Abysmal letter spacing

J

jschlight

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

Is anybody else experiencing really abysmal letter spacing. I'm using an Adobe Open Type face and the spacing is lousy on the screen and especially on the printed page. I am getting gaps inside a word nearly as large as a space.
 
J

John McGhie

Yes, everybody is getting that. Did you search in this group? There have
been several posts about it.


Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

Is anybody else experiencing really abysmal letter spacing. I'm using an Adobe
Open Type face and the spacing is lousy on the screen and especially on the
printed page. I am getting gaps inside a word nearly as large as a space.

--
Don'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:[email protected]
 
M

macdude41

Indeed. Everyone getting this? If so, why are we still suffering with this problem for months now? Thankfully, Apple's Pages program can open Word documents and can actually print legibly.
 
J

John McGhie

Because Apple introduced ligatures to OS 10.5.2 without warning. Microsoft
knew that some of the typography features were coming, but not all of them.

For something complex and low-level like this, you have to design an
application to handle them. That takes a year or so, by the time you have
completed coding and testing.

Reading the Apple documentation, Microsoft thought that these functions
would be "OFF" unless an application requested them. So they felt it would
be OK to go with partial support in this version and turn it on only when
needed.

When Apple shipped, they discovered to their horror that it's "ON" unless an
application turns it OFF.

Apple has screamed at Microsoft often enough for doing this sort of thing,
you would have thought they would have known not to do it themselves. Maybe
it's pure "pay back" :)

Either way: The next Service Pack should contain a patch to turn the damn
thing off until Microsoft completes their changes to enable it to work
properly.

Cheers


Indeed. Everyone getting this? If so, why are we still suffering with this
problem for months now? Thankfully, Apple's Pages program can open Word
documents and can actually print legibly.

--

Don'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, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]
 
J

jschlight

Service Pack 1 has not resolved this for me. Is there some setting or something that I need to set to make it work?
 
J

John McGhie

No: I think we're now waiting for Apple to do a bit at their end.

Which fonts are you have problems with?


Service Pack 1 has not resolved this for me. Is there some setting or
something that I need to set to make it work?

--

Don'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, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]
 
J

jschlight

I've updated to Mac OS X 10.5.3 and I'm still seeing the problem. One would think that Apple would have done their part by now.
 
J

John McGhie

There were a bunch of Apple updates came out today. I haven't got them yet,
and I have no idea whether they fix the issue.

I can ask again, but I doubt if I will be told anything more than "We know
about this and we have it logged."

They do know about it, specifically with Minion Pro, and here's nothing we
can do to hurry them up.

Well: there is one thing ... I assume you put in notice with "Send
Feedback"? The more notes about this issue Microsoft gets there, the higher
priority the bug will get.

Cheers

I've updated to Mac OS X 10.5.3 and I'm still seeing the problem. One would
think that Apple would have done their part by now.

--

Don'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, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]
 
J

John McGhie

Did you put in another "Send Feedback"? Keep hassling them. Every report
they get will tick the problem up a notch in the list.

Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit has just hired a bunch of extra software
developers, which will give them a better chance of cleaning these issues up
in a timely fashion in future.

Cheers


Office 2008 12.1.1 Update hasn't resolved the issue. Oh well...

--
Don'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, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]
 
P

Phillip Jones

Also has the OSX.5.3 update been done? That is supposed to fix some issues.

John said:
Did you put in another "Send Feedback"? Keep hassling them. Every report
they get will tick the problem up a notch in the list.

Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit has just hired a bunch of extra software
developers, which will give them a better chance of cleaning these issues up
in a timely fashion in future.

Cheers

--
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Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
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