Step 2: Adjust Your Plain Text Resume

Delete references to page two.
If your resume is more than one page, delete any indications of page breaks such as “Page 1 of 2,” “Continued,” and your name or header on page 2. Technically, you are making your resume appear as one continuous electronic document.

Use all CAPS for words that need special emphasis.
Because Plain Text stripped your resume of all bolds, underlines, and italics used for highlighting words, use all capitalized letters to draw attention to important words, phrases, and headings. For the best overall effect, use all caps sparingly and judiciously.

Replace each bullet point with a standard keyboard symbol.
Special symbols such as bullet points, arrows, triangles, and check marks do not transfer well electronically. For example, bullet points sometimes transfer as “&16707,” “),” or a little squiggly graphic. Therefore, you must change each to a standard keyboard symbol. Suggested replacements are:

Dashes (-)
Plus signs (+)
Asterisks (*)
Double asterisks (**)
Greater than (>)
Dash and greater than (->)

Use the Space Bar to place a single space immediately after each symbol (and before the words). Do not use the Tab key for spacing as you may have done in your original resume.

Also, allow the lines to wrap naturally at the end of a line — don’t put a forced return (don’t push the Return or Enter key) if it’s not the end of the statement and don’t indent the second line of a statement with either the Tab key or Space Bar).

Use straight quotes in place of curly quotes.
Like bullet points and other special symbols, curly (smart) quotes do not transfer accurately (in fact, they may appear as little rectangles on the recipient’s screen). Therefore, replace curly quotes with straight quotes. Here’s how:

MS Word 2007

1. Click the Office button in the upper left corner of your MS Word window and click Word Options, found at the bottom of the window.
2. After the Word Options box opens, click the Proofing button in the left column, and click AutoCorrect Options.
3. Click the AutoFormat tab and make sure Replace Straight Quotes with Smart Quotes is not selected.
4. Click the AutoFormat As You Type tab and make sure Replace Straight Quotes with Smart Quotes is not selected. Then click OK to exit the AutoCorrect Options box.
5. Click OK to close the Word Options box.
6. Open the Plain Text version of your resume and manually delete and retype each quotation mark in your document (or use the Replace option found in the far right side of your Home toolbar).

MS Word 97-2003

1. Select the text that includes the quotes you want to change.
2. Click Format in your toolbar and select AutoFormat.
3. Click the Options button, and make sure Replace Straight Quotes with Smart Quotes is not selected under both the AutoFormat and AutoFormat As You Type tabs. Then click OK to exit the AutoFormat box, and your curly quotes will be changed to straight quotes.

Rearrange text if necessary.
Do a line-by-line review of your document to make sure there are no odd-looking line wraps, extra spaces, or words scrunched together. Make adjustments accordingly. This may require inserting commas between items that were once in columns and are now in paragraph format because tabs and tables disappeared when the document was converted to Plain Text.

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