Some time ago I posted about the dangers of e-mailing or posting Microsoft Word documents. If you’re not careful, internal comments and revisions can be mistakenly included in the document which can be easily read by the recipient adding a whole new twist to your document.
Alcatel was one of the highest profile victims from a press release standpoint.
The wonder of the Internet is that any content you post can be viewed and examined easily, that’s why understanding how to present information online is so important. If you’re posting press information online use HTML and maybe offer the visitor the opportunity to download a PDF for printing purposes – but don’t use Microsoft Word.
It’s emerged that Microsoft have fallen foul of their own product in this regard. In the true Internet fashion Michael Zalewski has gone through the Microsoft Word documents on Microsoft’s own sites and has found some hilarious edits.
My two favorites are:
Finally, Microsoft is an enduring company that’s not going out of business (unlike many Linux vendors).
“Xbox is on track for an awesome European launch in fall 2001early 2002,”
Footnote:
Thanks for Trevor Cook and Jim Horton for the link.
Jim has also linked to a free utility you can download from the Microsoft website to strip out comments – I still wouldn’t use Microsoft Word documents for websites.
Murphy's Law 