so, opening up a new account didn't undo the forced conversions to docx to "edit" the file.
i don't want to use the service to edit documents, ever. i strictly want to use it to convert .doc files to .pdf. so, it's not necessary to convert the file to edit it because i don't actually want to edit it. in fact, converting it seems to run the risk of breaking the formatting, and that's why i've come here for the conversion in the first place, because this system is better at converting .doc files to .pdf (so long as it doesn't try to convert them to .docx files first).
it would be very useful if i could tell the server to open everything read-only, and never convert to docx. if microsoft changed something for my supposed benefit, it backfired and i would appreciate it if they would change it back.