Q: How do I view MSWORD attachments?

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A: Although we try to encourage users of the various platforms to send out attachments in ASCII (.txt) format, you will occasionally recieve an MSWORD file attached to an e-mail. If the UNIX version of WordPerfect cannot convert the file, there are a couple of alternatives you can try.

First, try using the PC file viewer. With this application, you should be able to view native Microsoft files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint). You will first need to download the attachment into your homespace from Pine (using the "V" and "S" commands). Then type:

pcfv

at the command line. This will start up the program; use the menu to open up your file. Some formatting is lost, but you can read the information. However, the PC file viewer is only available on Suns running Solaris 2.6 or greater, so some of the older machines may not support it.

Another option is to covert the file to .txt format. First, download the MSWord attachment to your homespace. Then type:

strings file1 >file2

File1 is the original file and file2 is the converted file. You should be able to open the converted file in a text editor or in WordPerfect, although the original formatting will be lost.