Why are the forms no longer available as Microsoft Word documents?
The main reason why we have switched over to PDF forms is security. Microsoft Word templates can be altered and changed, and have no controls for digitally signing and protecting the data contained in them. Adobe PDF files automatically (by default) load immediately into the user’s web browser, thereby eliminating the confusion many callers experienced in downloading, saving, unzipping, and opening the Microsoft Word forms. Additionally, Adobe Acrobat Reader is free to the world, where not everyone has a program capable of reading Microsoft Word documents.
