Converting .doc Files to Post to The Grumble

Create a Post
Ron Eggers

Ron Eggers

SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God
Forum Donor
Joined
Jul 6, 2001
Posts
16,932
Location
Wisconsin
I sometimes receive image files from Grumblers who would like me to post them to The Grumble. I am very happy to do this, but sometimes they are .doc files, and I am uncertain what to do with them. Doc is not an image format recognized by the UBB codes and I have been unable to save or convert the files to something that is recognized.

I can open the .doc attachments. My default program to open doc files in MS Word, but I can change that if that would help.

Anybody have any idea what I can do (or even what I'm asking?)
 
Ron, I haven't a clue what you asked!

I do know that you cannot have an image in a .doc file. It can be attached to a .doc file but it can't BE a .doc file.

If it is an attachment and is a .jpg or .gif or .tif or .png file, you can save the attachment to your "My documents" folder and then open it with one of your image programs and work with it. Then, after you optimize it, you can save it as a .jpg or whatever and FTP it to your storage site and ...............as they say, the rest is History!

FGII
 
The email attachment is a doc file. When I open it in MS word, there is a photo and no text. There appears to be no way to extract the photo from the doc file - no "save picture as" menu or other procedure that I can see.

I feel I am in danger of losing my geek license, though, as an early Fortran 5 programmer and Timex Sinclair user, I feel I should be "grandfathered."
 
Well, my friend, this is a new one on me.

I just went into Paint Shop Pro 7, PhotoShop 6, PhotoImpact 6.5, ImageReady, Ulead Smart Saver, GIF Animator 5, and none of them even offer a selection in the "Save As" for a .doc!

I have NEVER heard of an image being saved as a .doc file. A .doc file by definition is a document file, a text file. How somebody got an image to save as a .doc file with no text to accompany it is a mystery to me.

Unless they saved it as a bitmap file and named it something like "Dropped A" where it mimics a dropped capital letter at the beginning of a paragraph. but it would have a .bmp suffix if they did that.

I would ask you to e-mail it to me but it may be Grumbler #41 and I have a heck of a time keeping a secret! I would like to see the file though and play with it to see how they got an image into a .doc file.

Framerguy
 
Ron,

The best that I know you can do is to convert it to an HTML document. Will that help? The converted resolution is slightly less than so-so.

Right click on the image
Select Picture Object
Select Open
Select File (main menu)
Select Save Copy As
Select Document type as HTML........
 
Open the file in word, highlight the image and cut it out, open photoshop, hit CTRL+N (file,new). This will create an empty file at the correct dimensions for the image you have on the clipboard, paste on your image, flatten and save as whatever you want.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I ended up doing something similar to what Lance suggested: highlighting the photo in Word, copying it to the clipboard and pasting it into Photoshop. Then resizing it and adjusting the resolution before saving it as a jpg to post to TG. The results (in this case, Alan's rose photo on Warped) were less than spectacular.

Framerguy, I'll forward Alan's original email to you so you can see what I'm talking about.

Rick, I tried saving the Word document as a web page, but could still not extract the photo with any of the usual means.

John, I'll take a look at the conversion utilities and see if there's a better way to deal with Aussie attachments in the future. ;)
 
Ron, I have since asked the graphics people that we keep in a seperate cage (I was being wheeled past to my new location), they have this dilema on a daily basis and this is unfortunatly the best solution that they are aware of at this time. Some suggestions (amoungst the howling) were to "have a fiddle" with the levels (not auto-levels) and you might find a better solution, or to resize the image in word before copying. The conclusion was that there was no good results when pics have been [insert the word they might have used here] with in this manner (sorry Alan).
An aside note to Alan, there was probably no need for you to "insert" this picture into a word document as Ron has the ability to work with the vast majority of image files. Hold your hand out, now where did I put that ruler???
 
Thanks, Lance. I knew you'd have some ideas from that zoo you call Imageland. (And I mean that in the kindest possible way.)

The bottom line is: It's Alan's fault and my geek license remains valid, though perhaps restricted to non-government work.
 
Not to worry, Zippy.

You were ALWAYS a true geek in my book.


FGII
 
I think all these problems with people putting a graphic into Word then sending the .doc file to someone has been caused by companies like Microsoft who have 'integrated' everything to do with computers into one complete universal 'blob'. (desktop or internet explorer or windows explorer or something)

Now, newcomers to computers have no understanding of the difference bewteen an image file, a document file, a text file, a program file, a dynamic link library file or even a 'bastard file'.

Can you imagine what would happen if a structural engineer didn't know the difference between cement, concrete or sand?

Its about time we got back to to the basics, isn't it???
 
All,
.DOC files can have images in them (ie. MS Word.)
When they are saved the image is embedded as an object in the document itself. The best way to get the object when you are not the author of the piece is the way Lance described and Ron performed.

You can place all sorts of objects in a Word document but they can only be edited by the program that made them. You can actually change the object and have it updated in the document. But, you still have to have the original object on your system.
 
Well, I am so glad that I am humble enough to still remain in the "learning" stage of life. I didn't know about the ".doc" thing as a text file and now I receive an insurance quote from Capax which was a text file and was sent to me via e-mail as a .tif file! Now that one has me stumped for sure!!

I have tried EVERYTHING to open this file and have had no luck so far. The girl who made up the quote said she didn't know she could SEND a .tif file so she wasn't much help in getting into the file. She was going to send another quote as a .doc file but I haven't seen it yet.

Anybody have any thoughts on this .tif conversion. When I attempt to open it, I get a message saying that the file does not have a program associated with it to read the file.

Thanks. (I am taking careful notes in case there is a quiz later.)

Framerguy
 
Framerguy,

I think TIF (tag image format, or something like that) is a common format for saving fax files. Shareware image viewers like ACDSee will read them and perhaps allow you to save the file as another, more common, image format, like jpg. You will NOT, however, be able to convert the file to a text file without running it though OCR software, which is hit-and-miss at best. If they send you a doc file, I can almost guarantee it will be an image imbedded in a Word file, just like Alan's. Scanners aren't good at saving text as text.

If you want me to convert the file for you, email it to me. If it has a lot of personal stuff, I'd rather not see it, though. I already know too much about you. :eek:
 
Windows has a programme called "Imaging" packaged with it (Programmes, Accessories) that will open TIF files. If for some reason the file has converted it's tag somewhere along the line (it happens, I have no idea why, but it happens (operator error...)) try using the "open with" command (right click on file in explorer) and using wordpad, some machine language then your text mixed up with it: try changing the extension to .doc and see if word will open it, all machine language: I have no idea what the heck you have...
 
well, it was ALL machine language so your guess is as good as anybody's.

Ron, if you think you can crack this nut, I'll e-mail it to you.

Be aware that all of the sensitive information is to be kept STRICTLY to yourself as the security of us all may be at stake if word were to leak out about the contents of this E-mail. To my knowledge, the only Grumblers cleared to actually READ information of this nature would be Charles aka, Terminator, and myself aka, Omar.

I am trusting that your level of reading comprehension is such that we need not worry about your compromising the security of the entire free world by passing on any of this gobbel-di-gook to any unknown enemies of freedom.

OK, you check out and can dicipher this alleged ".tif" file for me.

Thanks in advance should you choose to accept this mission.

Omar, framer of the free world.
 
TIF files are the grandaddy standard of the imaging world. In fact most digital cameras take the pic in TIF and then convert it to JPG. Like JPG, they are bitmapped image files, so there is no text to read. If you don't have the capability of opening a TIF file you could get a free program such as eFax that is designed for creating and reading TIF files, or send it to someone who has a graphics program such as Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, etc who can convert it to a GIF or JPG that can be viewed in an HTML enabled email client or brower.

Or wait for the DOC attachment to arrive.

BTW, I love eFax. Though it's primarily designed as a way to send and receive Faxes over the internet (at a relatively low cost) it has a free program that allows you to convert anything you can print into a graphics file that can be sent via email. Sort of like the Adobe Acrobat Distiller, but free
 
Create a Post
Back
Top