Often I receive email attachments in WordPad (DOC format) but more than often cannot read these attachments. I am tired of returning messages asking for a resend in RTF. I am using Windows 95 and the word processing is done in Lotus WordPro 97 edition for Windows 95. Is there something I can do so that the file attachments arrive intact ready to read?

As you ask the senders to resend the files in RTF (Rich Text Format) format, I assume that you can read that file format. If you are opening each DOC file directly in Lotus WordPro, instead, open the file in WordPad and then save it as RTF (as WordPad has support to open DOC files and save in RTF format). However, if you are opening the DOC files in WordPad and you cannot read the file in WordPad, you may have to use a third-party utility to convert the file to RTF format. Unfortunately I have been unable to find a third-party utility which can convert DOC files to RTF format. The only solutions which I have found are how to make a Word macro to convert batches of DOC files to RTF. Of course, this is not a viable solution unless you have Word. However, I will continue to look and if I find such a utility I will publish the details in a later column.