Any way to print outline and show what is on screen?

[Dennis Wierzbicki]

This is not just a Mac problem, as I get the same thing in MS Word for
Office.

I do a lot of brainstorming using Word's (Mac X Word, OS 10.2.8) outline
view, but when I print out my documents, all the formatting disappears. I
get miscellaneous bolds, font sizes and styles, all left justified, and not
very readable, whereas my outline views are VERY orderly and readable.

After exhaustive searches in the MS Knowledge Base, I am turning to you
experts in this newsgroup. How can I get what I print out to be exactly what
I see in Outline View?

Thanks

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Dennis,

I'm not sure but it sounds as if your printer is not communicating properly
with Word. In Page Setup, check to see what "format for" is set to. If
it's set to your printer, change it to "any printer"; if it's set to "any
printer," change it to your printer.

Also, make sure you have the latest printer driver.

If this doesn't help, then I'm at a loss. Sorry.

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/WordMac/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>

 

[Gerald]

Hi Dennis,

I'm not sure but it sounds as if your printer is not communicating properly
with Word. In Page Setup, check to see what "format for" is set to. If
it's set to your printer, change it to "any printer"; if it's set to "any
printer," change it to your printer.

Also, make sure you have the latest printer driver.

If this doesn't help, then I'm at a loss. Sorry.

You're not alone! It's very frustrating, and has nothing to do with
your printer. There doesn't appear to be a way to print an outline AS
an outline. when Word prints, it prints the outline using the styles
defined for each heading level, at least as far as I can tell. It was
a mistake to do the outline in Word.

If anyone knows how to print an outline AS an OUTLINE please share.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word]]

Hi Gerald:

Sure: Look in the Help topic "Print an Outline". You will see that it
tells you to go into Outline View, hide the text by displaying only levels 1
through 9, and Print.

Or generate a Table of Contents from the styles and print that...

OK, so you may feel a little embarrassed: I know that until recently, Help
has not been any; so people have got out of the habit of looking there.
However, now that has changed. Virtually everything there is to know about
Word is in that Help file, and if you spend a couple of hours finding your
way around the Help, particularly the full text search part of it, your life
will get better

Cheers

You're not alone! It's very frustrating, and has nothing to do with
your printer. There doesn't appear to be a way to print an outline AS
an outline. when Word prints, it prints the outline using the styles
defined for each heading level, at least as far as I can tell. It was
a mistake to do the outline in Word.

If anyone knows how to print an outline AS an OUTLINE please share.

--

Please respond only to the newsgroup to preserve the thread.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Elliott Roper]

Hi Gerald:

Sure: Look in the Help topic "Print an Outline". You will see that it
tells you to go into Outline View, hide the text by displaying only levels 1
through 9, and Print.

Or generate a Table of Contents from the styles and print that...

OK, so you may feel a little embarrassed: I know that until recently, Help
has not been any; so people have got out of the habit of looking there.
However, now that has changed. Virtually everything there is to know about
Word is in that Help file, and if you spend a couple of hours finding your
way around the Help, particularly the full text search part of it, your life
will get better

You are of course taking the Mickey. The full search in Word's help is
a lottery. You know you have asked a question when the result is a
homily about Microsoft's licensing policy.

And why does it anchor itself right over the document you would rather
be editing instead of playing hunt the wumpus with that execrable pile
of irrelevant response?

And while we are on the subject, Is it just me, or is there no other
way to close help than with a cmd-W, which usually tries to close the
document underneath, and which won't succeed because you can't yes the
hidden alert box underneath the immovable help window.

It is not a serious problem mind. I find it far easier to ask for help
here than even *think* of touching the help facility in Word.

Actually, googling this group is the best way ;-)

There is nothing like having a decent rant here to preserve one's last
vestiges of cranial hair cover.

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

And why does it anchor itself right over the document you would rather
be editing instead of playing hunt the wumpus with that execrable pile
of irrelevant response?

This annoys me as well. Why can't I click between Help and my doc so I can
follow the instructions written in Help? (sometimes I find the instructions
useful)

And while we are on the subject, Is it just me, or is there no other
way to close help than with a cmd-W, which usually tries to close the
document underneath, and which won't succeed because you can't yes the
hidden alert box underneath the immovable help window.

My help has a little close box, but sorry, Elliot that would require you to
put a finger on the mouse. So would double-clicking the title bar to
shrink Help to get it out of your way without losing the search results.

I would ask for Help in the Help Viewer like other programs, but I
***HATE*** the implementation of that on X (every time I search for
something, it shows me nonsense from other programs) so I won't.

Dayo

 

[Elliott Roper]

This annoys me as well. Why can't I click between Help and my doc so I can
follow the instructions written in Help? (sometimes I find the instructions
useful)
My help has a little close box, but sorry, Elliot that would require you to
put a finger on the mouse. So would double-clicking the title bar to
shrink Help to get it out of your way without losing the search results.

Where is it? Mine has green arrows, content index search and print.
That's it.

Wait! Yess! Dayo, I love you! The help 'title' bar was perma-jammed
under the Mac menu bar!! No wonder I could not close or move the help
Window. It has been jammed there for ever. I never knew any better!

I got sly. Used system prefs to change the resolution of the main
Powerbook screen to 800*600. That forces all the windows to jostle
around and lo and behold, after making word with help active the
frontmost screen, the help window climbed out from under the Mac menu
bar, looking awfully yellowed, it hadn't seen daylight for a year.

I would ask for Help in the Help Viewer like other programs, but I
***HATE*** the implementation of that on X (every time I search for
something, it shows me nonsense from other programs) so I won't.

Right on. It is the only nice thing you can say about Word help. It is
better than Mac help. That has to be the faintest of faint praise. Are
we talking faint? -90dB faint. There is nothing in the known universe
that is worse than Mac Help. I'd say having a chamber-pot emptied on
you from a second floor window at the height of the black plague would
be close to worse than Mac help, but not quite.

I'd settle for a pdf manual, laid out like a book would be. Good enough
to print if you must. I'd use Panther's preview to search it. That
little puppy runs with the speed of a thousand gazelles.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word]]

Hi Elliott:

You are of course taking the Mickey. The full search in Word's help is
a lottery. You know you have asked a question when the result is a
homily about Microsoft's licensing policy.

Actually, no, I wasn't The full text search in X is a little
intellectually challenged, but it's far better than the index, which is
woefully incomplete. To find anything, try to restrict yourself to Nouns in
X, they are more likely to work. The improvement in both speed and accuracy
in 2004 is worth waiting for.

Cheers

--

Please respond only to the newsgroup to preserve the thread.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word]]

Hi Again, Elliott:

I got sly. Used system prefs to change the resolution of the main
Powerbook screen to 800*600. That forces all the windows to jostle
around and lo and behold, after making word with help active the
frontmost screen, the help window climbed out from under the Mac menu
bar, looking awfully yellowed, it hadn't seen daylight for a year.

Sheets handling is not our strong point in X, is it The thing is much
better in 2004, and Dayo will be able to click between document and help
just the way she likes to (and so do I...)

Right on. It is the only nice thing you can say about Word help. It is
better than Mac help.

Give us a few months to get 2004 out there: I really am very enthusiastic
about the improvement in Help in 2004. For the first time it looks like we
are getting the full Windows Word 2003 Help, properly localised and
customised for the Mac.

I'd settle for a pdf manual, laid out like a book would be. Good enough
to print if you must. I'd use Panther's preview to search it. That
little puppy runs with the speed of a thousand gazelles.

I think even Panther's Preview might be challenged by that. They thought
about it, but there are a couple of problems. The first is that the damned
thing is just too BIG: there's something like 35,000 A4 pages of it.

The second is that no "book" that size is functional. As a paper book gets
north of about 250 pages, it becomes progressively more difficult to use,
write, and maintain. Electronically, you can go up to about 500 pages
before it becomes impossible to use.

If you don't believe me, the next time someone says "I tried to ring you but
I didn't have your phone number" say to them "It's in the phone book!" and
watch their faces carefully. Their reaction will be a treat. Nobody in a
city bigger than a million people ever attempts to use the phone book these
days: it's simply not useable.

At least in Australia, the majority of the accesses to the Yellow Pages are
online. Sydney's Yellow Pages is about 3,000 pages in two fat manuals that
can be found stacked in the storeroom where you work. The only time you
will ever see the paper version used is for adjusting the height of computer
monitors...

Cheers


--

Please respond only to the newsgroup to preserve the thread.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Elliott Roper]

Hi Again, Elliott:

This responds to article <040320041803271166%[email protected]>, from
"Elliott Roper" <[email protected]> on 5/3/04 5:03 AM:

Give us a few months to get 2004 out there: I really am very enthusiastic
about the improvement in Help in 2004. For the first time it looks like we
are getting the full Windows Word 2003 Help, properly localised and
customised for the Mac.

All the featuritis you see plugged in the blatts is putting me off, but
I do like your news of Word 2004 much better. Someboody ought to get
you to get some of your story into the magazines. Existing Word
customers are going to be far more impressed by fixes and compatibility
with the dark side than by that doofus project monkeying about.

I think even Panther's Preview might be challenged by that. They thought
about it, but there are a couple of problems. The first is that the damned
thing is just too BIG: there's something like 35,000 A4 pages of it.

Yep, extrapolatiing out from a few bigges around here, that would be
250MB before pictures. With 10,000 pictures at 100kB each, that'll be
an extra GB please. Kaching!

Errk! I guess there is room for somebody to make some money by
publishing a help for the help. Clive? do you sense a business
opportunity?

 

[JE McGimpsey]

All the featuritis you see plugged in the blatts is putting me off, but
I do like your news of Word 2004 much better. Someboody ought to get
you to get some of your story into the magazines. Existing Word
customers are going to be far more impressed by fixes and compatibility
with the dark side than by that doofus project monkeying about.

While I agree with your prioritization, it'll be interesting to see how
people use the Project Manager. I've been using it now for six weeks or
so, and it's amazing how much it's changed the way I work with my
projects - both with Office and with other applications. It's not a
killer app by any means, but when you have multiple diverse balls in the
air, it helps to keep things organized. I particularly like the ability
to switch projects instantly, from any Office app, when I get a phone
call from a client, and have all my files/contacts/emails/task
lists/schedules/etc available in one pane, along with my project notes
in Word's notebook view.

It's still got some (!) rough edges, needs some tighter integration,
and, like most features, probably won't be *really* good until Office
2006+, but it has potential.

Errk! I guess there is room for somebody to make some money by
publishing a help for the help. Clive? do you sense a business
opportunity?

Actually, I think you'll be surprised how extensive the Help on Help
is...and how much less you'll need it.