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Mac Forum / Applications / Word / May 2008Buggish behaviour with Word.
Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) Processor: intel Some problems with Word in Mac:Office 2008 (Home & Student Edition), which persist after the recent update. I'm floating them here in case someone has a solution, otherwise I'll flick it all on to MS 'product feedback'. 1 Grouping creates lines around all grouped objects. When I'm working with a scanned diagram (format > square) I'll put a line around the diagram to give it an edge. Then I'll put a text box or two over the diagram and select 'no line' on the boxes. When I 'group' them, all the grouped objects subsequently appear with a line around each individual item. Not good. 2 Grouping changes formatting. This one has been around since Office vX. When I insert a picture or object, I'll format it as 'square'. When the picture is grouped with an object (also formatted 'square'), the formatting changes to 'tight' or sometimes to 'in front of text', or whatever. It would be nice if they just stayed 'square'. 3 Deleting section break reformats entire document. I work with long documents based upon a template where the initial pages are set up as Portrait and the latter pages set up as Landscape. If I delete the section break that leads in to the Landscape section, the entire document changes to Landscape. 4 Undo puts cursor at start of document. This is tricky to explain. When working with an image that has, say, an arrow drawn over it and then select the arrow to move it, sometimes the image will be selected and move instead. No problem, just hit Command Z to undo the move. Problem is, doing that will often cause the cursor to jump back to the start of the document. When youre working on page 25 or 30 of the document, thats annoying. 5 Laboring with Tables Tables that extend over two or more pages have always been a problem for Word. Writing in individual cells often slows to a crawl, with the appearance of the letters lagging well behind the typing. Copy/paste between cells will often lose formatting, for example, words in italic 10-point will come out plain 12-point when pasted. Copy/paste between cells can sometimes be extraordinarily slow and bring up the SBBoD (Spinning Beach Ball of Death). 6 Compatibility problems between Intel version and PPC version. Ive got one copy of Office:Mac on my PPC Quicksilver G4 933MHz desktop machine (1 GB RAM), and another copy on my MacBook Pro with the Intel 2.2GHz chip (4 GB RAM). Both machines are running OS 10.4.11. All of the following problems occur when documents are created on the MacBook Pro and are then transferred to the Quicksilver. 6A Small caps does not always translate correctly. When Im writing a letter on the MacBook Pro, the subject line Re: Whatever is formatted in Small Caps with the initial letter of each word in caps, and the entire line Bold and Underlined. When opened on the Quicksilver, the initial letters come out differently, for example, a word that has A as its first letter will have P instead. Deleting the erroneous letter and re-typing doesnt work. Placing the cursor between the first and second letter, typing in the correct letter and then deleting the erroneous letter works. 6B Word does not always print photographs. Press Command P to bring up the Print dialogue box, set the print range to those pages with photographs only, and the pages print out with header/footer, text, but no photographs. Print the entire document instead and only then are the photographs printed. 6C Word does not always recognise photographs. Delete a photograph from the document, and then insert the same photograph and an alert will pop up stating that the photograph is in an unsupported graphic format or may be damaged. 7 Auto-correct. Hopefully this one will be easily solved. I often have to write about trees, giving their common name and scientific name. Ive set up auto-correct so that when I type something like euc reg it will expand to read as Mountain Ash Eucalyptus regnans the above was truncated by the system. Here's the rest: 7 Auto-correct. Hopefully this one will be easily solved. I often have to write about trees, giving their common name and scientific name. I've set up auto-correct so that when I type something like euc reg it will expand to read as Mountain Ash Eucalyptus regnans. I need the first two words to be plain text, and the last two words to be in italics. For whatever reason the 'replace with formatted text' option is greyed out in the auto-correct set up box. 8 Dictionary/Language Setting the language to 'English (AUS)' on the Quicksilver just doesn't work. The spell-check flags words like 'greyed' and 'optimise' and so forth. Rune the spell-checker and the top reads 'Spelling: English (US). On 21/3/08 2:39 PM, in article ee958cd.0@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw, > the above was truncated by the system. Here's the rest: > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > two words to be in italics. For whatever reason the 'replace with formatted > text' option is greyed out in the auto-correct set up box. This is "working as designed". You must type the text in the text, then format it, then select the formatted version. Then the 'replace with formatted text' option should be enabled. Come back if it is not: then it's a bug :-) > 8 Dictionary/Language > Setting the language to 'English (AUS)' on the Quicksilver just doesn't work. > The spell-check flags words like 'greyed' and 'optimise' and so forth. Rune > the spell-checker and the top reads 'Spelling: English (US). Yeah, we have some major bugs in the spelling checker currently. Particularly, working in languages other than English US. There is also a design bug in Word: The character before the default paragraph in a blank document is set to "Language 0" which happens to be English US. If you do not correct that, English US "follows" the insertion of text in the document, overriding the language set by the styles. You can try to slow it down a bit: 1) Go to System Preferences>International and make sure your system is correctly set to English AUS. Word picks up its initial language from the system at startup. 2) Close all other documents 3) Open the Normal.dotm template using File>Open. 4) Select the blank paragraph 5) Use Tools>Language to set the language to English Oz 6) Use Format>Style to set the Language of Normal Style to English Oz. 7) Save the template and immediately quit Word (to ensure that your changes are saved back). Now, the language will be wrong only when you paste text in from somewhere else :-) Hope this helps  SignatureDon't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/ Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to. John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/ Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50 +61 4 1209 1410, mailto:john@mcghie.name If you're going to make me work this hard, it would be so nice if you added your name. Talking to a machine is not much fun... On 21/3/08 2:37 PM, in article ee958cd.-1@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw, > 1 Grouping creates lines around all grouped objects. That's a bug. > 2 Grouping changes formatting. That's a bug. Microsoft's term is that it changes "wrapping". > 3 Deleting section break reformats entire document. > > I work with long documents based upon a template where the initial pages are > set up as Portrait¹ and the latter pages set up as Landscape¹. If I delete > the section break that leads in to the Landscape¹ section, the entire > document changes to Landscape¹. That's "working as designed". A section break controls the page layout of the text that precedes it. If you delete a section break, the properties of the section break that is below it in the document are applied to the text above your deletion. The entire document is controlled by the Master Section Break, which is stored in the file below the very last paragraph mark in the document. Because the master section break is outside the text area, it is never displayed. It cannot be deleted. Now that you know this, you will never be bitten by this again :-) This also applies to Paragraph Marks. Generically, the terminating character of a text string contains the formatting applied to that text string. > 4 Undo¹ puts cursor at start of document. > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > start of the document. When you¹re working on page 25 or 30 of the document, > that¹s annoying. That's both a bug and working by design :-) The cursor is moving back to the "anchor" of the picture. Read up on Anchors in the Help, particularly the bit about how to display them. If you move the anchor to the correct paragraph, the cursor will move to the front of that paragraph. It's a buggy design :-) > 5 Laboring with Tables > > Tables that extend over two or more pages have always been a problem for Word. They have?? I have run them up to about 160 pages without a problem. > Writing in individual cells often slows to a crawl, with the appearance of the > letters lagging well behind the typing. Copy/paste between cells will often > lose formatting, for example, words in italic 10-point will come out plain > 12-point when pasted. Copy/paste between cells can sometimes be > extraordinarily slow and bring up the SBBoD (Spinning Beach Ball of Death). You have some corruption happening in that document. Tables are "fragile", there are certain editing moves you are best not to do in a table. Drag-and-drop is one of them. If you can, convert that table to text, then convert it back to a table again. That will completely clean it out and it will be a lot faster. That said, I am convinced that there is a BUG in Word 2008 that slows down some tables for some users on some machines. So far, we do not have a solid description of how to reproduce this problem that we can send to Microsoft. Until we get that, they won't be able to fix it. I have never seen it on this machine (Intel, 2GB, OS 10.4.11) > 6A Small caps¹ does not always translate correctly. Yes, known bug. They're working on it. > 6B Word does not always print photographs. Can be "working as designed". To print the photographs, the paragraph containing the anchor of the picture must be included in the selection. > 6C Word does not always recognise¹ photographs. That's a bug. Save and close the document (to cause Word to remove the deleted one from the file) then re-open and re-insert, and you should not get the problem. Word doesn't remove deleted information from the file until you close it. So it thinks the photo is in there twice, and gets terribly confused :-) More... SignatureDon't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/ Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to. John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/ Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50 +61 4 1209 1410, mailto:john@mcghie.name Another perspective on a few points:-) On 3/21/08 6:06 AM, in article C409BEDB.CE48%john@mcghie.name, "John McGhie" <john@mcghie.name> wrote: > If you're going to make me work this hard, it would be so nice if you added > your name. Talking to a machine is not much fun... [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > That's a bug. I [respectfully] disagree... The only time I see this happen is if the border is applied *after* the objects are Grouped. Grouping does not combine or merge the objects as a single object. Any formatting change you make to a Grouped object will apply to all objects in the group which can be affected by the change. That includes not only line changes but also fills, shadows, size, etc. Each item in the group should be formatted as appropriate *before* the finished objects are grouped. Grouping merely "connects" the pieces to prevent their relative positioning to one another from being accidentally disturbed. >> 2 Grouping changes formatting. > > That's a bug. Microsoft's term is that it changes "wrapping". Perhaps, but... First, if you intend to Group objects it's pointless for any of the individual objects in the group to carry their own Wrapping style - it doesn't make a bit of difference and they can't all be in effect simultaneously. Group the objects then apply whatever Wrapping Style you want to the Grouped object. Also, this happens because you have Word> Preferences> Edit - Insert/Paste Pictures As: set to In Line with Text. If you change the default to some form of wrapping you'll find that the "problem" goes away:-) >> 3 Deleting section break reformats entire document. >> [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > also applies to Paragraph Marks. Generically, the terminating character of > a text string contains the formatting applied to that text string. No doubt:-) >> 4 Undo¹ puts cursor at start of document. >> [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > It's a buggy design :-) No, John, this is a *bug* but not what you think. The insertion point doesn't actually move because the graphic is still selected. Note that the OP isn't *deleting* the graphic, just undoing the move. What happens is that the top of the document jumps to the viewing area regardless of where the graphic is or what para it's anchored to. >> 5 Laboring with Tables >> >> Tables that extend over two or more pages have always been a problem for >> Word. > > They have?? I have run them up to about 160 pages without a problem. Yeah, there must be something more to the OP's table issues:-) >> Writing in individual cells often slows to a crawl, with the appearance of >> the [quoted text clipped - 35 lines] > > More... Regards |:>) Bob Jones [MVP] Office:Mac Based on your first few issues you might be interested in: http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/ Although if you're running Tiger you'd need version 4.x which is available here: http://www.omnigroup.com/ftp/pub/software/MacOSX/10.4/ SignatureRegards |:>) Bob Jones [MVP] Office:Mac > Version: 2008 > Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) [quoted text clipped - 86 lines] > auto-correct so that when I type something like euc reg it will expand to > read as Mountain Ash Eucalyptus regnans John and Bob, my thanks to you both for taking the time and effort to respond, particularly so given the season. "If you're going to make me work this hard, it would be so nice if you added your name." Sorry John. My name is Dennis Marsden and I too live in Sydney. I'll have to send you a virtual beer for all your hard work. Not, not a V.B., how about a virtual James Squire's? ;-) Okay, I've taken both your advice, tried a few things, and here's the results: 1 Grouping creates lines Sorry Bob, this may have something to do with the sequence in which the objects are selected. I've now found that if I select the bordered object before the un-bordered objects, they'll all come out as bordered. Select the un-bordered object first, and they all come out un-bordered. I'll run with John on this one. 2 Wrapping Thanks Bob, changing the preference fixed it. 3 Section breaks. Noted. Thanks guys. 4 Undo moves cursor John I'll read up on anchors. Bob your interpretation matches mine. 5 Tables. Wish I knew I thought it might have been because the table in the template was created in Excel and then imported into Word. Ive deleted the template, created a new one solely with Word, but the slowness persists. Yes, some corruption somewhere. It will have to remain a mystery. 6A Small caps. Noted. 6B Printing Photographs. Noted, although this wasnt a problem in Word vX. Note that this only happens with documents created on the MacBook Pro and later edited on the Quicksilver. Printing works fine with the MacBook Pro. 6C Recognising Photogaphs. Tried suggestion, but problem persists. This only happens with documents created on the MacBook Pro and later edited on the Quicksilver. 7 Auto-correct. Brilliant, John. Thanks, now working as expected. 8 Dictionary/Language. Fixed. There were two Custom Dictionaries, one in ~Library\Preferences and another in ~Library\Preferences\Microsoft. I think the first one was from Office vX. I deleted the first one, re-set the pathway to the second Custom Dictionary in Word 2008, and the language now sticks. This problem existed on the Quicksilver but not on the MacBook Pro. Thanks again, guys. Youre champions. Hi Dennis - I guess I must be the one person in the world who doesn't have this "bug" - on either of my two installations:-) One is a G5 tower with 10.4.11 the other an Intel MBP running 10.5.0, both installed from completely different Office 2008 disks - not even the same edition - with the 12.0.1 update. I've tried using GIFs, TIFs, ClipArt, etc. as the bordered object & creating text boxes which sit completely within, partially overlap or are completely outside the main object. I've used different colors, various line weights as well as formatting the text box with No Line & several line style/color combinations of its own. Have even tried in a .doc (Compatibility Mode) rather than working in a .docx just as a barometer [Word 2004 *does* have this problem, I'll take your word on X:-)]. I've selected one first - then the other and everything else I can think of to force the behavior. Net result confirms everything I said - Nothing I've done has caused the text box to inherit the other object's border when grouped. Nor is the text box altered in any other way. It's only if I apply or modify the border *after* grouping that the text box picks up the attribute. Why you're having it happen I can't begin to explain. If I come up with any additional thoughts I'll be certain to post back. Regards |:>) Bob Jones [MVP] Office:Mac On 3/21/08 8:46 PM, in article ee958cd.5@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw, > 1 Grouping creates lines > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > un-bordered object first, and they all come out un-bordered. I'll run with > John on this one. Hi Dennis: See? Much nicer :-) A hard earned thirst deserves a .... Make mine a VB :-) None of that poncy Eastern Suburbs weasel piss here, even if I do live in Bondi Junction :-) I WORK in Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory, where men are men and sheep are distinctly nervous... On 22/3/08 10:46 AM, in article ee958cd.5@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw, > 5 Tables. > > Wish I knew I thought it might have been because the table in the template > was created in Excel and then imported into Word. I¹ve deleted the template, > created a new one solely with Word, but the slowness persists. Yes, some > corruption somewhere. It will have to remain a mystery. Nah! Tables slow down for two reasons: they're 'Corrupt', or they're "complex". If you have less than 2 GB of RAM, big complex tables are "going" to be slow. If you are adequately endowed, so to speak, then the slowness deserves investigation. There are a couple of options it is worth turning OFF because apart from stuffing up your layout, they make the computer work a lot harder than it needs to. One is Wandering Tables, the other is Squeezy Tables. Both are bugs introduced to gain the attention of the easily impressed :-) Click in the Table and look in Table>Properties. Make sure that Text Wrapping is set to "None" to disable Wandering Tables. This sets the table in line with the text and prevents it wandering around the page like a floating graphic. Now click the Options button on that dialog and disable "Automatically resize to fit contents." That one REALLY sucks the juice out of the CPU. It causes Word to dynamically resize the size of each cell. If your table contains nested tables, you will live in a symphony of struggling CPU fans :-) > 8 Dictionary/Language. Fixed. > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Word 2008, and the language now sticks¹. This problem existed on the > Quicksilver but not on the MacBook Pro. Hmmm... Word is designed to have up to 255 Custom Dictionaries, so this should not have made any difference. But you may have just given us a work-around for the very annoying "Language Won't Stick" bug that we have been chasing in here for a month or so. Have a VB :-) Cheers SignatureDon't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/ Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to. John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/ Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50 +61 4 1209 1410, mailto:john@mcghie.name (Marking as solved) D |
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