what extra work there is for them, but I understand that the windows recipients have to do extra work if its not a .doc file. The sender tells me its more work to send .doc to everyone else and something else to me.Obviously, this is a training problem, or a social problem and not a technical problem, if you will. In the save dialog, there is a drop-down menu of file types. Of course there is the warning dialog afterward that tells the user that saving in the selected format may cause a loss of formatting and other fancy document properties. Many poorly trained users interpret this as a serious error and not as the simple bit of information that can be safely ignored that it is. They have trained themselves to avoid these pop-up boxes at all costs.
To be honest, this is probably the result of the practices of a certain OS and office software manufacturer. The non-too-expert users are confused by boxes that all too often just don't tell the truth.
I get angry every time, I have to explain to someone that it is not true that the computer is at risk, because of the unavailability of virus updates as long as the computer is not connected to any network (the reason why no updates are available) and as long as noone tempers with 'untrusted' floppies, usb-sticks etc. [1]
There are many more examples, I can't remember right now, but we won't get better users, as long as the mayor software vendor goes about with wrong and/or misleading pop-up messages.
Johannes[1] We are talking about laptops that have no network connection for a few days and cannot download virus updates over that time.