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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Darrin Drader" data-source="post: 4068218" data-attributes="member: 7394">Word is fine if you don't care about presentation. Most publishers want things laid out with specific fonts, artwork, borders, etc. You can do this in Word format if you happen to have all the needed fonts on every computer that might be viewing these files. If the reader is using an old version of Word, or their computer has something funky going on in the background, or they're using Open Office, or one of a thousand other variables, the final result will not be as the publisher intended.The PDF format takes as many of the variables out of the equation as possible by embedding the fonts and basically serving as a "printed" version of the layout. As long as the end user is viewing the file with a program designed to view PDF formatted files, what they look at will be as they intended.There's also the issue of security. A publisher can prevent copying the text or images into other programs. They can also watermark it so that any unauthorized copies found through filesharing can be tracked back to the person who originally gave it away. Of course there are disadvantages to doing all of these things, and there are relatively easy methods of cracking these security measures, but they are things you cannot do with Word files.</blockquote>