You can disable Reading Layout view on your machine (Tools | Options |
General), but you have no control over what the recipient does.

It's the recipient's view that is most critical though, isn't it? I don't
really mind what it looks like on my machine.

I think it's a basic concept of word processing software that a saved
document should preserve its formatting. This is still the case in terms of
the printed document, but now we have lost control over how the electronic
version of the document appears.

Personally I don't think it's acceptable to have to tell people not to look
at the document until they've changed the view settings (assuming they know
how to) ?

You
definitely have some control over what the recipient sees with regard to
Track Changes, however. First of all, go to Tools | Options | Security and
make sure that "Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving" is
checked. This is the setting that is presenting markup for your recipient to
see on opening, so you want to make sure that you also see it when saving.
To save the document without any markup to be seen by the recipient, save a
copy in which you accept all changes and delete all comments. Only by
removing the markup entirely can you prevent the recipient from seeing it.
For more, see
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/trac...ngesWorks.html

I'm not saying I don't get how it works - but it's a case of changing the
default behaviour again. In the previous version of Word, track changes was a
simple feature that did the job. If you saved a document with "show changes
while editing" switched off, the document had them switched off when you
re-open them.

In the new version, you can choose not to view tracked changes by selecting
the "final" option from the tool bar, but when the document is re-opened this
setting is not preserved - the changes are all there, whether you want them
or not.

Again, it's breaking a rule which I've learned about how word processors
work. These unwritten rules which we've all learned through previous versions
of the software are important, and you break them at your peril.

I'm going to start sending important documents as PDFs, at least that way I
know the electronic copy will look right when a client opens it.