I belong to an group that only communicates by email and most of them have PCs. I have discovered through bitter experience that there is no one format that works for everyone.
Actually there is. If you are sending a simple document that the formatting is not that important copy the text and paste it into an e-mail message.
I would not trust the Word translation if formatting is important (like a resumé). The pdf option is working better and better all the time as people update their computers and pdf preserves formatting beautifully in whatever program you are using.
I have also posted my pdf's on the web and had almost 100% success. Clicking on the link and
downloading the file worked better than attachments and seems to be easier for my friends who are computer challenged to understand. Quite a few users don't understand how to open attachments. (Hard to believe but it seems to be true?) Sometimes the e-mail client renders the pdf in the email document in a preview style so they try and print it and end up with tiny text. Of course, all they need to do is save the attachment or double click on it and it will open but some don't seem to know this.
Faxing directly from the document is also a good option if you know the person has a decent fax machine.
Kurt