Growing Baby Bunny
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As someone who's worked for publishing houses in the past, a bit of advice:
Unless you know what you're doing, use a .doc document, or something that can be either converted into a .doc file in Word or read by Word. That way the Printers can make the changes they need to on their end. Meticulous backups is standard advice. However, if you do have a bit more technical know-how, you can save space and preserve the integrity of your document if you save in a .pdf format and embed the fonts. This means that no matter how many years pass, any machine that can read .pdf in any way at all should display what you've written exactly the same as on the original machine that you wrote it. It ensures uniformity and reduces the requirements of the local machine.
The main drawback of using .pdf is unless used correctly, it can be more finicky for Printers to edit the file when necessary.
It shouldn't be too much of an issue unless you've royally borked it and any good print house will adjust to the best of their ability and tell you if there's a problem, but not all print houses are good. To avoid getting screwed over, ask to have a 'proof' to approve before they run your job. This is a good idea even if you haven't submitted a .pdf. They'll send you a copy of what they'd print, if you like it you sign off on it and they run that. If you don't, they alter it until you're happy.
(The process for printing even a simple document can easily become very complicated for reasons that frankly, can border on the arcane. And I've seen former superiors of mine spend much time on the phone dealing with irate clients whose final product didn't meet expectations, always ask for a proof.)
Anyway yeah, .pdf's are good for storage and final product but can be screwy to edit. Personally when I've had to do it in the past, I converted it to a different file format first, like an .indd.
I might look up a guide or write something up about some of the things I've covered here at some point but those are some of the basics for people who've no idea.