We have a common issue which occurs when we send documents to people in other physical locations (e.g. other offices around the world) for editing & review (with comments).




The issue is that when the document is sent back to us, following editing elsewhere, it is pretty messed up. Styles have changed, the document generally looks different. I understand this could be because they have different templates/printer settings etc. on their local machine. So, when they open the document it messes things up.


The transfer is internally to people within the same organisation. The documents are created using templates stored in a central company toolbox and opened via Word. Users are on either Office 2013 or 2016.


Essentially, we want to allow other people to edit the documents, but have confidence that the document will come back looking as it did, just with different content/added comments.


Some common examples include:
o The headings have changed to be all capital letters
o The report title has now been captured as a heading in the navigation pane.
o Multiple subheadings have been created in Appendices that weren’t there before (they existed as text, just not as headings).
o It’s also incorrectly picked up formulas in Sections as subheadings
o The hanging indent for the body text has moved significantly to the left, and the top margin has decreased.
o The format of the signatures table has altered
o Section breaks appear now in places where they didn’t previously.
o The black line border at the base of Tables have partially disappeared.
o Section breaks appear to have been entered in to the Appendix Tables
o A section break has been moved into a footnote in Appendices


Yes, I know Word isn't the optimum solution and email transfer is far from ideal. Currently looking at hosting the documents on a SharePoint site.


Any advice would be appreciated. This is a long-term issue which we've been seeking a resolution to.