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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><title>Guidelines for Mail Attachments for W3C Lists</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="/2008/site/css/minimum" type="text/css" media="handheld, all" /><style type="text/css" media="print, screen and (min-width: 481px)" xml:space="preserve">
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<li class="current">Guidelines for Attachments</li>
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<h1 class="title">Guidelines for Attachments</h1>
<ul class="w3c_toc"><li class="toc_prefix">On this page → </li><li><a href="#concerns">concerns</a><span class="bullet"> • </span></li><li><a href="#observations">observations</a><span class="bullet"> • </span></li><li><a href="#guidelines">guidelines</a></li></ul>
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<p class="intro tPadding">Submissions to W3C mailing lists are intended to be viewed by a
broad audience of current and future viewers. Although email
messages themselves are normally sent in plain text or HTML format,
attachments in other formats are sometimes included. Learn more
about:</p>
<h2 id="concerns">Concerns</h2>
<p>Many people have expressed concern about formats that are
sometimes used in email attachments that are submitted to W3C
mailing lists. These concerns include:</p>
<ul class="show_items"><li>Fear of potential virus transmission</li><li>Inability to read the format, because the recipient is running
on a different platform than the sender and does not have the
necessary viewing software</li><li>Difficulty reading the format because it requires a specialized
viewer that must be separately purchased or installed</li><li>Difficulty using the format in conjunction with HTML (for
example, difficulty in extracting an excerpt for use in an HTML
document)</li><li>Reservations about using formats whose specifications are
proprietary, unpublished or not freely implementable.</li></ul>
<h2 id="observations">Observations</h2>
<p>In discussing these concerns, several observations were
made:</p>
<ul class="show_items"><li>Many documents that are submitted in a format that raises these
concerns could have been submitted in a different format that does
not raise these concerns, without substantial loss in value to the
reader.</li><li>Mailing list submissions are permanently archived and may be
need to be searched and read by many people for years to come.</li><li>A submitted document has only one sender, but could potentially
have hundreds or thousands of readers; therefore</li><li>It seems far more reasonable to place any format conversion
burden on the sender of a document than on its (potentially many)
readers.</li></ul>
<p>As a result of these concerns, we have adopted several
guidelines.</p>
<h2 id="guidelines">Guidelines</h2>
<p>Submissions to W3C email lists should conform to the following
guidelines.</p>
<ol class="show_items"><li>Avoid unnecessary email attachments. Use an attachment
only when it is likely to benefit to recipients. Otherwise, place
the information (in plain text format) in the body of your
message.</li><li>If an attachment is necessary, avoid formats that are virus
prone, proprietary or platform dependent. For example,
whenever possible you should use HTML instead of MS Word,
PowerPoint or PDF. (Ideally, use <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/">XHTML</a> or <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/">HTML4</a>.) </li><li>If you must use a proprietary or platform-dependent format,
please <strong>also</strong> include an alternate version in
a universally readable format, such as HTML or plain text, if
possible. If you cannot, then at least include a format that has
widely available free viewers, if possible.</li><li>Beware of automatic conversions to HTML. They often
produce HTML that can only be viewed on certain browsers. <a href="http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/">HTML Tidy</a> may be
helpful in cleaning up HTML.</li><li>Avoid JavaScript and proprietary extensions in HTML.</li><li>Follow <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/">Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)</a>.</li></ol>
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