[Tex/LaTex] Making a LaTeX document appear as though it were typeset in MS Word

Question

I am typesetting a document in LaTeX for which I have been given exact specifications that are intended for an MS Word-processed document (single-sided, single-spaced, 0.75 inch margins, no more than 60 lines per page, no more than 15 characters per inch (including punctuation, spaces, and symbols), 12 point Arial or Helvetica). I need to adhere rigorously to these guidelines and to make the document look reasonably "Word-like". I have little experience setting these parameters in LaTeX as the default typesetting scheme is nearly always satisfactory. I've been a bit overwhelmed by the degrees of freedom available in LaTeX; for instance, to set margins with the geometry package, the parameters that can be defined include hscale, vscale, width, height, lines, left, right, top, bottom, hmargin, vmargin, etc., and it is not entirely apparent which of these settings will give 1 inch marigns as defined by MS Word.

The following settings represent my initial attempt to ensure rigid conformity to the specified guidelines:

    \documentclass[12pt]{article}
    \usepackage[tmargin=0.75in,bmargin=0.75in,lmargin=0.75in,rmargin=0.75in]{geometry}
    \renewcommand{\rmdefault}{phv}
    \renewcommand{\sfdefault}{phv}

Could anyone tell me if the above are good solutions to margins, font face (Arial), and font size (12 pt)? I do not know if LaTeX 12 pt is equivalent to Word 12 pt — I have read that the two metrics are non-equivalent. I do not know how to ensure the requirements for cpi (without verifying with a ruler), lines per page (without counting), or single spacing (this implies Word-defined single spacing). Lastly I wish to avoid the large size of and whitespace surrounding section headers. Essentially, I need to typeset a document that looks Word-like, but do not have Word nor do I wish to use it..

I would appreciate guidance on how to typeset my document. The ideal solution would be specific enough to this question that I successfully meet the aforementioned guidelines, and general enough that others who have a similar question in the future are able to adapt the response to their own formatting requirements. Cheers.

Answer 1

There is wordlike.