Common Problems Using Word for Typesetting

Missing Features in Word

No pre-flight support - Unlike professional page layout programs like Quark or InDesign, Word can not check a document for missing fonts, incompatible images, overset text or other problems. This makes it much more likely there will be surprises when you begin paying for professional output or printing or are hitting your deadline.
Limited PDF support - InDesign has the built-in ability to create pdf files at various resolutions and settings to meet your printer’s needs; their output should look exactly like what you sent, so there’s no surprises with the text or layout. Word can’t do this. If you attempt to create PDF documents from Word, the results rarely look ‘right’ and if you send the original Word files to the printer, their output will almost certainly look different from yours.
Limited image support - Since professional page layout software lets you specify the color space and output device for images, you shouldn’t have surprises there, either. Word’s image support is very limited; the photographs that looked beautiful on your screen and ok printed from your inkjet may end up looking terrible when professionally printed.

Word Idiosyncrasies

Note that I have not been using ‘New’ Office for very long; some of these problems may only exist in older versions of Word, or may come up in different ways than I describe below.

‘Normal’ style (the default style a new document opens with and most text ends up in) is set on the user’s computer. The author may painstakingly change fonts throughout their manuscript, but if they were in ‘Normal’ style, those fonts will probably change on the next computer the document is opened on. This is an even bigger problem if the author used hard returns instead of page breaks to start new chapters or sections on new pages, or manually created their TOC or index, since when the fonts change, the entire document re-flows.
Even when styles have been used, Word is inconsistent about updating the text when the style definition has been changed. Often just the paragraph you are clicked on changes, and not all text in that style. You end up needing to manually click on each paragraph and update it, which is time consuming in a long document. In addition, the default is to change the style to match where you are, and not where you are to match the changed style, so you have to be very careful about just hitting return if a pop-up window appears.
Poor typographic control - Word doesn’t handle kerning (space between letters) or leading (space between lines of text) well. Adding a superscript or subscript can cause the entire line of text to move up or down. Justifying text can cause ugly spacing, especially if hyphenation has been left at the default settings or the author used double spaces after each period. As a result, the text doesn't ‘flow’ evenly, and gaps, cramped letter spacing or inconsistent line heights appear throughout the document.
Poor font control - the Word interface encourages users to make a font bold or italic by selecting the Bold or Italic setting, instead of changing the font to the bold or italic version of that font family. Type that was formatted this way rarely looks as nice as the actual bold or italic version of the font, which (assuming Word even ‘sees’ it) has kerning that was set up for the changed letter shapes and spacing. Italicized text often looks like it needs an extra space after it, while bold text may have letters that touch. Times New Roman, the default font in many versions of Word, is especially ugly in italic or bold.
Image embedding - Word does not ‘link’ to images outside the document but rather embeds them within it. Image quality can degrade during multiple saves. Any image editing after the image has been embedded must be done using Word’s limited set of tools, or the image must be copied out of the document, saved into another software package like Photoshop, and the replacement inserted back into the document.
AutoCorrect Settings - Many of Word’s attempts to be helpful are a disaster in terms of typesetting. The autocorrect and autoformat features can create bizarre indents, capitalize text you didn’t want that way or make web addresses clickable and blue when they are supposed to be just part of the text.

Author Error

The author doesn’t know how to use the formatting tools, or uses them inconsistently. Paragraphs may be indented using the paragraph formatting, using spaces, or using tabs. Sometimes space is created after every paragraph by using an extra hard return, sometimes by using the paragraph format settings. Often multiple methods are used throughout the document. This results in inconsistent spacing or indenting, and may cause margins to fluctuate in width.
The author doesn’t know how to use page and section breaks, headers, footers, indexing, or other tools. New pages are created by entering multiple hard returns to move text to the top of the next page, headers and footers either don’t exist or show up on pages they’re not wanted, the index and table of contents cant’t be automatically updated when the body of the book changes, the page sizes or margins are set up incorrectly and become difficult to change.
The author treats Word like a typewriter, using double dashes instead of em dashes, two spaces after periods, or an extra hard return after every paragraph, creating poorly spaced and unprofessional looking text, especially when justified.
The author doesn’t use styles, so changes are difficult and time consuming. Something as simple as consistently changing the spacing for chapter headings or between paragraphs requires going to each area of text you want to change, rather than changing the style definition.
The author does uses styles, but sticks to the default ones, which means typefaces, spacing, etc. change when the document is opened on another computer with different settings for the default styles.
The author uses specific fonts which they want to keep, but doesn’t know how to include those with the document so someone on another computer can install them and see all that design effort, or they use poorly designed fonts they downloaded from the internet, which will never reproduce well in high quality print. Worst yet, the author uses commonly available fonts but doesn't send them with the file; the printer has a font with the same name so everybody thinks it’s ok, but the printer’s version is slightly different and the document re flows in subtle ways no one notices until after the book is printed.

If you are going to have your book professionally typeset, you can ignore much of the Word Idiosyncrasies and Missing Features sections, but should pay attention to the Author Error section above. Inconsistent formatting and using Word like a typewriter result in more work for the typesetter and may create confusion about what, exactly, you were doing (were those extra hard returns because you really wanted more space between those two paragraphs, because you wanted the next paragraph to start at the top of the next page, or was it just a mistake?). It also results in additional proofreading, as the typesetter may need to extensively ‘clean-up’ your file before beginning the actual design and layout, allowing further opportunity for unwanted text or formatting changes.