Hi Jon,

Word 2010 should work fine. It is the cleanest ribbon implementation in my mind.

Templates created with Word 2010 should work fine for the foreseeable future. They work well with Word 2019. The repeating section content control was introduced with Word 2013 and will not work in Word 2010 or earlier.

Be aware that Word documents, unlike PDF, will often have a different appearance on different computers. You can minimize this, but you cannot eliminate it. Wide margins are one key to minimizing.

• Why has my page layout changed when I open my document on a different machine? by Suzanne Barnhill, MVP
• What happens when I send my document to someone else? Will Word mess up my formatting?

Forms in Word:

• Create a Form Using Word Content Controls by Greg Maxey, MVP
• Making Forms with Microsoft Word
• Repeating Data Using Document Properties Content Controls and Other Mapped Content Controls
• Repeating Data (Populating Multiple Like Fields) by Greg Maxey, MVP