Every now and again, I receive documents in the .pages format, which is popular with Mac and IOS users. The issue is that the NHS runs predominantly on Windows and even then, not all that new. You certainly do not want your first impressions to be defined by the irritation that comes from having to research how to convert a file you can’t read (the alternative being just not to read it at all).
So what is the preferred file format to use, and why?
PDF FIRST
This is by far my preferred choice for important reasons:
- It is cross platform and EVERYBODY has a PDF reader
- Almost every other format has the risk of formatting and font substitution, ruining a perfectly laid out CV
If you are going to depart from this then I would actually save it as .doc, which all versions of Word cope with, as opposed to .docx, which can cause issues on really dated versions of Word.
CONVERSION
Fortunately, conversion is rather simple. It can be done on the CloudConvert website, by uploading your file and selecting the format you’d like to convert to. If you are going to do this just once and then forward edit, I would suggest converting to Word. You can always output as a PDF later to ensure formatting etc.