About the: 1. A word crash:

R

rm1008

Word2004
IBookG4
1.5 ram
1.42 GHz

Hi,

I forgot that what I wanted to ask is if that lost document exists
anywhere in my computer. Wishful thinking?

Thanks, Rafael

PS Now, looking at the posts and answers, I see lots of my friends from
the client form of the newsgroup. HI.
 
J

John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]

Hi Rafael:

Yep, this is us :) The difference is that this group contains bodies who
know more about Word than we do about Entourage. The unwashed lot down the
passage know more about Entourage than they do about Word :)

Entourage has a built-in news client, which is why I tend to use it: I like
having email and news reader in a single application. Even though I
probably use Usenet more than most people on the planet, I have no need for
the high-end features of the dedicated newsreaders. Thread-by-reference
would be nice, but I have a custom view set up in Entourage that threads by
Subject, which actually gives better results, given that most posters in
here are using HTML interfaces that don't set the reference fields correctly
:)

Word crashes when the document gets too complex to read. Size has nothing
to do with it. Careful selection when editing prevents it. I suggest
turning your non-printing characters on while editing so you can see what
you are doing. Hacking and chopping with tracked changes enabled is a
recipe for almost immediate disaster. Neat, precise selection will improve
your score a lot.

If you saved the document, it's still where you saved it. If you never
saved it, it existed only in memory, and was deleted when Word crashed.

In Word>Preferences>Save, enable "Always make backup copy" and "Save
autorecovery information every 10 minutes". The first is better than the
second.

The first option saves a "Backup of..." file in the same folder as the saved
document. If anything goes wrong with the document, your last saved version
but one is in the backup file: open that, re-save it as the main document.

An Autorecover file saves only the CHANGES to the document. If Word can't
read the document, the autorecover file is also useless. Word will
automatically present any "Recovered" files it is able to reconstruct
following a crash. However, if Word did not crash, there's no way to get at
the autorecover file. If you start Word again, then quit it, following a
crash, you lose your autorecover files. Word takes a normal exit as a sign
to clean away its autorecover files.

I don't bother munging my email address. I have a spam filter running that
the idiots can't get through. The benefit of this is that real people can
email me whenever they like :) However, should they feel the urge to
include attachments, graphical signatures, lots of HTML links, "greetings
cards", viruses, malware, or any of a wide variety of other digital
graffiti, my spam filter will assume it's spam and delete their missive
before I ever see it. Problem solved :)

Hope this helps

Word2004
IBookG4
1.5 ram
1.42 GHz

Hi,

I forgot that what I wanted to ask is if that lost document exists
anywhere in my computer. Wishful thinking?

Thanks, Rafael

PS Now, looking at the posts and answers, I see lots of my friends from
the client form of the newsgroup. HI.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410
 
P

Phillip Jones

John said:
Hi Rafael:

Yep, this is us :) The difference is that this group contains bodies who
know more about Word than we do about Entourage. The unwashed lot down the
passage know more about Entourage than they do about Word :)

Entourage has a built-in news client, which is why I tend to use it: I like
having email and news reader in a single application. Even though I
probably use Usenet more than most people on the planet, I have no need for
the high-end features of the dedicated newsreaders. Thread-by-reference
would be nice, but I have a custom view set up in Entourage that threads by
Subject, which actually gives better results, given that most posters in
here are using HTML interfaces that don't set the reference fields correctly
:)


Its Word That gets it wrong.;-) The reference everything by extension.
while everyone on the planet uses MIME type. ;-)

If you want just a good news reader/ email client try Mozilla
Thunderbird, a Good WEb Browser FireFox, or a Great All in one SeaMonkey ;-)

Try'm your like'm! ;-)

Word crashes when the document gets too complex to read. Size has nothing
to do with it. Careful selection when editing prevents it. I suggest
turning your non-printing characters on while editing so you can see what
you are doing. Hacking and chopping with tracked changes enabled is a
recipe for almost immediate disaster. Neat, precise selection will improve
your score a lot.

If you saved the document, it's still where you saved it. If you never
saved it, it existed only in memory, and was deleted when Word crashed.

In Word>Preferences>Save, enable "Always make backup copy" and "Save
autorecovery information every 10 minutes". The first is better than the
second.

The first option saves a "Backup of..." file in the same folder as the saved
document. If anything goes wrong with the document, your last saved version
but one is in the backup file: open that, re-save it as the main document.

An Autorecover file saves only the CHANGES to the document. If Word can't
read the document, the autorecover file is also useless. Word will
automatically present any "Recovered" files it is able to reconstruct
following a crash. However, if Word did not crash, there's no way to get at
the autorecover file. If you start Word again, then quit it, following a
crash, you lose your autorecover files. Word takes a normal exit as a sign
to clean away its autorecover files.

I don't bother munging my email address. I have a spam filter running that
the idiots can't get through. The benefit of this is that real people can
email me whenever they like :) However, should they feel the urge to
include attachments, graphical signatures, lots of HTML links, "greetings
cards", viruses, malware, or any of a wide variety of other digital
graffiti, my spam filter will assume it's spam and delete their missive
before I ever see it. Problem solved :)

Hope this helps

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto:p[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>
 
J

John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]

Happy New Year, Phillip:

Its Word That gets it wrong.;-) The reference everything by extension.
while everyone on the planet uses MIME type. ;-)

Sorry mate, that's just not true :) In the UNIX world we now live in, the
extension for a file is both significant and important. It's Unix that
wants file extensions.

Microsoft applications use Type and Creator, just like Apple applications
have always done. This holds good for both Windows and Mac. The extension
is used as a last resort, and only where the file content is plain text: so
..txt, .html, .sgml, .xml, .csv etc...
If you want just a good news reader/ email client try Mozilla
Thunderbird, a Good WEb Browser FireFox, or a Great All in one SeaMonkey ;-)

Try'm your like'm! ;-)

I did, and I didn't :) I use IE7 and FireFox for browsing, Outlook and
Entourage for mail and news.

I agree: Thunderbird is a great IMAP client, but it won't do business mail,
contacts and calendar like Outlook and Entourage will. FireFox is a good
browser for the Mac, but IE7 is a better browser (only just...) on the PC...

IE7 has a particular advantage in repelling malware and internet nasties,
which are not such an issue on the Mac.

Cheers

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410
 
P

Phillip Jones

John said:
Happy New Year, Phillip:



Sorry mate, that's just not true :) In the UNIX world we now live in, the
extension for a file is both significant and important. It's Unix that
wants file extensions.

Microsoft applications use Type and Creator, just like Apple applications
have always done. This holds good for both Windows and Mac. The extension
is used as a last resort, and only where the file content is plain text: so
.txt, .html, .sgml, .xml, .csv etc...


I did, and I didn't :) I use IE7 and FireFox for browsing, Outlook and
Entourage for mail and news.

I agree: Thunderbird is a great IMAP client, but it won't do business mail,
contacts and calendar like Outlook and Entourage will. FireFox is a good
browser for the Mac, but IE7 is a better browser (only just...) on the PC...

IE7 has a particular advantage in repelling malware and internet nasties,
which are not such an issue on the Mac.

Cheers

There is a calendar extension you can get for FireFox to add Calendar
features.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto:p[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>
 
R

rm1008

Thanks John McGhie and Philip

RM
I was using Entourage, then it crashed, and I switched to Safari and
MacMail to see if there was any advantage to having everything Apple.
I can fix Entourage easy enough; and it was easy with newsgroups.

JM
"Hi Rafael:
Yep, this is us :)"


Dear unwashed lot:)

JM
"... I have a custom view set up in Entourage that threads by
Subject..."

That's an ordinary 'choice' feature on entourage, rather than
'custom', isn't it? I've used it.

"...which actually gives better results, given that most posters in
here are using HTML interfaces that don't set the reference fields
correctly
:)"

I was admonished early on to write only in text rather than HTML on
newsgroups. But I've also come to use text all the time because many
people know nothing about html.

"Word crashes when the document gets too complex to read."

The doc that crashed was only a page of uncomplicated text.

"Careful selection when editing prevents it."

I don't understand what you mean by 'selection' here.

Or here:

"Neat, precise 'selection' will improve your score a lot."

As in select> copy>paste?

"I suggest turning your non-printing characters on while editing so
you can see what
you are doing."

With only an ordinary word text document? That seems extreme. I
don't understand why.

'Tracking'...I tried once to use it as an assist for editing a
novel and it was more confusing than helpful. Might be ok if I
mastered it. I don't go there. Couple of editors sent me their
remarks back on my own word attachment using tracked changes, and that
was good.

"I have a spam filter running that the idiots can't get through."

All I have is what's on SBC/Yahoo, my server. Do you have a special
spam filter program or something like that?

Why don't you use just Entourage for both news and mail? Why switch
between one and the other?

Are FireFox or Mozilla or IE Mac superior to Safari, which is the
browser I've been using? I used to use ie5 on os 9.

JM
"Hope this helps."

RM
Yes. Always. Hope the above doesn't fall into the category of
'too many questions'.
 
J

John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]

Hi Rafael:

"... I have a custom view set up in Entourage that threads by
Subject..."

That's an ordinary 'choice' feature on entourage, rather than
'custom', isn't it? I've used it.

View>Arrange by>Edit custom arrangements...
"Word crashes when the document gets too complex to read."

The doc that crashed was only a page of uncomplicated text.

And the object or coding structure beneath it? A Word document is a binary
structure of "objects", properties, and pointers. Internally, it's very
complex, even if the text it is displaying is simply "The cat sat on the
mat".
"Careful selection when editing prevents it."

I don't understand what you mean by 'selection' here.

Or here:

"Neat, precise 'selection' will improve your score a lot."

A Word document consists of a large collection of nested containers. Think
of Chinese Eggs: containers within containers within containers. The lowest
level of those containers contains a text string. Each sentence may be an
individual text string, or it may be several, depending upon whether any
formatting has been changed within the sentence.

The formatting is itself stored in containers. These containers look very
much like tables of "properties. For example, the font, its face, size,
colour, spacing, kerning. In a separate table are the paragraph properties
relating to the paragraph the string is in. Things like line spacing, space
before and after, justification etc.

Word connects the text string with its formatting properties using binary
"pointers". These are large binary numbers indicating the precise position
in the file of the formatting container, and the row in that table that
applies to the text.

The pointers are hidden from display. However, the non-printing characters
(particularly the paragraph marks) show you where they are. When copying
and pasting text, it is important to know whether or not you are including
the paragraph mark in your selection. If you choose not to do so, Word will
attempt to expand your selection to include the binary pointers that
indicate the formatting.

If you are in a hurry, and have a lot of formatting pointers close together,
and some are laid one on top of the other, Word sometimes gets confused.
When it does, it mangles the pointers. When that happens, the document
structure is corrupt, and Word begins to crash when handling that document.

The real issue here is not whether WE thing the document is "simple", but
whether WORD thinks it is after trying to decode it.
"I suggest turning your non-printing characters on while editing so
you can see what
you are doing."

With only an ordinary word text document? That seems extreme. I
don't understand why.

I suggest to you that it's "basic". If you are in the habit of editing with
the non-printing characters hidden, expect your documents to be unstable and
unreliable. Once a document becomes corrupt, it is very difficult to fix it
without losing information.
All I have is what's on SBC/Yahoo, my server. Do you have a special
spam filter program or something like that?

Yes. I do. The filters provided for no extra charge by companies such as
Google and Yahoo are configured to allow through spam generated by the
companies who pay for advertising with those providers. The spam filter I
use is produced by a company that makes its living solely from anti-spam and
anti-virus solutions and does not sell advertising. It's a server-based
system that rejects rubbish before I see it, so I do not have to waste time
or bandwidth downloading it.
Why don't you use just Entourage for both news and mail? Why switch
between one and the other?

I do use Entourage for both mail and news on the Mac. On the PC, I use
Outlook and Agent. I almost never handle news on the PC, because Entourage
offers greater convenience for the news work that I do.
Are FireFox or Mozilla or IE Mac superior to Safari, which is the
browser I've been using? I used to use ie5 on os 9.

Depends on which versions. IE has not risen above version 5 on the Mac and
is no longer being produced. IE 5 Mac was he best of breed when it was
launched, but that was a long time ago, and it is now well behind the game.

Safari is available in various flavours. I'm still back in OS 10.2.9, for
which the latest version of Safari is 1.3. It's small, fast and simplistic.
However, there are some severe bugs with its frames handling and it is no
longer developed.

On OS 10.4, you can go up to Safari 2, which is a superior browser. FireFox
is arguably a more powerful browser than Safari 2, but the advantage is
slight. FireFox is well ahead of Safari 1.3. FireFox and Mozilla are
essentially the same thing with a different look.

IE7 on the PC has raised the bar in browsing to new heights. Not everyone
likes it (ask me and the answer you will get depends a bit on the phase of
the moon...) However it is massive, very fast, very powerful and very
secure. On a powerful computer, IE7 is clearly ahead of all the rest.

We can expect many of the ideas from IE7 to make their way into Mac browsers
over the text few months. Some of those ideas (e.g. Tabbed browsing...)
made their way into IE7 from Safari :) and some of those ideas (security
tools...) are not so important on the Mac.

I guess the answer also depends a lot on what YOU mean by "better". Many of
the things that the new browser do, I do not need, and some of them I do not
WANT.

The game being played here is "owning eyeballs". Each of the browser
heavy-hitters is trying to become "The Desktop" through which the user views
not just web pages but the entire world, everything on the computer.

IE7 is rapidly heading onto that direction on the PC. If you see IE 7
running in Windows Vista you will see that a lot of what happens on the
computer is being displayed by IE.

I think we can expect to see greater moves in that direction on the Mac in
the next version of OS X. I'm sure that FireFox and Mozilla are working
overtime to be there when OS 10.5 appears :)

BTW: Thanks for accurately providing the details of your software in your
questions: it makes answering them a lot easier :)

Cheers

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410
 
R

rm1008

Hi John,

Thanks. Boy, that was comprehensive. Lots of food for thought and
application. I'll get back to you when I've studied it a bit. For
now, is it worth my while to have the name of that spam filter? Also,
in re: "providing the details of your software", how can I default(?)
that information so that it appears at the top of my posts both in
Google groups as well as in newsgroups via Entourage?

Five stars...as in Eisenhower.

Rafael
 
R

rm1008

Hi John,

You know what I've always thought would be great to have in a browser
is what in Word is a Toolbar named "Powerbook", which has four buttons:
one click takes you to the top of the page, one to the bottom (for a
browser I think those two would suffice), one click takes the cusor to
the right of the page, and one to the left of the page. I can have a
400 page word document, click 'bottom of page' and I'm there instantly.

Best, Rafael
 

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