The PDF file format is specifically created to solve this problem. Unfortunately, “close” is vague, and can be startlingly different from what you intended. Word will substitute something “close” to the font you wanted. If you create a document using one font that happens to be installed on your computer, and then view it on another system where the font is not present, things will look different. Different system, different lookĪnother common difference is fonts, which are not the same across systems. Default margins, paper size, and other differences in both capability and configuration can make a document appear very differently when viewed or printed on one system as compared to another. When Word displays a document in a print layout or page view, it uses the characteristics of the currently-selected printer to determine what the document will look like when printed. Word processors like Word are generally designed to produce documents to be printed. In a nutshell: it’s all about the printer. Your client is on the right track: that’s exactly what PDF is for. They were never meant to distribute documents to others for reading. Word documents were never intended to do what you’re doing.