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Comment by weinzierl | Hacker News Reader

A file that was written in Word '97 did not even open exactly as expected on two different computers 25 years ago. Formatting depended on the installed printer drivers. Good luck with that document today.

My LaTeX files from 35 years ago, on the other hand - they just do fine.

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>My LaTeX files from 35 years ago, on the other hand - they just do fine.

Yeah, because they're plain text. A fairer comparison would be whether they render pixel perfectly as 35 years ago, which I doubt.

If you compile them to DVI you'll get the same DVI file.

Compiled to PDF you might get very slight differences.

>the same DVI file.

Which is used by approximately no one. Good luck uploading your resume in DVI.

Good luck uploading your CV in PDF. I tried that a few times and got moaned at a load that my CV must be in Word format. In the end I converted the PDF into images, and created a Word document in OpenOffice (this was a while ago) with one page image per page. Got moaned at for that too.

The only reason they want your resume at all is to run a keyword extractor over it. If you know this, why are you making their job harder?

Heh. A buddy of mine once applied for a Linux job and sent his resume as a PDF. They called him back: "OMG, you're the only applicant who didn't send a Word file. We're not worthy."

Did he create the PDF in LaTeX?

I haven't had that experience for a single job that I ever applied to. Always sent in PDFs without any issues.

Recruiters and large firms tend to ask for a Word file. I sent the plaintext file (minimal markdown) I used to generate the pdf to a recruiter recently. They directly asked for a docx instead.

Recruiters probably edit the file before passing it on to the actual business... Add some more buzzwords, remove direct contact information, obscure exact project details. Some recruiters play quite dirty business and likewise assume the worst of their customers.

That is exactly the complaint I got about my word-document-with-page-images. The recruiter couldn't work out how to edit it. I saw the CV they actually ended up sending to one of the workplaces I interviewed at. They had retyped it, and it looked awful.

> Recruiters and large firms tend to ask for a Word file.

Again, not my experience at all.

I think if a company didn't accept my PDF CV and asked for a Word file instead, I'd strongly reconsider whether I'm actually interested in working there.

If you're rendering to DVI, it's explicitly defined as a bug if it doesn't compile to exactly the same pixel-perfect output as a previous version.

They're not plain text, they're a text encoded structured file format. And the file format is stable.

A stable file format is the most important difference here, but the text encoding means that small incompatibilities can be solved by a human rather than needing to rely on an upstream maintainer to recognize and explicitly handle your unique situation.

If I recall correctly, the common phenomenon where you open a Word document, immediately close it, and are asked whether you want to save your changes (???) has something to do with printer settings.

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