Bad Picture in Word 2008 from Excel/Word 2007

[Dan_Draney]

A colleague created a table of information in Excel 2007 for Windows. He then pasted it into a Word 2007 document (.docx) for distribution. He pasted it as a picture (WMF, he said) so it would "look better." In this process the picture was resized to fit the margins of the Word document.

When I open the Word file in Word 2008 the table is extremely ugly, pixelated to the point it is completely unreadable. When I open the same file in Word 2007 in my virtual WinXP environment, it looks fine. Resizing to "100%" within Word 2008 did not help.

I guess I don't really have a question, just a sense of disappointment that the cross-platform graphics issues are still with us even in Office 2008/2007.

As for workarounds, the person creating the document can:
1) Create the table in Word in the first place as a Word table?
2) Don't paste it into Word as a picture. The default for pasting is a Word table.

Those of us receiving the document are stuck, though. If we complain the document looks bad, it's just a "Mac Problem."

For some reason people tend to go right to Excel when they want to make a table. When tables don't have calculations and are going into Word anyway, I prefer to create them in Word in the first place.

A surprisingly large number of users paste tables as a picture and convert perfectly a good table into a picture that is much less useful. It can't be edited or reformatted anymore, and if you want to paste some fraction of the information somewhere else, you can't.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Dan -

The third biggest problem you are facing is the fact that the "W" in WMF
stands for Windows - it's a proprietary graphics format not supported by Mac
OS. As a result Word on the Mac has to "guess" what it's supposed to look
like & construct something for you to see - but it looks okay when you open
it in 2007 because that's using the Windows OS. You'll most likely find,
however, that it will print without a problem from either version of Word.

Any graphics destined for cross-platform use should be in standard universal
formats such as PNG, TIFF, JPG, EPS, etc. but Word 2007 can't produce those
formats. The "cross-platform graphics issue" is that WMF is only used by MS
(at least as anything other than a [seldom used] Win Office - compatible
option). the "workarounds" you mention aren't *workarounds*, they are the
*appropriate methods* regardless of whether the doc is going to a Mac or
not. If you want to get even, send them a doc with a PICT (Mac
proprietary) graphic & when they complain tell them it's a "Windows
Problem";-)

 

[Dan_Draney]

Bob,

I agree those are really the appropriate way to do things, rather than "workarounds." I try to point that out to people (politely) with varying degrees of success. To some people the way they are working is not "broken," so it doesn't need fixing. Even the relatively minor effort to learn Word's features for tables vs. pasting in an Excel picture is too much.

I try to be a good cross-platform citizen. Unfortunately, if I send a benighted Windows user a Word file with a re-sized PICT that he can't see, that's another "Mac Problem." ...just one more reason, in his mind, that I should really be sticking to Windows.

Anyway, I thought Office 2007/2008 was supposed to be standards compliant with the new xml files keeping standard graphics embedded in standard forms. Did I dream that?

If I understand correctly, since the Windows clipboard (and Word, etc.) doesn't create standard graphic file formats, you would have to insert the graphic from a file already in a standard format to get that benefit? Or is the support for "standards" conditioned on defining all things Microsoft as ipso facto standards?

Dan
P.S. Printing didn't help that document. The Excel table picture is still illegible.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Dan:

Ummm.... Well... If he had pasted the thing as "Excel" you would not be
having this problem

You can tell him that if he insists on pasting "WMF" he is down-grading the
appearance. WMF is the old Windows 3.1 8-bit format. It looks ugly on
Windows

Had he pasted as "Picture" it would have pasted in the new EMF 32-bit
format, and Word:Mac would have a lot easier time converting it to PDF

However, the fact that it has picked up the "Placeable Header" bitmap
instead of the WMF vector is a bug. A WMF is in two parts: the vector
information which is scalable, and a bitmap low-res version. The bug is
that Word 2008 did not find the WMF.

If you can, I would appreciate it if you could zip up a copy of that
document and email it to me: I can pass it on to the Microsoft guys who are
working on this bug.

Cheers

Bob,

I agree those are really the appropriate way to do things, rather than
"workarounds." I try to point that out to people (politely) with varying
degrees of success. To some people the way they are working is not "broken,"
so it doesn't need fixing. Even the relatively minor effort to learn Word's
features for tables vs. pasting in an Excel picture is too much.

I try to be a good cross-platform citizen. Unfortunately, if I send a
benighted Windows user a Word file with a re-sized PICT that he can't see,
that's another "Mac Problem." ...just one more reason, in his mind, that I
should really be sticking to Windows.

Anyway, I thought Office 2007/2008 was supposed to be standards compliant with
the new xml files keeping standard graphics embedded in standard forms. Did I
dream that?

If I understand correctly, since the Windows clipboard (and Word, etc.)
doesn't create standard graphic file formats, you would have to insert the
graphic from a file already in a standard format to get that benefit? Or is
the support for "standards" conditioned on defining all things Microsoft as
ipso facto standards?

Dan
P.S. Printing didn't help that document. The Excel table picture is still
illegible.

--
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John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia

 

[Dan_Draney]

John,

I asked my colleague again about the details of his paste operation. He did use the "Paste Special" option after copying the Excel table (not the popup menu in the document after a paste), and he is pretty sure that he selected WMF. I can't see any way to tell directly in Word 2007 or 2008 what kind of graphic it is.

The document content is not confidential, so I can email it to you today. Thanks for your help.

I should also note that this colleague is very cooperative and not at all the kind of Windows user who calls everything a "Mac Problem."

Dan

P.S. When I try to display your web page at fastmail.com.au with either Firefox (Win or Mac) or Safari (3, Mac) I just get the raw HTML code. For some reason those browsers are not interpreting the tags. IE7 shows it correctly. The validator at validator.w3.org says the page can't be validated because its content type is "text/plain."

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Dan:

The EMF option is usually labelled "Picture" of "MS Word Picture", depending
on the product. I will have a look the next time I have Word PC running.

That was fascinating: Safari 3.0.4 didn't like the Charset tag So I
tried to fix it it TextEdit, which promptly opened it as a web page and
wouldn't let me at the source

Now, there is no Charset, so the browser will have to guess. But it's
reading the content-type correctly now

A wee buglet, I think It was fine in IE6 and IE7...

Cheers

John,

I asked my colleague again about the details of his paste operation. He did
use the "Paste Special" option after copying the Excel table (not the popup
menu in the document after a paste), and he is pretty sure that he selected
WMF. I can't see any way to tell directly in Word 2007 or 2008 what kind of
graphic it is.

The document content is not confidential, so I can email it to you today.
Thanks for your help.

I should also note that this colleague is very cooperative and not at all the
kind of Windows user who calls everything a "Mac Problem."

Dan

P.S. When I try to display your web page at fastmail.com.au with either
Firefox (Win or Mac) or Safari (3, Mac) I just get the raw HTML code. For some
reason those browsers are not interpreting the tags. IE7 shows it correctly.
The validator at validator.w3.org says the page can't be validated because its
content type is "text/plain."

--
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
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia

 

[Dan_Draney]

Looks like the change took care of it. Safari 3 and Firefox 2 both display it just fine now for me.

Thanks for your help.

Best,
Dan

 

[LarryN]

I am a new mac convert and am struggling with this as well. I am a consultant and for years in the winworld have copied and pasted excel cells into my word docs as pictures with perfect scalability and clarity. This comes from having huge spreadsheets of which you only want summary components in the report.

What should I be doing in the macoffice world to accomplish the same results? I want the excel table to be scalable, clear to read, and I don't want to explode the report size as I often send it to my clients for discussion etc.

Cheers,
LarryN

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Larry:

Just proceed exactly as you are. The bug will be fixed in a couple of weeks
or so, and all your "pictures" will then magically come right.

In the meantime, just try to ignore the fuziness ‹ it's a bug.

If you try to "do" anything now, you run the risk of breaking it so when the
fix arrives you will have to re-do all your pictures. I am hoping that this
is a "display" bug and we won't have to re-insert all the pictures when it
is fixed.

Cheers

I am a new mac convert and am struggling with this as well. I am a consultant
and for years in the winworld have copied and pasted excel cells into my word
docs as pictures with perfect scalability and clarity. This comes from having
huge spreadsheets of which you only want summary components in the report.

What should I be doing in the macoffice world to accomplish the same results?
I want the excel table to be scalable, clear to read, and I don't want to
explode the report size as I often send it to my clients for discussion etc.

Cheers,
LarryN

--
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
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia

 

[Ali]

I'm hoping someone can help me with a similar issue. At my job we get vector logos and artwork from clients, usually saved in PC Word or PowerPoint. My art dept. is Mac-based and we need to extract the artwork from those files. Usually when we open the files, the artwork is broken up, jagged and pretty much unusable. Including any bitmapped art. We then have to ask our sales dept to open them up on their Windows PCs, copy and save them as Adobe Illustrator EPS files. Of course, those come out fine.

We've tried to get clients to send only EPS or PDFs but it doesn't seem to be easy for them to cope with. Any advice on what to do? Has Office 2008 fixed this problem? We won't upgrade until we know that this issue is remedied.

Thanks for the help!

 

[John McGhie]

Not without your version information, we can't.

Please post a new post, including your versions. Office 2008 is "a little"
better, but not much. Currently it has some severe bugs in its
compatibility with PC Office.

I am wondering whether the files you are seeing are EMF vectors (Microsoft
Office drawings)?

Cheers

I'm hoping someone can help me with a similar issue. At my job we get vector
logos and artwork from clients, usually saved in PC Word or PowerPoint. My art
dept. is Mac-based and we need to extract the artwork from those files.
Usually when we open the files, the artwork is broken up, jagged and pretty
much unusable. Including any bitmapped art. We then have to ask our sales dept
to open them up on their Windows PCs, copy and save them as Adobe Illustrator
EPS files. Of course, those come out fine.

We've tried to get clients to send only EPS or PDFs but it doesn't seem to be
easy for them to cope with. Any advice on what to do? Has Office 2008 fixed
this problem? We won't upgrade until we know that this issue is remedied.

Thanks for the help!

--
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]