what's a good document type?

[mellowtigger]

I need a kind of document that can be edited on any computer platform without someone having to pay for programs to install.  It needs to work without someone having to lower security settings on their pc.  It needs to allow a person to enter data within specific fields in the document.  It needs to be small enough that people can easily email it as a file attachment.

What is there?

I find that Microsoft Word just isn't generic enough.  We put documents out on the web, and some people cannot view/edit/save Word format.  Or miscellaneous Microsoft formats come in to us that require additional software installed to convert to our current version.

I find that PDF is just plain awful.  The Adobe editor is expensive and a cpu hog.  Documents don't always work correctly, even with Adobe Reader.  I do like Foxit as a generic pdf viewer, but it's impossible to get every program to play correctly with a pdf document that expects fields to be filled in.

I find that Tiddlywiki is a security risk because it requires users to alter their security settings so that the program can save data to its own source file.  Prime virus territory.  Yuck.  Too bad, since I really like the concept of it: an editor embedded within the document itself.

So what options are there?  Flat html provides the forms, the dropdown lists, the radio buttons, etc, but it cannot save the data anywhere.  Argh!  Business has needed a solution to this problem for decades.  Why don't we have one yet?

Comments

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

Because Adobe and Word are never going to stop trying to own the field. Industry has no incentive to stop making you buy multiple softwares, and updates for each as often as the MBAs determine they can get away with.

In short the answer is that there is no one format that does everything you list here.

Have you looked at Open Office?
http://openconcept.ca/openoffice