[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] storing genealogical information

[F&RM Haddad]

I'm the one who had the near-miss with a corrupted database file that my
program (yes, Legacy) had the ability to restore. And thank-you everyone for
your suggestions and good wishes. This has made me wonder how everyone
stores their genealogical info. Just on a dedicated genealogy program? Also
in, a spreadsheet program? And/Or also in a Word Processing Program in
Ahnen-tafel format? What about "hard copy"? I gave my maternal line data in
chart form to a cousin as a b-day gift, and it was over 120 pages, 5
generations per page. Many pages had only one or two names on them of
course, but even so. Since then I've been able to add more material, and it
would be signficantly bigger now.

So in your opinion, what is the best way (what are the best ways) to store
your information?

And while on the topic - how do you transfer the information in electronic
format to someone (say, overseas) who does not have a genealogical program
on their computer, and may not have Microsoft Word? And I don't have Adobe
except as a reader.

Rose-Marie