so, it was the conversion from doc to docx at the server (something that didn't happen on my first dozen conversions.) that introduced the typset error.

and, i seem to be able to avoid it by going out of my way to avoid the conversion to docx at the server...

the original file seems to be fine.

this docx format has been nothing but disasters for microsoft, and i really wish they'd just get their head around the reality that there is going to be a subset of users that just refuses to migrate to it, ever.

but, let's see if it's fixed. if it is, i can move on to the html5.