I understand what you are saying George, and if the originals are being produced on a Mac, then they're likely not going to be too much use to Ian directly, though I know there is more inter-changeability between the two platforms than is commonly assumed to be the case. It just beats me why the files won't read in Acrobat if they've started out as computer generated text. I too suggested the HTML approach, and I think that might be quite workable. I wondered too if RTF was a possibility as at least a good deal of the formatting would be preserved. As a comment, a friend of mine who is hot with Publisher layout converts his magazine into PDf and it works for me quite well. OK, I know Publisher isn't Qaurk. Still, I think Quark comes into this equasion (after) Ian has done his proof reading , not before he gets the files. I know that as far as commercial printers are concerned, PDF tends to be the only thing acceptable short of actually giving them material in Quark or possibly Adobe formats. From Ray I can be contacted off-list at: mailto:ray-48@xxxxxxxx -----Original Message----- George Bell Hi Ray, "I fear it isn't much help to ask what format these files, or master documents are in before they've been converted to PDF, is it?" Perhaps I didn't make myself clear here. Quite literally any program which prints can "print" or "create" a PDF file. I can be running Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Sage or whatever, and produce a PDF. Indeed a printer local to us produces a magazine where he gets multiple files supplied on Word Format. He then copies and pastes these into Quark Express, arranging them as a publication in a A4 Perfect Bound format. He is not permitted to make any chages to the text - he is just the printer. He them produces a PDF and uses the PDF to do the actual ink printing of the magazine. Consequently in the above scenario, the original Word files would be suitable for detailed proof reading purposes to check for content, spelling and grammatical errors. George. ** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe] ** If this link doesn't work then send a message to: ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ** and in the Subject line type ** unsubscribe ** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the ** immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq] ** or send a message, to ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq