Text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations represent much of the information that is being exchanged today. Therefore, they form the main nucleus of a big problem: cybernetic lack of solidarity.

What is required? Let us think of others.
If you can (save), not all of us can (read).

It is a common pattern to use programs that work in proprietary formats (I'll give it to you in an "excel", a "word" or a "ppt"). It's easy, because… who doesn't have MS-Excel, MS-Word or MS-Powerpoint always at hand?

This situation took hold with MS-Office 2007 and continues to get worse with successive versions of MS Office 2010, 2013. Every time we use these formats we are giving fuel to proprietary, incompatible and unsupportive resources. Not even tablets (like the Apple iPad) have managed to rationalize this trend.

Tranquility. We are not going to launch a crusade against the use of these programs now, no. If you can afford to have them, perfect for you. They are good products and help improve your personal productivity. Congratulations!.

However, unfortunately, only a select group of people actually CREATE new files, most of it is limited to "passing the ball." If you are part of that elite, this reflection is for you.

Please, when sharing content, think of others.
Be supportive: use "Save As"!

Why? Because you are not alone.

Because the default formats of MS-Office are not standard.

Because you wouldn't want them to do it to you.

Because is cheap.

Why not?

The simplest options are:

• For «read-only» documents, you can rely on the format PDF (Portable Document Format).

• If they are work documents, to modify: agree with your interlocutors, pure courtesy.

• If you cannot (or do not want) to agree with your interlocutors, the terrain is swampy by definition. There is some risk of losing part of the format in the necessary conversion processes. You have a more detailed explanation in this OpenOffice forum post (OOo / AOO)

The options with the best route are:

1. 1. Using them ODF (OpenDocument) formats, which are standard formats supported by various editors (such as MS-Office, OpenOffice, Google Docs, MS-Wordpad, or IBM Lotus Symphony).
   2. Use the "basic" formats of MS-Office 2003 (.doc, .xls, .ppt).

Let's not think that it is a trivial decision. The files that we generate will spend a long time circling the information systems, leaving a trail of dependency and captivity in their wake.

Everytime that, without thinking, we press «Save»,
We force an innocent @ soul to pirate life.

However massive the phenomenon may seem to us, we must not accept it as natural. Even our children, at school, are already asked to do homework and present it in "Powerpoint", let's fight, let's spread the culture of solidarity and respect "Cyber-ethical".

You dare?