Just as a brief follow up. I hate to say it but most people when they "lay-out" a word-processed document to look decent and "professional" do not even use the provided tools to do so. (I mean correct placement and use of Tabs, spaces, paragraph line indents and margins, paragraph spacing and the like.)
I've regularly received documents by other company personnel who have clearly spent hours laying them out to look decent to impress their boss. When I have received them and opened them I am shocked at the complete layout mess that is revealed. I then have to strip-out all their messed up formatting so I can do a decent job my end. Unfortunately I have often had to convert the whole job to simple text format just to start again from scratch -- yes it's been that bad!
Trained personnel who submit copy to publishing houses and design studios know about this and simply supply text without formatting except for paragraph returns. This makes it easy for them and easy for the designer to work very efficiently. Just flow it in and away you go.
Yes I agree that decent formatting of word-processed docs, can be helpful, but unfortunately there is a HUGE difference between professionally designed layouts and those done by most untrained personnel. That difference is called "Typography" which, let's be honest, is not a word we hear much about these days.
Clearly, I am a big supporter of Typography and will remain so, after all it's part of my job.
