What email-format do current government departments want?

This baby-talk query, composed for other fora:

When we started email, some decades ago: each key-press generated one
character, which became one byte in the email. Later, methods evolved
to encode and wrap pictures and pdf-documents, as attachments to email.

An original document keyed-in as plain text, uses from 2 to 10 times the
number of bytes, when converted to a pdf file; which also slows the
search process and email transmission rate.

Of course, this increase in size is encouraged by the software industry,
as part of the continual pressure to *upgrade* [buy my stuff].

A new government department [in South Africa] is failing to respond to
my emails, and the telephones have an answering-machine only.
This department's [www.cipc.co.za] publications show an attempt to be
internet based; and they would obviously follow the current practice
as sold to them by their "software vendors".

Their written instructions are to email completed Form X, which is
available as http://............pdf

Since Form X must be signed, it must be converted to paper and back to
bytes. How else would you do this?

Since Form X states: "attach to this form a typed document..";
must the several of such needed "typed documents" be converted from
plain text, to pdf, and be attached to the email?

Do I understand correctly that this government department cannot/will-not
read plain-text email; they require all text to be delivered as separate
attachments?


==TIA.

 

Isn't snail mail an option? It looks like it could be a more optimal
solution in this case.

 

Their written instructions are to email completed Form X, which is

Or fax!
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