An extraordinarily long time ago now, a colleague emailed me a Word document that I couldn’t read. It opened, but it appeared to be completely blank because, as it turned out, it was written in white text on a white background.

Or rather, it was read in white on white. The writer had set her PC up so that Word was in what’s now referred to as dark mode. She set the background to be black, set the text to be white, and it worked perfectly for her — but made the text look blank on anyone else’s machine.

I can’t remember her name, can’t remember the sequence of events, but I can remember the acrimony I got from her. Not only was this a trivial fix once you knew what had happened, but it was something she’d chosen to do — yet it became a stand-up row in which she loudly blamed me for it.

There were other undercurrents, we certainly didn’t get along, but there was also an irony that I did see even then: we were colleagues on a computer magazine, we were both the people who should know how this stuff works.

I think now that she was shaky technically and given what the job was, she was also likely to react badly to anything she saw as criticism. At the time, I was shaky editorially and while later I got used to her, I think that at this point I was still frightened by her.

All of which is back in my mind so many years later because this week I looked up a publisher’s website and the way it was written reminded me of that moment. The way just a couple of words were written told me that this publisher is not competent technically and in overreacting will loudly blame anyone else for even the smallest, briefest hiccups.

I did then find other issues I’m not keen on, but those were just confirmation. Two words told me not to submit to that publisher.

Just to be clear, and to dramatically delay revealing the two words for a moment – though don’t get excited, they’re not worth the tension I’m trying to build – I have no reason to assume this publisher would want me. The book proposal I have is necessarily on a backburner as other projects take up my time, but I do relish it and I had been told that this publisher might be looking for something like it.

Strictly speaking, no, they’re not. They have a submission window that isn’t open yet. But broadly, yes, I could see my book with them — except it won’t be.

You know that every publisher lists requirements on its website and that a shocking number of writers ignore them. The publisher will say they do, for instance, exclusively children’s text books, and some writer will send them a five-volume encylopedia of horror flash fiction poetry.

But the publisher will also say something that I suppose you could call technical, but it hardly feels enough for that term. They’ll say what format they want the manuscript in — and they’ll always say Microsoft Word. Sometimes they’ll accept PDFs, but they always accept Microsoft Word.

Word is the lingua franca of publishers even as — literally, in two senses of that word — millions of writers have left it for alternatives such as Scrivener and Pages.

Which this publisher clearly knows because the two words were: “Never .pages!!” — complete with the two exclamation marks. Another term for an exclamation mark is a shriek and that’s what this line sounded like to me.

Two words tell me this publisher is not technically competent. The shrieks do a lot of that work, and also make me hesitate about the publisher’s writing style, but then the “.pages” bit does quite a lot. The publisher means a Pages document, but saying its extension instead of its name tells me they don’t know what extensions mean. I guarantee they’re on a PC because there you more often have to remember or think about filename extensions than you do on a Mac, but there’s also just something off with it all.

They sound like they’re using terms without actually understanding them. And I keep saying they, but somehow it makes them sound like a one-man or one-woman band. I’m guessing about that, but it feels like one person and he or she is shaky technically. That still shouldn’t be an issue, yet it also feels as if they’d be exactly as acrimonious about problems as my old colleague.

Again, I’ve no reason to presume this publisher would go for this book idea. But you have to be able to work with a publisher and I’m no more likely to submit to this one than I am — sorry — to tell you which one it is.

Still, as writers, we submit to publishers and there’s a lot of weight on the word submit. Maybe I’m just old enough to now see that it’s a partnership and a collaboration, or maybe it’s just that there are so many little publishers these days that you can be picky.

But it is definitely that what you write will tell people more about you than what your words actually say. And now, of course, I’m looking up the screen wondering what I’ve given away about myself. Ah, it’s only you and me here, and you’re nice, you won’t admit you think I’m still holding a petty grudge against that Word colleague.