An electronic resume is a format that will allow you to send your document via e-mail and on the Internet. While it’s true that most e-mail systems can accommodate document attachments even if they are in Word, WordPerfect, Quark, or some other software, it won’t be true that every person or organization that you send your document to will be willing or able to receive it in that format.

1. Since many people do not know what kind of software they have, we format the disk in Microsoft Word 97, and ASCII Text, a universal text file (all of the enhancements are removed, e.g., bold, fancy types, bullets, symbols, etc.) An ASCII Text file is what you use if someone requests a “scannable” résumé, or you must paste it into the body of an e-mail, or fill in a form on the Internet. Remember that Windows is your operating system, not your word processing software. If you have a lower version of software such as MS Word 4.0 or WordPerfect 5.1, you cannot read “up,” but you can read “down.” Word 2000 will read Word 97, etc. You may open any of these files and make changes to anything you chose.