I think generally you are right, although I have had several conversations recently with solicitors (through networking events you understand!) who are saying Judges are now regularly allowing email and other electronic docs as evidence in court. So much busines is now done without any paper that it would be almost impossible not to allow it.

The recent ISO approval of PDF/A (an Archive format) is specifically for the long term storage and faithful reproduction of digital documentation.

Of course, proving that the recipient actually received it is another matter entirely

Al

I would support Paul Dadge’s comments but for one thing - an electronic copy of a document is not legally worth anything, regardless of its contents or electronic format.

Having once worked for a consultancy firm (in Highways and Transport Infrastructure) I gather that the original document needs to be conveyed by post / courier and accepted by the recipient in order for it to have any legal recognition. That consultancy firm once nearly had legal problems with a good and trusted client purely because they had Fax’d an A4 draft proposed solution to them on a problem they were working on. One would have thought that one A4 Fax to another A4 Fax would have come out identical, but in fact it did not.

As you unfortunately saw an electronic copy can often bear no resemblance to the original, and personally I do not think that any electronic Standard should be applied, whether it be Open Office, MS Office, PDF, or even any other format that could be thrown at ISO. For business use I believe it should remain as the originally drawn up printed document handed over without any electronic intervention or conveyancing.

Kevin

Firstly I read your article in the Express & Star with interest and will follow your open source exploits with interest.

My opnion with regard to anything “legal” whether it be quotations, support contracts or invoices is always send as a PDF. Not just for cross compatibility but more for the fact that they shouldn’t be able to easily edit the document and “what you see is what you get”.

Paul Dadge

I concur that pdf (An ISO standard BTW and one which passed in January this year with in almost absolute silence. Compare that to OOXML!) is the best way to send electronic docs that are not for editing.

And yes, one standard is the right way - even the WTO thinks so and may well end up having words with ISO about it… http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7546/469