Cannot activate "Track Changes" on Word 2004 for Mac

T

Tony

I cannot activate "Track Changes" on a Word ".doc" document using Word
2004 version 11.3.4 on Mac OS X 10.4.9 (Mac mini Intel). The problem
arises only with a document that I have received from a PC-Windows
user. No problem for the documents that I create on my Mac.

Problem description:

If I open the ".doc" file and to go "Tools/Track changes/Highlight
changes", I see all the three option unchecked:

- Track changes while editing
- Highlight changes on screen
- Highlight changes in printed documents

Note: on the documents that I create on my Mac, I see unchecked only
the first one, and then I can check it and changes are tracked with a
different color.

On that particular ".doc" file from the PC-Windows user, none of such
three options were selected. I can check them all, but when I close and
open again such "Highlight Changes" window, only the first option
remains checked.

In fact, if I type something, it is not typed in red as it should be.
So, the track changes does not work.

Note: this document was originally created by a PC-Windows user, I
received it, activated tracked changes OK, edited it (my editing showed
in red), sent it back to the PC-Windows user who, after accepting the
changes, sent the ".doc" file to me again. But now I cannot activate
the track changes feature.

Any help most welcome. Thanks.
 
J

John McGhie

Check the Tools>Protect Document setting. It may be that he has Protected
the document, in which case the Revision Tracking tool can not enable.

Or it may be that he has been paying around with the changes that were
marked near a table or section break (within one character of a table or
section break) and has managed to orrupt the document.

Copy everything except the last paragraph mark into a fresh new documen and
see if that fixes it...

Cheers

--

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs

+61 4 1209 1410, <mailto:[email protected]> mailto:[email protected]
 
T

Tony

Thanks.

"Tools/Protect Document" shows that it is NOT protected.

Copying and pasting all except the very last carriage return fixes it,
but now the document has different formatting, some images are huge,
etc.

Any other way to avoid such issues?

Thanks.
 
D

Daiya Mitchell

Okay, so that means it was corrupt.

The other corrupt doc fix is to round-trip it through HTML--see the
instructions here under Procedure #1:
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/DocumentCorruption.html

Word's HTML is designed to maintain formatting through a round-trip, so
let us know how successful it is. If that doesn't work, try the other
Procedures, though I'm not sure how formatting will behave. Make sure
you set aside a copy of the original, naturally.
 
L

little_creature

Hello,
I have learned from John that when you receive document with tracked changes
is better to accept all changes (this doc will became as *original*). Then
create *your* document (track changes are off) and at the end compare the
*original* with your document by word function tools>merge document which
will highlight the differences between these 2 document.

The importatn thing is that when you use this workflow when creating *your*
document the track changes are off so the corruption is less often because
you cannot "break" the code word generates when track changes are on.
 
T

Tony

Daiya,

Wow! That worked OK and fixed the problem! You are a genius!

:)

1. "File/Save as/Web Page (HTML)". Close the document.
2. Open the HTML file with Word (drag and drop works). "File/Save
as/Word document". Close the document.
3. Open the new ".doc" document just saved.
4. Fixed!

Many thanks!

------------
 
T

Tony

Thanks.

I finally fixed it following the Daiya's advice (above).

Thanks again to all, and have a nice Easter!

-------------
 
J

John McGhie

Hi Tony:

You mean apart from Upgrading to Office 2008?? :) When it goes on sale,
Office 2008 will prevent this problem occuring.

In the Word .doc file format, all of the formatting (and most everything
else except the actual character strings) is contained in a series of
look-up tables in the binary file format. These properties and attributes
are all called in with binary pointers that indicate which rows of the
tables apply to each piece of text.

It's the binary tables that seem to corrupt. These are re-created when you
de-corrupt the document. But yes, you do lose some formatting, picture and
page sizes, etc. And it's very difficult to know which of the decorruption
methods will result in the least damage in any particular document. I shy
away from the HTML method for most of my work because it converts all
pictures to PNG bitmaps, and I use a lot of vectore art. But other than
that, it's pretty good. Round-tripping through RTF fixes "some" problems,
but generally RTF makes such a faithful copy of the document that it copies
the problem as well, so I rarely use or advise that one. Copying all but
the last paragraph mark (some of us know that as a "Maggie") fixes the
widest range of problems, but is potentially the most destructive. Of
course when you're desperate you can round-trip through Plain Text (or use
"Recover text from any file" to open the document. Either way, you lose ALL
the formatting but you get your text back.

My suggestion is that you avoid tracked changes if you have an unskilled
editor or a diffeent version of Word in your workflow. Use Compare
Documents instead: it's much less likely to result in problems :)

Hope this helps

--

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs

+61 4 1209 1410, <mailto:[email protected]> mailto:[email protected]
 
T

Tony

John,

Thanks. Sure, but the problem is that we may have about 5,000 edit
points or more in a 50 to 100 page document every time it goes to
revision by a single co-author (most of the times we check and accept
all changes). So, for us, "Track Changes" is absolutely required. In
such scenario it would be a real nightmare to compare documents...

I look forward to Office 2008. Any tentative date?

Hint for Microsoft MBU (if possible): hopefully Word 2008 will not
crash unexpectedly when copy/paste applications like CopyPaste
http://www.scriptsoftware.com/copypaste/ or iClip
http://inventive.us/iClip are active, as now is the case with Office
2004.

Thanks.
Regards,
 
J

John McGhie

Hi Tony:

That's just the situation where I *would* use Compare Documents.

1) Get the document back.

2) Immediately Accept All Changes in Document and Save

3) Make a copy and Save

4) Make your 5,000 edits and Save

5) Use Compare Documents to indicate the changes and Send.

You put all changes in in a single operation, and since Word is doing it,
there is very little chance of corrupting the document.

Making 5,000 changes in a 50-page document is practically guaranteed to
corrupt the thing, unless your editors are REALLY expert. Persoally, I
wouldn't try it -- I have only 30 years experience at this kind of thing :)

Microsoft has published "indications" of the Office 2008 time line on its
website: that information is more up-to-date than any that we have or had.
ou need to watch their website, which currently says "Scheduled to be
available in the second half of 2007". There's a question in my mind as to
whether that means "Calendar year" or "Fiscal Year" :)

Now let me address the thorny subject of "Haxies" (Third-party software that
interacts with software made by a different manufacturer.) First off: The
manufacturer of the original software can only control what IT does. So in
this case Microsoft's responsibility stops at the line between the software
it made, and everything else. Provided Word runs fine in its native state,
Microsoft has done a good job.

If some other company produces software to work with Microsoft Word, it's up
to them to ensure that their software does not crash Word

They are in control of it: they are the ones that can take action here. One
can crash any piece of software by hitting it hard enough in an unexpected
spot. Quality programmers ensure their application doesn't do that.

If Microsoft were to make a change to prevent, say, CopyPate from crashing
Word, chances are that may cause crashes in Excel or PowerPoint, or more
likely, in someone else's software. It's an endless circle of gotchas.
Large-scale software developers know never to dare venture down that path.

That said, if the creator of third-party software contacts Microsoft, they
will get all the assistance they need to adjust their software so that it
DOESN'T crash the Microsoft software. If the makers of those utilities were
to do so NOW, they would be able to test their utilities with the next
versions of Apple OS X and Microsoft Office. If they get on the job, by the
time the new products go on sale they will have removed any potential
problems their utilities cause.

But if we get a rash of complaints from users when Office 2008 appears,
showing that certain utilities cause crashes in the new version (and I am
sure we will) then the MVPs and all the other people who hang around here
will be here, helping users to overcome these problems. But Microsoft will
simply smile and say "Well, we tried! We invited you to engage us early so
you had time to remove the problems."

Behind the scenes, Microsoft is already testing well-known haxies with the
new versions of its software: particularly the more popular ones. If they
detect problems, they advise the vendors and provide help to overcome them.

If you have found problems with some applications, I encourage you to
encourage them to engage Microsoft about these no, while they have time to
fix them. The new versions of Microsoft Office will be Universal Binaries,
so they will have to make changes anyway to get their utilities to work at
all: it would be good if they grabed the opportunity to do it right this
time :)

Hope this helps

--

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs

+61 4 1209 1410, <mailto:[email protected]> mailto:[email protected]
 
T

Tony

John,

Thanks for the feedback.

The problem was that in this case I made the changes, sent the document
to a PC-Windows person and such person accepted such changes and sent
an apparently "corrupted" document back to me. So, I did not have much
control over it. I must say that we love the Track Changes feature of
Word. It is awesome. We only want it to work well and not misbehave
corrupting documents (if possible).

Concerning third party applications that crash Word, you are right, but
in this particular case of copy/paste applications, the issue arises
only with Word and has been around for many years now over many Mac
versions and Office versions. Both on Mac PowerPC and Mactel.
Surprisingly, not other application (and we use hundreds of them) has
ever had such a problem. To my knowledge, it has to do with the
somewhat nonstandard way of managing memory of Word. One evidence of it
is that somehow when you copy something in Word, such clipboard does
not ÒbelongÓ to the Mac but to Word. That is why if then Word crashes,
such copied contents do not show in the clipboard. I have been in touch
with the developers of such applications but they say that it depends
on Microsoft and that they will try to get Microsoft to fix it. Yet,
for years, as said, the issue has not been fixed.

Besides, as far a I know, CopyPaste and iClip are not haxies or
software that interacts directly and specifically with Word. They are
simply applications that have multiple copy/paste clipboards and you
can use them with any Mac application. As said, only Word crashes with
them. EndNote for example is a haxie as you indicate, and I am with you
on that, but not CopyPaste or iClip as far as I understand.

Last but not least, and a bit off-topic BUT RELATED TO THE ABOVE ISSUE,
there is a single feature that I would love to see in Word 2008: copy
and paste without style with a one-click menu for it, a one-click
button on toolbar for it and --most importantly-- a simple keyboard
command for it. For instance (as Eudora does):

Copy unformatted (plain) text: Shift Command C
Paste unformatted (plain) text: Shift Command V

We may use the latter hundreds of times each single day and it is
really tedious to go trough the "Edit/Paste Special/Unformatted
Text/OK" each time. Because the ÒPaste OptionsÓ contextual popup
clipboard icon to select "Keep Text Only" does not show many times when
you paste something in a Word document. That seems a flaw-bug of Word
to me, but that is what happens.

THAT IS RELATED TO THE ABOVE CRASH ISSUE WITH COPY/PASTE applications
because almost 100% of the times we want to paste plain text, and Word
never crashes if we paste plain text.

Any place to send such suggestions to Microsoft MBU? And most
importantly, any way to become an Office 2008 beta tester for Mac? I
would love to contribute bugs, flaws and many suggestions to improve it
on Mac. I am a ÒheavyÓ user of Office in general and Word in particular
on Mac.

Thanks again for your kind support,

-------------------
 
T

Tony

Thanks. I have tried to create a macro and keyboard shortcut (Command
V) to paste plain text, yet does not seem to work:

1. Select "Tools/Macro/Macros". Macro Name: PasteUnformatted

2. Create.

3. Paste into the "Normal - NewMacros (Code)" window:

Sub PasteUnformatted()
Selection.PasteSpecial Link:=False, DataType:=wdPasteText,
Placement:= _
wdInLine, DisplayAsIcon:=False
End Sub

4. Close the "Normal - NewMacros (Code)" window.

5. Select "Tools/Customize/Customize Keyboards".

6. Select Categories: Macros.

7. Select Macros: PasteUnformatted

8. Place cursor on "Press new shortcut key" and type:

Command V

9. Click "Assign". Click "OK".

Now, if I paste something into Word using:

Command V

it does paste it formatted and not unformatted as I expected.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks.

-----------------
 
T

Tony

Thanks. I have tried to create a macro and keyboard shortcut (Command
V) to paste plain text, yet does not seem to work:

1. Select "Tools/Macro/Macros". Macro Name: PastePlain

2. Create.

3. Paste into the "Normal - NewMacros (Code)" window:

Sub PastePlain()
'
' PastePlain Macro
'
Selection.PasteSpecial Link:=False, DataType:=wdPasteText, Placement:= _
wdInLine, DisplayAsIcon:=False
End Sub

4. Close the "Normal - NewMacros (Code)" window.

5. Select "Tools/Customize/Customize Keyboards".

6. Select Categories: Macros.

7. Select Macros: PastePlain

8. Place cursor on "Press new shortcut key" and type:

Command V

9. Click "Assign". Click "OK".

Now, if I paste something into Word using:

Command V

it does paste it formatted and not unformatted as I expected.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks.
 
D

Daiya Mitchell

General principle--test by running the macro from the Tools | Macros
menu, to isolate the problem to the macro itself or just the keyboard
shortcut.
 
D

Daiya Mitchell

Tony said:
Because the “Paste Options†contextual popup clipboard icon to select
"Keep Text Only" does not show many times when you paste something in
a Word document. That seems a flaw-bug of Word to me, but that is what
happens.

It doesn't show up when you paste from multiple-clipboard applications,
at least that's what my quick test finds, and repeated cmd-Vs of the
same text after that. Features like the Paste Options button are
probably dependent on Word maintaining its own clipboard. As you pointed
out, there seems to be a conflict between Word and the
multiple-clipboard utilities.
Any place to send such suggestions to Microsoft MBU?
Use Help | Send Feedback in any Office application to send feature
requests. If sending bug reports, please be sure to include very
specific details to reproduce the bug.

It's also good to post things here--we can help with workarounds,
perhaps help figure out the conditions to reproduce, etc, MVPs can pass
along verified information.

By the way, I don't believe the conflict with Copy/Paste or iClip had
ever been reported here--I use the Butler clipboard without seeing
increased crashes, as far as I know. I'll start tracking it.

Daiya
 
T

Tony

Thanks. Finally I could make it to work with

Command V

Here is the script:

Sub PasteUnformattedText()
'
' PasteUnformattedText Macro
' Macro created 6/4/07 by G .
'
Selection.PasteSpecial datatype:=wdPasteText
End Sub



Works great!!! Thanks!!!
 
T

Tony

You mean from the "Tools/Macros/Run?

Just to know, since as indicated above I could make the macro OK with
your help.

Thanks.
 
C

Clive Huggan

On 7/4/07 1:41 AM, in article (e-mail address removed), "Daiya

By the way, I don't believe the conflict with Copy/Paste or iClip had
ever been reported here--I use the Butler clipboard without seeing
increased crashes, as far as I know. I'll start tracking it.

Daiya

I mentioned the iClip problems on 22 Sep 05, 28 Oct 06 and 18 Jan 07. ;-)

Clive
======
 
J

John McGhie

Hi Tony:

----- Original Message -----
an apparently "corrupted" document back to me. So, I did not have much
control over it.

Yeah, we're hoping for a resolution to that one in the next version. Try
this:
1) When you get the document back...

2) Turn OFF track Changes

3) "Accept All changes in document"

4) Save and close

The idea here is that immediately you open the document on Mac Word, it will
make some internal changes to the file, some of which are considered
"changes" and some are not. But there is a dependency between them.

You can turn Track Changes back on when you reopen.

No guarantees, but it may help. :)
Concerning third party applications that crash Word, you are right, but in
this particular case of copy/paste applications, the issue arises only
with Word and has been around for many years now over many Mac versions
and Office versions. Both on Mac PowerPC and Mactel.

So we could assume from that that there is "zero" chance that they will
change it :)

To my knowledge, it has to do with the somewhat nonstandard way of
managing memory of Word. One evidence of it is that somehow when you copy
something in Word, such clipboard does not ÒbelongÓ to the Mac but to
Word.

I don't think it's memory management. Microsoft Office leaves it to the OS
to manage memory. However, it does have an internal "Microsoft Office
Clipboard" that brings the ability to copy multiple items then paste
multiple items. That structure is in memory and would be cleaned up if the
"owning" Microsoft Office application dies.
I have been in touch with the developers of such applications but they say
that it depends on Microsoft and that they will try to get Microsoft to
fix it. Yet, for years, as said, the issue has not been fixed.

What they are saying is that their application intervenes between the system
and the clipboard. What Microsoft would say is that so does theirs. I
suspect there's right on both sides. I also suspect there's no chance that
MS will change theirs: they would say that they did not create the problem
:)
Last but not least, and a bit off-topic BUT RELATED TO THE ABOVE ISSUE,
there is a single feature that I would love to see in Word 2008: copy and
paste without style with a one-click menu for it, a one-click button on
toolbar for it and --most importantly-- a simple keyboard command for it.
For instance (as Eudora does):

As others have indicated, you can make your own, and you have. In Word
2007, there's a high level of customisation available for the default
actions that Word takes when copying and pasting, including "Plain Text".
You can configure the default for various kinds of Copy source. There's no
reason to suspect that we won't get the same mechanism in Word 2008.
Any place to send such suggestions to Microsoft MBU?

Yes. Have a look on the Help Menu of Microsoft Word. The Send Feedback
option takes you to a web page that feeds into the Mac BU.
And most importantly, any way to become an Office 2008 beta tester for
Mac? I would love to contribute bugs, flaws and many suggestions to
improve it on Mac. I am a ÒheavyÓ user of Office in general and Word in
particular on Mac.

Contact your Microsoft Sales Representative, or hang around here and answer
lots of user's questions. Large customers have a dedicated Microsoft
account representative: they can forward your name for consideration for the
beta program. If you are NOT a Volume Licence customer (or whatever they
call it...) then the only way to join the beta program is to be invited in
after a couple of years of hard work in here :)

If you were to get into the beta program, you would find that it is far too
late in the development cycle to have the influence you are looking for. By
the time a product leaves "Alpha Test" for "Beta Test" the design is fixed,
the feature list is cast in stone, and the way it works is tightly
specified. There will be no substantial changes from that point.

The only feedback that has much chance of being acted on in a beta program
is feedback that indicates that a particular feature is not working the way
they designed it to. You want to be in the "Requirements Definition" phase,
which occurs about three years before the product goes on sale, and well
before coding starts.

The best way to have influence there is to send feedback off the Help menu
in the current application. When you are sending such feedback:

1) First search the help and ask in here to make sure the feature or
something very similar is not already in the product. Microsoft is a little
frustrated to discover that a very high percentage of the "Feature Requests"
they get are for things that are already in the product, or which can
already be accomplished by a different feature.

2) Accurately and concisely describe what you want the product to do, and
the user scenarious under which you would use that. Don't tell them how to
code it, tell them what you want to be able to do: leave it to the
Application Architect to figure out the most efficient way to implement the
ability. That's a critical point: if we try to tell them how we want them
to code it, we have a high possibility of getting something we can't use or
which doesn't work "right". Tell them what you want to be able to DO.

3) Tell them what percentage of users would use the facility, and in which
scenarios. Tell them how you calculated this figure. I know!! I know!!
It's a lot of work to derive this -- but trust me, without this
substantiation, your suggestion is headed straight for the bit-bucket. Your
average analyst at Microsoft may have "one week" to consider perhaps as many
as 1,500 such suggestions for the product. A little under two minutes
each... They do not have time to get back to you seeking clarification.
Damn, I hate reality :)

4) Provide a description of who you are and what you do, and an accurate
un-mangled "Reply To" Address.

If you put in three or four of these, and you make sense with each one, it's
not inconceivable that you may find yourself invited onto the beta program.
It has happened to others :)

Hope this helps

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs

+61 4 1209 1410, <mailto:[email protected]> mailto:[email protected]
 

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