I work in a print shop and it is thesis printing time.
This means we are flooded with students, with varying levels of computer savvy.
I recommend PDFs when I can but usually, they bring them in as Word docs.

When I open their docs in our version of word (2000) the formatting usually changes drastically which means they then have to go through it page by page and re-adjust everything.
This is very  time consuming and generally annoying as it ties up the computer I use for the bulk of the printing.
The only thing I can think of is asking them to save their doc to 2000. This means sending them away, back to their computer and I am wondering if there are other ways to GET around this...

Any hints?


This sounds strange.  I can understand some minor change in formatting but not "drastic" changes. 

Anyway, what version of Word do most of the students use?  I'm guessing it's a later version.  If so, don't you think you should upgrade your Office suite to a later version? And, if only having one version is a problem, then I'd say you should have more than one version of Office available to your customers.  If you don't have enough computers to devote separate machines to different versions of Office, you can install multiple versions on one computer.  To successfully do that, though, refer to Information about running multiple versions of Office with Office 2003Thanks soybean, quick and concise

Drastic was an exaggeration. Sorry, I shouldn't have been so flippant. I was highlighting the fact that a simple procedure was made complicated by the inefficiency of my workplace.
We're talking hundreds of pages per document and I have FOUND that when they see headers being moved about etc. they have to go through each page to feel confident that the layout is the way they want it.

I would assume that most of the students are using a later version, and indeed, it is hardly professional to be unable to cater for a wide range of needs.

I hadn't considered having more than one version on the one machine. I'm not in a decision MAKING position (probably the source of my frustration ) but I will definitely bring it to the attention of someone who is.

Thanks again.If you're only going to have one version of Office, I'm sure you agree having a later version is better.  Change is formatting is mush less likely to occur when the original file was created in an older version than the version being used for printing, as opposed to the opposite situation. 

Maybe you've already tried this approach with the decision maker but, in case you have not, I'll go ahead with this suggestion.  You might be able to beef up the argument for Office 2003 (maybe Office 2007) by quantifying the time lost due to students going through their Word files before printing and calculating the potential additional printing revenue by reducing this time.  If you can show figures indicating an upgrade of Office could pay for itself within a certain number of weeks or months, that should help win your case. 

If a software PURCHASE does materialize, a decision willl have to be made about what version, 2003 or 2007 (now on the market).  The DIFFERENCE between 2007 and 2003 is much greater than the difference between earlier versions (2003 and earlier).  That might be a reason to hold up on 2007 and go with 2003, assuming most Word users are still using 2003 or earlier.  Time to whip out the calculator!

You're a gem