word documents created on a mac do not look the same when viewed on an IBM PC

[Dave Breiner]

I created a word document on my Mac G5 with OSX 10.3.4
with Office:Mac teacher edition with ariel font. I was
told the document should open and look the same in word on
a PC.

However, when I open this document on a PC running win
2000 and office word 2002, the font shows as something
called "device font", and when I try to changed it back to
ariel in word on the PC, there are only three "device
fonts" to choose from in the format + font menu. Any
ideas how to resolve this problem? Thanks-
Dave

 

[Elliott Roper]

I created a word document on my Mac G5 with OSX 10.3.4
with Office:Mac teacher edition with ariel font. I was
told the document should open and look the same in word on
a PC.

However, when I open this document on a PC running win
2000 and office word 2002, the font shows as something
called "device font", and when I try to changed it back to
ariel in word on the PC, there are only three "device
fonts" to choose from in the format + font menu. Any
ideas how to resolve this problem? Thanks-
Dave

Try another PC. That one sounds broken to me.
What fonts do created-fresh-on-the-PC documents have available?
What does your Mac make of those documents?

It is normally *very* easy to persuade a PC to match fonts with your
Macs. This is especially true if you confine yourself to the fonts
distributed with Office. Arial is one of those. Also Times New Roman.
Yes, they are boring and the longer you look at them the uglier they
get. But they should make transferring documents between Mac and PC
fairly bearable.

What is not so easy is keeping the formatting such as page breaks under
control. Until you have fully trained your PC users, send them a PDF as
well, so they can get an idea of what it was supposed to look like,

PC user training involves creating and sharing compatible style
templates, agreeeing on printer brands and margin settings.

It shouldn't be like that, but that is the way it is. It is what PDFs
are for. ;-)