Perfect, I can tell you that it will translate Rich Text (and a large number of other languages, but not plain text). I believe RT is still more or less universal.

how does WordPerfect even still exist?

Ah, how fondly I remember the command for “reveal codes.”
1-21-26, 9:55am
kib

Lol. I think I've been keeping it alive single handedly. My job long ago required me to be expert at it, and I still find it the easiest way to create simple spreadsheets and attractively formatted documents. Having that super flexible base makes it so frustrating to use / learn any other language. It's starting to need elder care, though, and it's the only thing really keeping me away from the Mac universe.

ETA: if you were coming at Mac as a complete newbie, what language / skills would you focus on?
1-21-26, 10:12am
iris lilies

Quote:

Originally Posted by kib

Lol. I think I've been keeping it alive single handedly. My job long ago required me to be expert at it, and I still find it the easiest way to create simple spreadsheets and attractively formatted documents. Having that super flexible base makes it so frustrating to use / learn any other language. It's starting to need elder care, though, and it's the only thing really keeping me away from the Mac universe.

ETA: if you were coming at Mac as a complete newbie, what language / skills would you focus on?

kib, I describe myself as having “kindergarten level” knowledge of almost every program and device I use.

I do not know any “language.”

Two years ago I bit the bullet and just plunged into moving from a PC computing environment to a Mac world. I transferred all my files. I have retained my “kindergarten” level of knowledge for it all. I produce very simple spreadsheet and text docs. Nothing is pretty.

last year I was on eight different boards, being secretary for a couple of them, president for a couple of them, treasurer for one, etc. and that means I have to produce documents and share them. The biggest pain about Mac world Is that I have to convert my data into a different format whenever I’m sending it to others. Apparently, the majority of the world is still PC based.
1-21-26, 4:24pm
kib

Well maybe "language" is a bit self important for what I'm doing! Just my term for knowing how to use specific OS and software and getting it to be compatible.

We are currently a house divided, with DH in the Mac-ro-verse and me PC / Android / WP. Part of me is envious of the Mac world, part of me spent time with MIL in a store with a Genius Bar and thought I'd rather shoot myself than stand there with $17,000 in devices I don't really need and can't fix myself, that aren't doing what was promised. I can do that for $1000 at home!
1-21-26, 5:05pm
iris lilies

Quote:

Originally Posted by kib

Well maybe "language" is a bit self important for what I'm doing! Just my term for knowing how to use specific OS and software and getting it to be compatible.

We are currently a house divided, with DH in the Mac-ro-verse and me PC / Android / WP. Part of me is envious of the Mac world, part of me spent time with MIL in a store with a Genius Bar and thought I'd rather shoot myself than stand there with $17,000 in devices I don't really need and can't fix myself, that aren't doing what was promised. I can do that for $1000 at home!

The Apple Store is the 9th circle of hell. I will never take a computer there ever again. Even though the staff are very nice, the level of noise was horrific. Screaming kids oh my God fortunately, there’s another Mac dealer and fixer not all that far from my old house in the city, so I will go there if needed.

I changed from the PC world to Mac because a few years prior I got iPad mini devices and I use them all the time. Now I have an Apple phone. it all works together.

Of course with someone with your expectations I think you’re gonna be unhappy because the things you take for granted to know how to do you won’t be able to do, but there are other things trades off that are nice.

Macs are better for people like me, kindergarten level users. I have to say it wasn’t terrifically painful to learn what I had to learn, and that was even before I had ChatGPT as my tech advisor. Now I use Chatgpt for everything. I was always able to look up solutions in text form and watch YouTube videos, but the problem with that is that they use terminology and etc., that I didn’t even know what they were talking about. With ChatGPT I can pin down exactly what my question is. Also, Chatgpt knows what device I’m using and what version of the software I’m using and will answer in that context.

So my point is: for kindergarten level users, it wasn’t that painful going from one kindergarten machine to another. I hated Windows 7 anyway. And now with ChatGPT at my fingertips, I feel like I can conquer the world in any Mac thing I need to do.
1-21-26, 9:12pm
Tradd

Quote:

Originally Posted by iris lilies

kib, I describe myself as having “kindergarten level” knowledge of almost every program and device I use.

I do not know any “language.”

Two years ago I bit the bullet and just plunged into moving from a PC computing environment to a Mac world. I transferred all my files. I have retained my “kindergarten” level of knowledge for it all. I produce very simple spreadsheet and text docs. Nothing is pretty.

last year I was on eight different boards, being secretary for a couple of them, president for a couple of them, treasurer for one, etc. and that means I have to produce documents and share them. The biggest pain about Mac world Is that I have to convert my data into a different format whenever I’m sending it to others. Apparently, the majority of the world is still PC based.

Iris, do you send your Pages documents out in .doc file format? Word can read that. I usually use PDF unless someone needs to edit, but I will use Google Docs for something someone else needs to change.
1-21-26, 9:19pm
Tradd

Quote:

Originally Posted by iris lilies

The Apple Store is the 9th circle of hell. I will never take a computer there ever again. Even though the staff are very nice, the level of noise was horrific. Screaming kids oh my God fortunately, there’s another Mac dealer and fixer not all that far from my old house in the city, so I will go there if needed.

I changed from the PC world to Mac because a few years prior I got iPad mini devices and I use them all the time. Now I have an Apple phone. it all works together.

Of course with someone with your expectations I think you’re gonna be unhappy because the things you take for granted to know how to do you won’t be able to do, but there are other things trades off that are nice.

Macs are better for people like me, kindergarten level users. I have to say it wasn’t terrifically painful to learn what I had to learn, and that was even before I had ChatGPT as my tech advisor. Now I use Chatgpt for everything. I was always able to look up solutions in text form and watch YouTube videos, but the problem with that is that they use terminology and etc., that I didn’t even know what they were talking about. With ChatGPT I can pin down exactly what my question is. Also, Chatgpt knows what device I’m using and what version of the software I’m using and will answer in that context.

So my point is: for kindergarten level users, it wasn’t that painful going from one kindergarten machine to another. I hated Windows 7 anyway. And now with ChatGPT at my fingertips, I feel like I can conquer the world in any Mac thing I need to do.

As Apple says, "It just works."
1-21-26, 9:50pm
iris lilies

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tradd

Iris, do you send your Pages documents out in .doc file format? Word can read that. I usually use PDF unless someone needs to edit, but I will use Google Docs for something someone else needs to change.

my Mac OS gives me these choices for conversion when exporting a document:

PDF, word, E pub, plain Text, rich text,Pages09

the file format I use to send out depends on who I’m sending it to. If it’s just an informational document, I’ll convert it to PDF. But there’s other times where someone will need to edit my text and I don’t know what machine they have and so I sent it rich text since that seems to be the most flexible.
1-21-26, 10:01pm
Tradd

Word is .doc or .docx, the last being the most recent one.
1-21-26, 10:06pm
Tradd

Iris, do you use Apple Numbers at all? I use it a little, one of the budgeting templates. I despise Excel, so I use it as little as possible outside of work!
1-21-26, 10:57pm
iris lilies

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tradd

Iris, do you use Apple Numbers at all? I use it a little, one of the budgeting templates. I despise Excel, so I use it as little as possible outside of work!

yes, I use Numbers often, but I don’t use it to perform math operations. I use it as a database to track members of organizations, irises in my garden, lilies in my garden, and daffodils in my garden. I have used it for my book collection before I sold most of that.

There was a time many years ago when I was still working that we had an actual database manager program that we used for various functions but I find the standard spreadsheets to work OK for my simple text database needs.