MS Word launch fron IE

[Mike]

I am trying to write a web page where a person can click on a word document
and MS Word is launched instead of the document being displayed in the IE
browser. I have been able to launch MS Word but only when I create a
shortcut for the document. However a pop-up comes up with save and/or open
instructions. I do not want the pop-up to come up.

Mike

[Jim Dabell]

Mike wrote:

I am trying to write a web page where a person can click on a word
document and MS Word is launched instead of the document being displayed
in the IE browser.

This is discussed in the FAQ:

<URL:http://www.htmlhelp.org/faq/html/media.html#force-download>
--
Jim Dabell

[Headless]

"Mike" <di****@cfl.rr.com> wrote:

I am trying to write a web page where a person can click on a word document
and MS Word is launched instead of the document being displayed in the IE
browser.

Word and other proprietary document formats do not belong on the web.
Headless

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[Nick Kew]

In article <7f********************************@4ax.com>, one of infinite monkeys
at the keyboard of Headless <in*************@dna.ie> wrote:

I am trying to write a web page where a person can click on a word document
and MS Word is launched instead of the document being displayed in the IE
browser.

Word and other proprietary document formats do not belong on the web.

Of course they do! Any document format is welcome on the Web.
Though of course it's only polite to warn the user when a link is
to a proprietary document type.

As to the original question - it's a browser configuration option.
But opening Word documents automatically is a big security hole,
so it would be a very bad idea to enable it.

--
Nick Kew

In urgent need of paying work - see http://www.webthing.com/~nick/cv.html

[Headless]

Nick Kew wrote:

Word and other proprietary document formats do not belong on the web.

Of course they do! Any document format is welcome on the Web.

I strongly disagree, content on the WWW should be accessible. That means
no closed, proprietary or license restricted formats like Word, Flash,
Windows Media, Real Media, Excel, Acrobat etc.
Headless

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[Stephen Poley]

On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 21:51:24 +0100, Headless <in*************@dna.ie>
wrote:

Nick Kew wrote:

Word and other proprietary document formats do not belong on the web.

Of course they do! Any document format is welcome on the Web.

I strongly disagree, content on the WWW should be accessible. That means
no closed, proprietary or license restricted formats like Word, Flash,
Windows Media, Real Media, Excel, Acrobat etc.

Yes and no. There is nothing wrong with proprietary formats on the web
provided one of the following is true:
- they are used for decoration only, or
- alternative content is provided, or
- there is no reasonable alternative.

I gather for example that Windows Media files are typically quite a lot
smaller than their MPEG equivalents (if that's wrong please correct me)
so it makes sense to provide to provide WM for those that can use it and
MPEG for everyone else.

If someone thinks that some of their readers can usefully use a Word
document, then they should provide a Word document - but also an HTML or
plain text version for non-Word users. (Having said that, it's true that
a lot of the Word documents on the web seem to be there for no very good
reason.)

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

[Matthias Gutfeldt]

Headless wrote:

"Mike" <di****@cfl.rr.com> wrote:

I am trying to write a web page where a person can click on a word document
and MS Word is launched instead of the document being displayed in the IE
browser.

Word and other proprietary document formats do not belong on the web.

So, the RealMedia files on <http://www.headless.dna.ie/dlvc.htm> are all
open formats? Or does your rule only apply to "documents" ?
Matthias

[Headless]

Matthias Gutfeldt wrote:

So, the RealMedia files on <http://www.headless.dna.ie/dlvc.htm> are all
open formats? Or does your rule only apply to "documents" ?

A thorn in my side I can assure you. The Realmedia clips have been made
by someone else, I don't have access to the source material (and I lack
the hardware to process it).

That leaves me with the choice of not providing anything, or (cringe)
use the Realmedia files. As you can see, I've chosen the latter for now.

The audio files on the site have recently been converted to Ogg Vorbis,
this was done despite the fact that it will inconvenience users (I used
to offer both MP3Pro and WMA samples).

I was able to switch to Ogg Vorbis because I have access to the source
audio files, and I have soft/hardware capable of processing them.
Headless

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[jake]

In message <f3********************************@4ax.com>, Headless
<in*************@dna.ie> writes

Nick Kew wrote:

Word and other proprietary document formats do not belong on the web.
Of course they do! Any document format is welcome on the Web.

I strongly disagree, content on the WWW should be accessible. That means
no closed, proprietary or license restricted formats like Word, Flash,
Windows Media, Real Media, Excel, Acrobat etc.

Nothing wrong with making files in a propriety format like Acrobat
available, so long as an 'accessible' version (HTML) is also offered as
a fall-back.

As for Real, I don't think that I know of a streaming format that
provides such a compact form and multi-audience capability -- and with a
readily available free viewer.

regards
Headless

--
Jake

[Headless]

jake wrote:

I strongly disagree, content on the WWW should be accessible. That means
no closed, proprietary or license restricted formats like Word, Flash,
Windows Media, Real Media, Excel, Acrobat etc.
Nothing wrong with making files in a propriety format like Acrobat
available, so long as an 'accessible' version (HTML) is also offered as
a fall-back.

The HTML version is all you need, one version that works for everyone.
As for Real, I don't think that I know of a streaming format that
provides such a compact form and multi-audience capability -- and with a
readily available free viewer.

According to that logic content/services should be made available using
techniques unique to MSIE like ActiveX (multi-audience capability -- and
with a readily available free viewer). As for compactness, Realmedia
certainly does not do better than MPEG-4.
Headless

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[Stephen Poley]

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 10:38:19 +0100, Headless <[e-mail]> wrote:

Stephen Poley wrote:

I strongly disagree, content on the WWW should be accessible. That means
no closed, proprietary or license restricted formats like Word, Flash,
Windows Media, Real Media, Excel, Acrobat etc.
Yes and no. There is nothing wrong with proprietary formats on the web
provided one of the following is true:
- they are used for decoration only, or

Content cannot be decorative imo, for example a site can use audio or
video as non essential additional fluff, but it's still content.

A question of defining terms, I suppose. In the way I usually use the
term (and have sometimes seen others use the term) "non essential
additional fluff" is decoration. But it doesn't really matter what you
call it - you can happily use a proprietary format for 'fluff', since
it doesn't really matter whether the reader sees/hears it or not.

- there is no reasonable alternative.

Which rarely applies to Word documents

Agreed. This comment was directed to proprietary formats in general. I
dare say there are some technical areas where there is no alternative to
using a particular proprietary format.

I gather for example that Windows Media files are typically quite a lot
smaller than their MPEG equivalents (if that's wrong please correct me)

MPEG video comes in a number of variants;
MPEG-1: this format is rather old and not very efficient.
MPEG-2: not suited to internet usage (DVD's use MPEG-2).
MPEG-4: Window Media is a closed proprietary implementation of MPEG-4,
there are other implementations of MPEG-4 which are open, they achieve
similar quality/byte results.

Thanks. Are there now open MPEG-4 implementations for near enough all
platforms? I seem to recall reading that only MPEG-1 is available for
some platforms, but that could well be out-of-date info now.

But the general principle holds: there may be an open format for certain
information, but also a proprietary format which is superior for those
readers who can handle it. In which case the best solution is to provide
both.

If someone thinks that some of their readers can usefully use a Word
document, then they should provide a Word document - but also an HTML or
plain text version for non-Word users.

Provide an accessible version first, needless to say that HTML is
preferred in most cases, if the content is intended to be imported into
a word processor then RTF is the accessible word processor independent
way to publish content.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be as reliable as one would like - I
have more than once hit problems using it to transfer information
between different word-processors. And it doesn't support several of the
later Word features (though if you want to tell me that those features
are mostly 'non essential additional fluff' I won't actually argue with
you.)
Many of us are fierce proponents of accessability when it comes to
textual content. I believe that the same attitude should extend to all
forms of content. Increasingly the web will be extended with other than
textual content.

Agreed. But I feel that one should ensure proprietary formats are used
appropriately, and not prohibit them altogether.

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

[Headless]

jake wrote:

The HTML version is all you need, one version that works for everyone.
Not really. An Acrobat version will be used to deliver text and
graphical information in a form and to a precision that is simply not
possible as HTML. Acrobat has established itself as the de-facto format
for distribution of precision-formatted documents (although mainly as a
cross-platform print document).

Precision-formatted document = View as the author intended. I thought by
now we had dispelled that illusion. There is no such thing for computer
files. The display, whether intended for the screen or printer, cannot
be "controlled". You have no control over the window size of a UA, or
the user's preferred paper size, font preference, portrait/landscape
orientation etc.

If you want to distribute as one file (html and dependencies), then
there are options for that also.

As for Real, I don't think that I know of a streaming format that
provides such a compact form and multi-audience capability -- and with a
readily available free viewer.

According to that logic content/services should be made available using
techniques unique to MSIE like ActiveX (multi-audience capability -- and
with a readily available free viewer). As for compactness, Realmedia
certainly does not do better than MPEG-4.

Real is pretty much a cross-platform product, as with Quicktime.

The "coverage" of Real and Quicktime would be comparable to IE.
Anyway, can you give me a pointer to a MPEG-4 file that demonstrates
this property? It hasn't been my experience to-date, but you can
probably show me the errors of my way ;-)

DivX, Windows Media and others, the quality/byte differences are fairly
minimal.
Headless

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[Headless]

Headless wrote:

The "coverage" of Real and Quicktime would be comparable to IE.

I take that back actually, a section of my webstats pretty much tells
the story:

1.Shockwave Flash 86.5 %
2.Dynamic HTML Binding 78.4 %
3.Windows Media Services 62.2 %
4.Shockwave for Director 18.9 %
5.No plug-ins measured 10.8 %
6.QuickTime 8.1 %
7.RealPlayer 5.4 %

Needles to say that these types of stats are not quite reliable, but
both RealPlayer and Quicktime are going the way of Netscape for sure.
Headless

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[Brian]

jake wrote:

Nothing wrong with making files in a propriety format like Acrobat
available, so long as an 'accessible' version (HTML) is also offered as
a fall-back.

The HTML version is all you need, one version that works for everyone.

Not really. An Acrobat version will be used to deliver text and
graphical information in a form and to a precision that is simply not
possible as HTML.

e.g., useful to provide formatting guidelines for papers. See

< http://www.umass.edu/history/links_writing.html >

As for Real, I don't think that I know of a streaming format that
provides such a compact form and multi-audience capability -- and with a
readily available free viewer.

One site for a radio program says it uses Real Audio for copyright
reasons. The program airs material from freelance producers who
retain the copyright to their material. Real Audio allows the program
to be heard via the web, without the possibility of users saving the
program and redistributing it. Or so they claim. It does seem to me
that there would be a way to save a Real Audio stream if one were
determined. But I know little of such things.

--
Brian
follow the directions in my address to email me

[Mike]

I should have explained myself better. Although I am creating a web page,
it is for internal use by only six workers. What I want to do is place all
our forms in the drive and use a web page to exibit them. All a worker
needing a form would have to do is click on the form and have it open in
word.
"Daniel R. Tobias" <da*@tobias.name> wrote in message
news:mX*********************@news2.news.adelphia.n et...

Mike wrote:

I am trying to write a web page where a person can click on a word document and MS Word is launched instead of the document being displayed in the IE browser. I have been able to launch MS Word but only when I create a
shortcut for the document. However a pop-up comes up with save and/or open instructions. I do not want the pop-up to come up.

You have no control over what users' browsers do when confronted with a
particular kind of data; and what makes you think they're all using IE,
anyway? (Some of your users might be using a *decent* browser, like
Mozilla, instead.) The best you can do is ensure that a proper MIME
type is sent to correctly announce the data type you're sending, and
then it's up to the browser (and whatever helper apps, plugins, etc.,
are configured in it) to decide what to do with it. Generally, a
potentially dangerous format (like MS Word, which can have macro
viruses/worms) ought to involve some warning to the user of what it's
about to do rather than just loading an application right away, so the
popup you mention is a reasonable browser behavior.

In the case of MSIE, due to its MIME-type second-guessing, you can't
actually be sure that it will behave consistently based on what you
announce your data to be (it might decide to fire up MS Word for your
document even if you change its MIME type to application/octet-stream to
try to "force" a download), but more standards-compliant browsers will
honor the type you set, allowing more site author influence on the
browser's behavior, though what the browser does is still in the end the
choice of its user via configuration settings.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/

[Kris]

In article <8m7%a.117182$cF.32547@rwcrnsc53>,
Brian <us*****@mangymutt.com.invalid-remove-this-part> wrote:

As for Real, I don't think that I know of a streaming format that
provides such a compact form and multi-audience capability -- and with a
readily available free viewer.

One site for a radio program says it uses Real Audio for copyright
reasons. The program airs material from freelance producers who
retain the copyright to their material. Real Audio allows the program
to be heard via the web, without the possibility of users saving the
program and redistributing it. Or so they claim. It does seem to me
that there would be a way to save a Real Audio stream if one were
determined. But I know little of such things.

Just record the output to your speakers.

--
Kris
kr*******@xs4all.netherlands (nl)
"We called him Tortoise because he taught us" said the Mock Turtle.

[David Dorward]

Brian wrote:

Real Audio allows the program to be heard via the web, without the
possibility of users saving the program and redistributing it. Or so they
claim. It does seem to me that there would be a way to save a Real Audio
stream if one were determined.

I think it took me three minutes on google to find a virtual loopback cable.
Its a little bit of software which when run launches real player and
records the stream to a .wav file.

--
David Dorward http://dorward.me.uk/

[David Dorward]

Headless wrote:

That's a tricky question to answer as MPEG-4 comes in many guises, some
highly proprietary (MS Media), some less proprietary (DivX), and some
fully open (the name eludes me, but it's made by someone who used to be
in the DivX camp, but he left due to their intentions to make it more
proprietary).
I think you might be thinking of XVid, google could probably confirm but my
ISP is playing silly whatsites and I can't make a connection to most sites.

Agreed. But I feel that one should ensure proprietary formats are used
appropriately, and not prohibit them altogether.

Prohibit is not an option, but accessible formats should be strongly
encouraged imo.

Especially if technically superior, and of course there is nothing stopping
people from providing the same content in both Ogg Vorbis and Real Media
formats.

--
David Dorward http://dorward.me.uk/