AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!

[denny]

I fucking hate it when agencies ask me for a Word copy of my CV. I'm applying for Web Devel jobs - anyone who is going to be interested in employing me will be happier with the online version than with a fucking crappy fucking useless fucking static fucking proprietary fucking Word document!

*returns to hand-editing all the links out of his CV in OpenOffice... which by the way appears to suck even worse than AbiWord, but would at least open the HTML version, which AbiWord inexplicably would not*

Comments

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

yes, but if the agencies need to cut&paste or change things around, or email it to companies in a format that the HR department will be able to process, Word is handy and widely used.

[wechsler.livejournal.com]

... so conform or be damned ...

[olithered.livejournal.com]

Which openoffice are you using? I've had much joy with the new 1.1. It'll even make you .pdf files!

[davefish.livejournal.com]

When I was doing mine I usually sent it off in .pdf format, since then you can control the presentation on paper. When asked to put it into word then you could get away with cut and pasting it into a document...

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Some people need a good damning, damnit (Janet, I love you, doo doo doo)

[reddragdiva]

OpenOffice 1.1 is pretty damned good, though it helps if you have a genuine copy of Word 97 (which they will most likely be using) on hand for testing. Note that Word isn't compatible with itself, because layout is actually determined by the printer driver. This is actually true.

The key point in Word-proofing docs like your CV is to do them in OpenOffice, do hard page breaks between pages and be sure to leave a couple of lines space at the bottom of each page. Then verify it in a real copy of Word anyway.

(I just did the experiment Word-proofing ali_anarres' CV. FUCKING WORD! AARGH!)

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Or provide the software and training for everyone who will ever have to look at, proofread or forward a CV to be able to access all the other different formats.

I know MS is evil. But realistically, if you're the one looking for the job, you should be prepared to jump through hoops.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

layout is actually determined by the printer driver. This is actually true.

so this is why a beautifully-formatted document will sometimes come out looking like crap when printed?

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

1.1.0. It pissed me right off by repeatedly opening my .html in Writer/Web instead of Writer, the former not having a 'save as .doc' feature - in fact, I couldn't find any common file formats between the two to save it across in - had to use cut and paste in the end. At least it dealt reasonably gracefully with the tables though.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Yes, the printer driver overrides things like margins, which can have horrendous knock-on effects if you've made maximum use of the space on the page.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

I provide it as a webpage - how much training (or additional software) would anyone need to view that? I'd guess more people can use a web browser than a word processor these days, and there are definitely more computers with browsers installed than WP packages. Forwarding it means simply sending on the URL, much more efficient than sending a whole document around. A web page is cross platform, will format according to the output device it's viewed on, and should always be up to date.

...erm, I think I went off on one then... nothing personal :)

[fellcat.livejournal.com]

Oh god, tell me about it...

And people who send me the goddamn things, so that I've got to either faff around with OpenOffice or Antiword, or reboot to Windows to use M$'s Word viewer. No, I don't have M$ Word. The licence would cost me two weeks wages in my current job. The only reason I don't send them back either .sxw files or details of all the meta info I found in the .doc they sent me is because I want them to employ me. Such is the job market.