Microsoft Hell

"I'll send that to you right now!"
Famous last words before I discover that my two-page resume is actually four pages ugly ... and I mean U G L Y !!! 


When I send out my resume, I actually send out two. I have an executive summary version (thanks Marla!) and the standard detailed version for recruiters. On my computer in MS Word, it looks fabulous. I'll typically send the .PDF version so the formatting is retained regardless of printer settings. Unfortunately, I had to come through with an MS Word file NOT Acrobat. I thought there would be no problem. I turned around the request within five minutes.


About a minute later, the recipient tells me my name is missing from the top and it's more pages than I originally intended. It didn't matter that it looked fabulous on my computer/printer. I ended up sending to about five girlfriends. All of them had problems printing out my resume. Swell. 


Understand that I have over 20 years experience with MS Word and consider myself an expert. It took me three hours to debug the problem. THREE HOURS! That's ridiculous.


What I learned
As soon as someone comes out with a far superior word processing software offering, I'm there. Until then, I get to suck it up, buck up and figure it out.


Before I send any document to anyone, send it to myself. Upon receipt, read it using Google Docs (a lifesaving application in my book). What I figured out was my document was over formatted. By this I mean I had styles I no longer use and outdated fonts. In order for the resumes to fit on one page each, I had to perform some serious text wrangling. The solution: Cut the entire document sans the last paragraph marker and paste into a shiny new MS Word document and reformat from scratch. 


I had to mess with the template organizer, modify/delete old styles, ensure Adobe TrueType fonts were used, reset defaults, all that stuff. Long story short, I had to completely reformat the document without adjusting any character spacing, kerning, etc. It all came down to the font.


Once formatted and reworded to eliminate widows and orphans, everything was fine. But what a pain in the butt! 


I LOVE TECHNOLOGY but wish it wasn't as complex as Microsoft software product offerings. Back in the day, I could call Microsoft and expect to speak with an expert to solve problems. But Bill Gates wasn't getting paid well enough so he came up with a pay-as-you-go customer help model that effectively killed any chance of me getting helped. 


But so what. I figured it out. I'm over it. Next ...