TOT problem with Word 2007
 

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Max Demian wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Max Demian wrote:
Use WordPad (free with Windows) if you just want a simple word
processor.
But I thought the idea was to make it as simple as a typewriter?

Typewriters aren't simple as you can't correct errors before you print.

Given they 'print' with each keystroke, not surprising. But of course some
could - they had a correcting ribbon.

Oh we had one of them. It was fantastic we thought. Magic how it lifted
the letters off.

Bill

TOT problem with Word 2007
 

Jim Lesurf wrote:

Sorry if this dissapoints you, but a PDF can also have a different
appearance on another machine for various reasons. Depends on the details
of both the PDF and the rendering system. I'd agree it is likely to be a
more reliable bet than Word doc, though.

How different? Adobe is obsessive about making PDFs appear identical
on all platforms - it's the entire raison d'etre of the PDF standard -
and they've gone to great lengths to make Reader display documents
exactly the same whether they are on Windows, Mac, Linux or any of the
other supported platforms. PDF supports font embedding, too, of
course, to avoid the most obvious difficulty.

Apart from the obvious differences in pixels per inch of the particular
display or printout, could you enlarge upon what you said - examples,
maybe?

--
SteveT

TOT problem with Word 2007
 

In article , Dave Farrance
wrote:
Bill Wright wrote:

Jim Lesurf wrote:

Is it the case that word docs may 'reflow' the format when loaded on
a difference machine with different settings? I recall someone
telling me this. But since I don't use Word I have no idea if it is
so.

All kind of weird things can happen if you open a .doc on a different
machine. For this reason I usually sends docs out as pdfs.

For a short while, I did the same, for the same reason, and I assumed
that if recipients wanted to extract text from the document, they could
use Adobe Reader's text-copy feature. But I got a couple of replies
asking if I could send the documents in Microsoft Word format,

I get that on occasion. Equally, I get others asking for PDF or even PS. To
a large extent it depends on what the recipient is familiar with using.

For some time (before I gave up on them for other reasons) Electronics
World would only accept Word docs and diagrams as bitmaps. If you look back
at past issues you can see where this produced crappy looking 'piles of
bricks' diagrams like lousy screenshots. They seemed either too lazy or too
dumb to deal with anything else. So giving them vector/object diagrams that
would look good when printed was impossible.

OTOH Others accept whatever works well. So for some I send RTF text and
PDF or PS for vector diagrams, graphs, etc. That lets them get excellent
printed results. So a matter of the recipient having the necessary clue and
being motivated to produce good printed results.

so that's what I always do now with documents in cases where the
recipient is allowed or expected to re-format the content. It does seem
to cause the least grief. Sigh. It offends my sensibilities as an
open-standards enthusiast.

Well, I don't really regard PDF as being 'open' in every sense. Yes, there
are published specs and you can use non-Adobe software (as I routinely do).
But being commercial they can 'control' use if they choose.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

TOT problem with Word 2007
 

In article , Java Jive
wrote:
On Fri, 16 Dec 2011 07:00:22 -0800 (PST), Dave W
wrote:

The view also depends on what printer is attached.

Not quite. It depends on the user's or failing that the system's
default printer.

Another good reason for pdf.

How is pdf supposed to help? It's just another piece of black box
coding which usually makes a mess of anything you feed to it.

PDF isn't a 'black box' in the sense that there is no public definition at
all of the format(s). But I agree it is commercial, and its use is
controlled, legally, by what permissions Adobe allow.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

TOT problem with Word 2007
 

In article , Bill Wright
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , Bill Wright
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:

Is it the case that word docs may 'reflow' the format when loaded on
a difference machine with different settings? I recall someone
telling me this. But since I don't use Word I have no idea if it is
so.

All kind of weird things can happen if you open a .doc on a different
machine. For this reason I usually sends docs out as pdfs.

Sorry if this dissapoints you, but a PDF can also have a different
appearance on another machine for various reasons. Depends on the
details of both the PDF and the rendering system. I'd agree it is
likely to be a more reliable bet than Word doc, though.

I know it isn't perfect but it's a better bet than Word, as you say.
I've experimented a bit with this between the computers here (which are
very varied) and I didn't notice anything much.

It certainly tends to be better than Word, yes. But it still can foul up at
times. Sometimes quite subtly. e.g. in one case I found PDF documents where
all the 'holes' in glyphs like 'o' or 'p' were filled in on a Windows box,
but fine on a Mac. All using Adobe software. Turned out to be a 'winding
rule' bug in one version that tripped over some fonts that were rarely
used.

More often, though, the problem is due to something like the creator using
a specific font without embedding it into the PDF, and the receiver doesn't
have that font, so gets something else.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

TOT problem with Word 2007
 

In article , Steve Thackery
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:

Sorry if this dissapoints you, but a PDF can also have a different
appearance on another machine for various reasons. Depends on the
details of both the PDF and the rendering system. I'd agree it is
likely to be a more reliable bet than Word doc, though.

How different? Adobe is obsessive about making PDFs appear identical
on all platforms - it's the entire raison d'etre of the PDF standard -
and they've gone to great lengths to make Reader display documents
exactly the same whether they are on Windows, Mac, Linux or any of the
other supported platforms.

The glaring flaw is in "supported" and assuming everyone uses Adobe's own
software. Then add in examples like the one I gave in an earlier posting
where two versions of the Adobe software for different OSs behave
differently. Then add in user-errors like not embedding fonts that the
receiver doesn't have.

Bear in mind that their obsession isn't that people use PDF. It is that
people come to rely on the software and IPR they own.

PDF supports font embedding, too, of
course, to avoid the most obvious difficulty.

Shame that not everyone duly embeds the fonts. Even worse when some embed
a different font of the same name, so if you have collected some, the
result still comes out wrong,

Apart from the obvious differences in pixels per inch of the particular
display or printout, could you enlarge upon what you said - examples,
maybe?

See earlier postings.

Note also that some people either choose to use open software, or have no
alternative. And that - as is so often the case - the public documentation
doesn't always accurately and completely define the formats, and the
formats keep being 'improved' in ways that break them working on older
versions of software. All part of the 'churning' that the computer biz find
so useful for driving sales. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

TOT problem with Word 2007
 

Bill Wright wrote:
~BD~ wrote:

Yes. But I decided against it.

Bill

Fair enough! :-)

Will you share your reason?

I lack patience, in a nutshell.

Bill


I understand! :-)

When I visit that link now http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us I see this:

http://i40.tinypic.com/muaa28.jpg

It's a "We are sorry" page. Do you see that, or something different?

TOT problem with Word 2007
 

Martin wrote:
On Sat, 17 Dec 2011 10:38:13 +0000, David_B
wrote:

Bill Wright wrote:
~BD~ wrote:

Yes. But I decided against it.

Bill

Fair enough! :-)

Will you share your reason?

I lack patience, in a nutshell.

Bill


I understand! :-)

When I visit that link now http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us I see this:

http://i40.tinypic.com/muaa28.jpg

It's a "We are sorry" page. Do you see that, or something different?

Me too!


I take it you mean that you, too, see a "We are sorry" page.

Thanks for advising.

TOT problem with Word 2007
 

In message , Bill Wright
writes
Dave Farrance wrote:
Bill Wright wrote:

Jim Lesurf wrote:

Is it the case that word docs may 'reflow' the format when loaded on a
difference machine with different settings? I recall someone telling me
this. But since I don't use Word I have no idea if it is so.
All kind of weird things can happen if you open a .doc on a
different machine. For this reason I usually sends docs out as pdfs.
For a short while, I did the same, for the same reason, and I
assumed that
if recipients wanted to extract text from the document, they could use
Adobe Reader's text-copy feature. But I got a couple of replies asking if
I could send the documents in Microsoft Word format, so that's what I
always do now with documents in cases where the recipient is allowed or
expected to re-format the content. It does seem to cause the least grief.
Sigh. It offends my sensibilities as an open-standards enthusiast.
Part of my reason for doing it is to make it harder for people to lift
text. I know they still can, but it isn't as obvious to the average
technophobe. My attitude is that if they want a quote they can ask me
to send the relevant passage as .txt.

However I wanted to copy some text from a website that had been rigged
to stop people copying from it, so just pressed Print Screen then OCRed
the result.

I sometimes send display notices to sheltered housing managers for them
to pin up (warning the tenants of a no-telly + re-tune day usually) and
I've learnt not to send .doc files! PDFs are risky because often they
say they can't open them (!) so I have resorted to .jpgs which for some
reason they all seem to be able to open. One lady defeated me though.
She has yellow paper in her printer (don't ask; I don't know) and since
I'd used colours the result was weird. Anyone know where I get get white ink?

Bill

I use Foxit Reader for pdf files, and it allows you to copy text.

There's also an app called SomePDF, that extracts images.
--
Ian

TOT problem with Word 2007
 

Jim Lesurf wrote:

Well, I don't really regard PDF as being 'open' in every sense. Yes, there
are published specs and you can use non-Adobe software (as I routinely do).
But being commercial they can 'control' use if they choose.

Adobe released all remaining restrictions on the published PDF standard in
2008, and granted royalty-free rights to all Adobe patents covering PDF.

Also, Google this: PDF standard print job format