Thursday, Aug. 07, 2008

Tech Q&A

Q: I have Windows Vista home edition. I have a couple of documents I have created in Word 2007 (a cover letter that I customize and a résumé) that I send for consideration of employment. I often receive an e-mail back telling me either that my attachments can't be opened or that the words are "scattered" all over the place. What could cause this to happen? Is it their computer, mine or a case of computer incompatibility?

A: The culprit probably is an incompatibility between Word 2007 and the version of Word your recipients are using. Office 2007 hasn't gained widespread use yet, and until it does, it's important to be aware of these kinds of compatibility issues.

You have a couple of options. First is to save your documents as earlier versions of Word. When you save a document, the program gives you a long list of file types. Choosing "Word 97-2003 Document" should solve your problem.

To set the program to automatically save your files as earlier versions, open Word and click on the Office button at the top left. At the bottom of the menu that comes up, click "Word Options." Click on "Save" in the left panel. In the right panel, under "save files in this format" select "Word 97-2003 Document ((ASTERISK).doc)." Click OK and all Word files you create should be compatible with the program on other computers.

Another option, and the one I'd recommend, is to save and send your cover letter and resume as PDFs. With something as important as a job application, it's not worth the risk of the recipient's default formatting wreaking havoc on your resume -- and your first impression.

If you have Adobe Acrobat (not just Adobe Reader), you should be able to print to "Adobe PDF" as if it were a printer. If you don't, just Google "PDF converter" to turn up a plethora of free converter options. The one I tried, freepdfconvert.com, was convenient and almost instantaneous.

E-mail your technology questions to tech@startribune.com.