just to clarify/reiterate/remind what the problem is.

i'm creating these documents in word 2003 because i like the program, because i have a copy of it and because it works just fine. word processing isn't the kind of thing you should have to pay for over and over again. i don't remember where i got the version i have, but somebody paid for it, and that shouldn't expire.

but, i never got used to the office 2007 interface. i was supposed to eventually deal with it, i know; i didn't, and i don't want to now, and i'm never going to. but, they changed the format at the time from .doc to .docx.

this was a substantive change in the way that office files are created. i don't know how the old office files work, but the new office files are using an xml-based architecture that appears to be dramatically different.

unfortunately, converting from .doc to .docx is something that everybody has massive problems with. google, adobe, the free sites and microsoft, too. it breaks the formatting, every time.  sadly, the standard way that doc is converted to pdf seems to implement the conversion to docx as an intermediary step. so, if i go to google docs, it will convert my doc file to a docx file first and then convert it to pdf after, which leaves me with a slew of broken formatting, essentially undoing everything i spent the last month doing.

but, i was able to find a workaround at the microsoft cloud that converted directly from doc to pdf. it's the only free site that has that option, that i'm aware of.

this broke on me this morning, and then righted itself, and then broke again, and then fixed itself again. but, i think i squeezed what i need out...

the issue could of course be resolved by fixing the conversion step. i'm labeling it as unnecessary and trying to just avoid it, but if they'd just fucking fix it, it wouldn't be a problem.

regardless, that's something that should be made clear - any .doc file that you download from me will lose it's formatting when converted to .docx format, so you should try to open it in a version of word that lets you open it natively, without having to convert it to xml.