Microsoft Word is a program we printers both love and hate. We love it because it has substantially improved the quality of the documents our customers bring us to have reproduced. Originals created in Word have many desirable characteristics that formerly could only be achieved with professional typesetting. Proportional spacing of letters, attributes such as italics and bold, different point sizes for headlines and body copy, special characters, and features such as sub- and superscript are all available in Word and greatly enhance the appearance of documents.
With all these benefits, it may be hard to understand why we printers sometimes shudder when we learn a document has been created in Word. In this issue of Printips, we’re going to explain why, as well as provide some useful tips on how to use Word to best advantage when you will be giving us a document to print or copy.