Read only → PDF. Edit → Word.
Convert once, from the final version, to avoid repeated lossy conversions.
Check line breaks, page numbers and image positions yourself.
Filling in, revising, commenting → send Word. Reading, printing, archiving → send PDF. That covers about 90% of cases; the remaining 10% need both, so send both.
It is rarely an encoding problem — it is missing fonts. Word substitutes any font the recipient does not have, which changes line breaks, spacing and pagination. A PDF embeds a subset of the fonts, so it renders the same everywhere.
Contracts, CVs, quotes and tender documents should always go out as PDF: it hides tracked changes and comments, and stops someone editing a version you already sent. Inside a team, edit in Word and export to PDF for the final send.
With professional tools yes, but not casually — which is exactly why it is the right format for sending out.
It can. Word keeps tracked changes, comments and author metadata; clean the document properties first.
PDF. You cannot predict the recruiter's font environment, and PDF guarantees the layout.