best WP app for producing .doc documents ?
in [UK Mac]
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From: Elliott Roper on 3 Jul 2010 16:57 In article <899ltoFv9rU1(a)mid.individual.net>, Bruce Horrocks <07.013(a)scorecrow.com> wrote: > On 03/07/2010 19:29, Colin Harper wrote: > >> Exactly the same version of word as them, running on the same system as > >> > them. > >> > Beyond that there are going to be differences, so the closer you can get > >> > to their setup, the better. > >> > > >> > > > Same fonts. Same printers. Particularly the printers, I've found in the > > past. > > Is it still like that? > > No the printers bit was fixed in Office 97 Almost, but not quite. Same version of Word, same OS, different printer will paginate differently if the document margins are wider than the printable area on either printer. The workaround is to share documents with generous page margins. That leaves you with the fonts and the OS. You have to be unlucky, but the same document will break lines differently on different machines if font versions differ, and in rare cases, the way different OS's handle ligatures and kerning pairs. Word has no idea of a page until the document is printed. -- To de-mung my e-mail address:- fsnospam$elliott$$ PGP Fingerprint: 1A96 3CF7 637F 896B C810 E199 7E5C A9E4 8E59 E248
From: Gareth John on 4 Jul 2010 04:35 Elliott Roper <nospam(a)yrl.co.uk> wrote: > In article <899ltoFv9rU1(a)mid.individual.net>, Bruce Horrocks > <07.013(a)scorecrow.com> wrote: > > > On 03/07/2010 19:29, Colin Harper wrote: [snip] > > No the printers bit was fixed in Office 97 > > Almost, but not quite. Same version of Word, same OS, different printer > will paginate differently if the document margins are wider than the > printable area on either printer. > > The workaround is to share documents with generous page margins. > > That leaves you with the fonts and the OS. You have to be unlucky, but > the same document will break lines differently on different machines if > font versions differ, and in rare cases, the way different OS's handle > ligatures and kerning pairs. > > Word has no idea of a page until the document is printed. Not quite. If you merely flow text from page to pag, then printer differences will alter pagination. But if you fix 'hard' page breaks, leaving a sensible lower whitespace on each page, then Word is fairly well-behaved in that respect. Page footers and headers that fall outside the printer's area are merely cropped and not printed, if the printer can't handle them - which is niggling but not fatal. Where Word's substitutes fall down, in my experience, is in the position (and sometimes the size) of placed illustrations and other Office content (charts or graphs especially). G. -- From Gareth John Please pull out the plug if you want to reply by email
From: Gavin on 4 Jul 2010 07:34 On 2010-07-03 19:08:46 +0100, Rob <ngonly(a)gmail.com> said: > On 03/07/2010 18:07, David Kennedy wrote: >> Howard wrote: >>> >>> So my Q is which word processor produces the best and most accurate .doc >>> documents ? >>> >> >> Word v 5 or v6 >> > > I gather a new version of Office for Mac is due any month now - could > be worth waiting for. I might forgive the whole blundered mess of > Office 2008 if the new version is reliable. Im running Beta 2 and its great - the Outlook client works well too. I really like it. -- Gavin. ACSP 10.5 http://www.stoof.co.uk http://www.twitter.com/gavin_wilby
From: Elliott Roper on 4 Jul 2010 07:52 In article <1jl3mbo.7vdl9y1ci3ytkN%g.john(a)PLUG.btinternet.com>, Gareth John <g.john(a)PLUG.btinternet.com> wrote: > Elliott Roper <nospam(a)yrl.co.uk> wrote: > > > In article <899ltoFv9rU1(a)mid.individual.net>, Bruce Horrocks > > <07.013(a)scorecrow.com> wrote: > > > > > On 03/07/2010 19:29, Colin Harper wrote: > [snip] > > > No the printers bit was fixed in Office 97 > > > > Almost, but not quite. Same version of Word, same OS, different printer > > will paginate differently if the document margins are wider than the > > printable area on either printer. > > > > The workaround is to share documents with generous page margins. > > > > That leaves you with the fonts and the OS. You have to be unlucky, but > > the same document will break lines differently on different machines if > > font versions differ, and in rare cases, the way different OS's handle > > ligatures and kerning pairs. > > > > Word has no idea of a page until the document is printed. > > Not quite. If you merely flow text from page to pag, then printer > differences will alter pagination. But if you fix 'hard' page breaks, > leaving a sensible lower whitespace on each page, then Word is fairly > well-behaved in that respect. Have you ever maintained a 500 page document with hard page breaks? It is like herding cats. The right way is via styles with keep-with-next and keep-lines-together set sensibly. That with the generous margins keeps page breaks almost consistent. > Page footers and headers that fall outside the printer's area are merely > cropped and not printed, if the printer can't handle them - which is > niggling but not fatal. Pretty fatal for a 'professional' document. The last copy of Word I used would crop the footers from the top of the footer. > Where Word's substitutes fall down, in my experience, is in the position > (and sometimes the size) of placed illustrations and other Office > content (charts or graphs especially). Agree strongly. Word is hopeless for predictably placing illustrations. I can't imagine how anybody could reliably reverse engineer all its vagaries. When you add in Word's manic mangling once you dare change the size of a jpg or other raster picture, and its epic mishandling of eps, and its ruination of double sided or pdf printing it is a wonder that anyone bothers trying to make something consistent with such a mess. -- To de-mung my e-mail address:- fsnospam$elliott$$ PGP Fingerprint: 1A96 3CF7 637F 896B C810 E199 7E5C A9E4 8E59 E248
From: Jaimie Vandenbergh on 4 Jul 2010 08:41
On Sun, 04 Jul 2010 12:52:16 +0100, Elliott Roper <nospam(a)yrl.co.uk> wrote: > and its >ruination of double sided or pdf printing I don't recall ever having trouble with double-sided, what happens there? And Word doesn't do PDF natively AFAIK. Cheers - Jaimie -- I'm not imaginary, just ontologically challenged |