architectural plan, a marketing brochure, a newsletter
I don’t want that in PDF anyway. Give me plans in vector graphics or at least TIFF. Newsletter and co. is up to the RSS reader. Oops.
a corporate report, a tax form, or any type of legal contract that way.
Sure, why not? Is the representation legally important or the content?
If you’re just sending text and don’t need formatting, send it as a txt file. If you need formatting preserved - especially for someone who isnt an expert in your field - you want it formatted properly.
There’s something called Lightweight Markup which preserves formatting but leaves presentation up to the user/default settings.