Sending files over the Internet
The universal way to send anyone a text document, a spreadsheet or a graphic document like a photo is to e-mail it as a PDF file. One can create a PDF file from any program that prints to a printer, by printing the item with Adobe Distiller or, even easier, use the "convert to PDF" or "save to PDF" feature which is a feature of software such as MS Word and WordPerfect. Video files should be uploaded to YouTube but if they are private or large, then use a file transfer site such as www.YouSendIt.com.
If one does not have the ability to use Adobe Distiller, then --
-- To send a text document, create it online using Google Documents and simply invite someone to read it. Alternately, put the words into the body of the e-mail message, or send an attachment created in Wordpad, WordPerfect or MS Word. (For Google Documents, either use the link in this paragraph, or open a browser, put "google" into the search box, click on "more" when arriving at Google, and then select "Documents" from the drop-down box.)
-- To send a spreadsheet, create the document online using Google Documents, or use Excel or Quattro Pro.
-- To send a graphic such as a photo, there are two rules to observe. First, it must be in digital form (i.e., taken by a digital camera or scanned to a digital file on the computer) or else it should be mailed. The only graphical digital files accepted by Kenneth Phillips' law office and most other offices are those formatted as JPG. One can format a file into JPG by opening it in Irfanview and saving it as a JPG. Irfanview is free and can be downloaded by clicking on the link in the foregoing sentence or going to http://www.irfanview.com/main_download_engl.htm. The second rule is to compress the file into a zip file, because it is not likely to pick up a virus on the Internet if it is zipped first. See below for instructions about zipping.
Before sending anything to anyone, several rules must be followed:
When sending any file over the Internet, one must be aware of the size of the item. If the size is under two megabytes (i.e., 2 MB or 2,000 KB), no e-mail system will have a problem with it. If it is more than that, however, it might never arrive if sent as an e-mail attachment. Files over 2 MB therefore should be sent by using a file transfer site such as www.YouSendIt.com.
All JPG files should be turned into a single zip file, even if one is sending only one JPG file. The reason is that viruses can attach to JPG files traveling through the Internet's e-mail channels. To compress or "zip" a file, use PKZip, which can be downloaded for free at the link provided in the foregoing sentence or at http://nct.digitalriver.com/fulfill/0018.042#download.
When sending multiple files, do not send multiple e-mail messages. They make the process too time consuming for both the sender and the recipient. Instead, use a zip program like PKZip to compress all files into one zip file.
