Good Article. Micosoft Word and Excel are horrible programs for desktop publishing. Converting to PDF from these programs without reflow and pagination errors when passing the file from one PC to another is tough. The only way to guarentee 100% success is to generate the PDF on the PC the document was created on.
I have been in the print on demand and publishing business with a large firm for 18 years. Anytime someone sends native files in Word or Excel, we absolutely cringe. It can be very time consuming to convert the documents and have them turn out the exact way the creator sees the documents on their end. So, I guess you could say that in the end, you get what you pay for. Free service.....I wouldn't expect miracles with Word and Excel.