Sometimes, making a hard copy goes beyond simply sending a file to a printer: sometimes we need a big printer.
The most common problem when sending out page layouts as Quark Express or Adobe PageMaker files is forgetting to include all the elements of the layout - most importantly, the fonts used in the document.
The need for including these fonts is obvious if you are using a typeface that is really esoteric, but often people do not understand why they need to include standard fonts.
The problem is if your font is made by one company and the bureau's by another, they may look the same, but unnoticeable differences in spacing between characters can become noticeable over 1,000 words of text.
Headaches like these have spawned 'pre-flight' applications which check documents for bugs before they go to press.
One publishing format eliminates these and several other problems. When Adobe released Acrobat 3.0, nobody paid much attention. That has changed. It is difficult to pick up a trade publication now without reading something about PDF publishing.
Most people know PDF, or portable document format, as that annoying thing that has allowed software and hardware makers to produce manuals electronically, forcing you either to squint at ridiculously small text or print the whole document.