The Problem:
I spent a while formatting our family newsletter so that it looked just perfect. But when our friends opened it on their computers, the fonts were all wrong: bland fonts were substituted for the ones I used. Worse, the font changes had messed up the layout.
The Solution:
You've probably figured out what's wrong: your friends' computers don't have the fonts you used, so Word substituted other fonts. When the substitutes take up different amounts of space, the layout can change. The combined effects can be distressing.
There are two things you can do about this. Firstyes, you've guessed ityou can simply stick to the fonts that everybody has, such as Arial, Times New Roman, and Tahoma. Documents that use only those fonts can look pretty bland, though. The second (and probably preferable) option is to embed the fonts you use in the document so that they'll be there for your friends to see. Here's how:
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Choose Tools » Options and click the Save tab.
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Check the "Embed TrueType fonts" box to embed the complete character sets of all the TrueType fonts you've used in the document.
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Embedding the complete character sets bulks up the file size and is necessary only if you want your friends to be able to edit your document. It's usually best to also check the "Embed characters in use only" box to keep the bloating down a bit. If you use Word 2003 or Word XP, you may also want to check the "Do not embed common system fonts" box; your friends should have these fonts on their PCs.
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Click the OK button.
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Save the document. Check the file size before sending it via email; if you've used a lot of fonts and embedded the full character sets, it could be pretty hefty.
