Document Formats

UofT standards

The following document explains common standards on electronic document formats.

Note: please use the APA system of formatting references.

My standards

I am a believer in free/libre open source software. This is why I ask you to please submit your essays in a platform-independent format which doesn’t require me to buy expensive software like MS Word to read it. If you are a MS Word devotee, please consider using LibreOffice instead.

Preferred format: Rich Text Format (.rtf), or Portable Document Format (.pdf), or plain text (.txt).

I strongly discourage the use of Microsoft Word. Here’s why.

Distributing Word documents via email is a serious security hazard to the sender – and to recipients. Most Word users are unaware that any Word document may include information that is not visible to the preparer but is readable by certain (easily obtainable) ‘hacking’ tools. Information inadvertently included in a Word document may be confidential to the sender or their organization or both. Accidental release of confidential information can happen when the preparer uses a template from one Word document – i.e., erases the text, but keeps the formatting – to create another document. The original information is still there in the bloated Word file, and even someone with my teeny hacking skills can extract it.