The International Schools Review Forum

When I send copies of my paperwork to schools (by attaching to emails or uploading to school site), is it better to use word documents or to transfer everything to a pdf?

Thanks!

If they specify one or the other, you should do exactly what they say. Otherwise, PDF is better. It retains your formatting and can be opened on all sorts of devices.

If the school is specific on a format, follow whatever directions the school requires. Many schools construct databases, or summaries based on resumes and based on the software they use they can only strip the data from a resume or other documents in certain formats (doc, jpg, etc).

In the absence of any instructions you should use PDF. It retains the format of your resume, and scales very easily, clearly, and uniformly. PDF also includes automatic compression that will reduce the size of your files. Many schools email systems have limits on attachment sizes, these are often imposed by their provider.

Lastly, outside the USA the rest of the world uses A4 paper, not US letter, its advisable you format your resume with that page size.

Thank you for your responses. Sounds like a pdf file is the way to go unless otherwise specified.