Can't find info about 11-10-09 Word update

[Jeffrey L. Hook]

Can anyone provide a link to a Microsoft page or to another credible source
of information about the November 10, 2009 Word 2007 update which is offered
by the Windows Update site now? The WUD site provides this (typical) skimpy
information:

++++

Update for Microsoft Office Word 2007 (KB974561)
Date last published: 11/10/2009
Download size: 8.8 MB
Microsoft has released an update for Microsoft Office Word 2007.
This update provides the latest fixes to Microsoft Office Word 2007.
Additionally, this update contains stability and performance improvements.

++++

I expect to be offered endless security patches from the WUD site but the
comment about "stability and performance improvements" interested me and I
wanted to obtain "more information." Foolishly, I exploited the "More
information" text link which was offered at the WUD site. It only led to a
"Knowledge Base" page:

++++

Article ID: 974561 - Last Review: November 10, 2009 - Revision: 1.0
Description of the update for Office Word 2007:
November 2009

++++

at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974561


which was labeled as a "Description" of the update but which said
**NOTHING** about the "stability and performance improvements." It only
talked about how to obtain the update.

I'd like to know what "stability and performance improvements" were made by
this update.

Thanks,

Jeff Hook, NJ, USA



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[Jeffrey L. Hook]

Have I posted this inquiry to the wrong news group? I looked for a
"general" Word 2007 group but I couldn't find one. My ISP (Verizon Online)
doesn't seem to "support" groups other than those in the "Big 8 hierarchies"
and in their own Verizon hierarchy. I'm trying to do this "locally," in
Outlook Express, which is my "E-mail client/News Reader," and I'm trying to
use Microsoft's own groups on its own news servers, msnews.microsoft.com and
news.microsoft.com but maybe this medium has been so ovewhelmed by Spam that
it's nearly been killed off.

If this isn't the right group can anyone point me to a more appropriate
group on a microsoft mail server or can anyone suggest an on-line forum
which might be more appropriate for this topic?

Thanks.

Jeff Hook, NJ, USA



Can anyone provide a link to a Microsoft page or to another credible source
of information about the November 10, 2009 Word 2007 update which is offered
by the Windows Update site now? The WUD site provides this (typical) skimpy
information: (snipped)





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[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The newsgroup that has been designated for "General Questions" in the
Microsoft Web portal is microsoft.public.word.docmanagement.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Jeffrey L. Hook]

Thanks, Suzanne.

Thanks also for the **SUPERB** help which you've provided about the use of
Microsoft Word! I've seen your extensive contributions to the "Doc
Management" group.

Jeff Hook, NJ, USA


The newsgroup that has been designated for "General Questions" in the
Microsoft Web portal is microsoft.public.word.docmanagement.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org





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[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You're welcome, and thanks. FWIW, you're probably not likely to find any
more information than that offered by the KB article. Do you have some
reason (other than normal caution) for being reluctant to apply this update?

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Jeffrey L. Hook]

I wasn't reluctant to apply the update; I applied it readily. I'm an
enthusiastic user of Word 2007. I sympathize with users who've used the
application for many more years than I have, who have far more skills than I
have, and who were frustrated by the changes which were introduced when
Microsoft switched to the "Ribbon" interface, but I'm a new Word user and I
think the "Ribbon" is excellent. I even appreciate the aesthetics of the
interface! (I've been a PC user for ten years but I was so baffled by
"Styles" when I first encountered Word 97 that I backed away from the
application, I relied on Works' "so-called word processor," and I
"infantilized" myself for years by continuing to use Works, despite vexing
problems, long after I'd gained enough skill to be able to use Word.)

I'm glad that I switched at last to Word but I have some complaints, and I
therefore hoped the reported "stability and performance improvements" might
have eliminated some problems.

Are you "game" for one of them? I'll add some remarks below my signature!

I greatly appreciate the help which you've provided for Word users, Suzanne.

Jeff Hook, NJ, USA (add'l *optional* remarks below)

I suspect you're familiar with this problem, which I refer to as the "Can't
Save" bug. I thought at first that it might be a quirk of my system but my
initial on-line research suggested it's a known bug which may not affect
enough users for Microsoft to think it's worth eliminating. This helps to
explain my interest in a report that a given Word update had included
"stability and performance improvements":

Word often throws up the "Save As" dialog when I attempt to "Save" my work
by left-clicking the "Save" button on the Quick Access Toolbar or by hitting
Ctrl+S on the keyboard. I've been adding <-1> file name suffixes in the
Save As dialog in order to save my "Can't Save" files quickly, by using
"different names." Using that same response whenever this problem occurs
also allows me to recognize the "problem" files when I encounter them in the
future. It's impossible to delete the original files immediately after a
"new file" with a "different name" has been saved in the "Save As" dialog.
I'm told the original file's in use, etc. The "problem" files can't be
deleted until all Word 2007 files have been closed, apparently because
Word's complex archives of "unseen" XML files seem to be connected to each
other or to common file templates or whatever in some mysterious way. If I
have many files open simultaneously I won't try to delete the "problem"
files due to the inconvenience of closing and reopening so many files.

Leaving two copies of some files creates the danger that, when I come upon a
pair of files in the future, one with a <-1> file name suffix and one
without, I may assume that all of the content of the older file is in the
newer file and I may delete the older file then, as redundant, without
taking the time to compare the content of the two files. If I've added
content at some point to the older file rather to the newer file I'd lose
that content by deleting the older file.

JLH

You're welcome, and thanks. FWIW, you're probably not likely to find any
more information than that offered by the KB article. Do you have some
reason (other than normal caution) for being reluctant to apply this update?

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org




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[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Okay, I don't blame you for being slightly disgruntled about this. I have
seen quite a few questions about problems of this sort and have passed them
over because I haven't the faintest idea what might be causing them.
Apparently no one else knows, either, much less how to fix them, and I agree
that this is unsatisfactory. I can't help wondering, however, if the issues
might be caused by some (incompatible) add-in or other.

The most common cause of getting a Save As dialog when you're expecting Save
is that you have inadvertently created a new file based on a template
instead of opening the template as you thought, but that is unlikely to be
the case when you are working on an existing document. I believe that even
if a template has a .doc or .docx suffix, Word will recognize it as a
template if it is one, but again, this problem would be obvious to you
because your title bar would save Document# instead of the name of the file
you think you're working on. So I really have no idea what could be causing
this problem, which I've (thank goodness) never experienced.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Jeffrey L. Hook]

You're a good sport for staying with this, Suzanne! THANKS! I'm encouraged
merely to have brought this particular problem to the attention of someone
who I respect so highly. I value your "sympathy"! I realize that some
problems puzzle everyone and that these problems aren't easily eliminated.
Your interest in Word is a matter of record so I'm pleased that I've been
able to explain this problem to you to my own satisfaction. I'm confident
that you fully understand what I've described. Other users may benefit at
some point from your having "filed away" this additional increment of
information about this anomaly. Somebody may eventually be able to
interpret the "clues" from multiple problem reports.

I'm not trying to "lure" you to spend more time on my problems than might be
appropriate so I'll provide additional details below my signature. This
additional text is fully optional and it may or may not interest you.

Thanks again, Suzanne!

Jeff Hook (**Fully optional** drivel is provided below, "FYI"! )

1. Details about the background of my "Can't Save" problem which **MAY**
interest you:

I appreciate your reference to file templates. I still know little about
Word 2007 templates even though I began to use this application during the
middle of this past January. I probably shouldn't have done this but I
attempted to "cheat" when I first used Word 2007. I tried to blunder along
in the GUI by guessing about how to use the word processor without first
doing the hard work of studying the software systematically. (The second
optional topic, below, may explain why the average Word 2007 user may back
off when he or she attempts to use the application's Help feature. This may
lead many users to try to bumble along in the GUI as an alternative to
knuckling down and spending hours upon hours rummaging through an
often-annoying "bone pile" of irrelevant Help texts, even though I think
much of the Help content is absolutely excellent.)

I abandoned my initial guesswork approach quickly, and I tried to educate
myself. I now have 37 topical folders at the root of my Word 2007
directory, with a total of 199 folders throughout the directory and with
*many* more files of various types than I'd even want to admit! For each
topic I have Research files, Study files, Problem files, etc. plus folders
of screen shots which I annotate carefully in an image processor by pasting
in textual comments and by drawing in highlights.

I may have done some damage by unwittingly creating file templates before I
began to study the application and those first templates may continue to
"haunt" me now. I create all of my new files by copying "sample" files
which I've formatted minimally. Almost all of my files begin with
"prefaces" in which I enter the date, day, and time of day of the creation
of the file, in which I explain the type and purpose of the file, in which I
paste log-on data for on-line accounts, in which I identify cross-reference
files, etc. All of my files also include formatted "titles" or "headlines"
below their prefaces, indicating their file type, their "chapter number,"
and their names. I maintain a "Templates" sub-directory in my data
directory and I use it as a type of "pattern book." When I create a new
"Journal," for example, I simply copy the sample "Journal" file in my
"Templates" directory, and I paste the copy of the file to the desired
folder in Windows Explorer (in XP-SP3).

I first used TweakUI to insert my own single "template" file into the
Windows Explorer File\New menu in Windows 98se, for Works 6.0, as a "work
around" of Works 6.0's limited file-creation capability. It created one
copy of its single "template" file, always in the same folder. I "live" in
the "Windows Classic View" of Windows Explorer and I was frustrated to be
required by Works 6.0 to "navigate" from Works' single "new file destination
folder" in order to save each new file to its desired destination on the end
of a branch in my "data tree," where I'd been working when I'd created the
file. Works 4.5a had created new copies of the template file via Windows
Explorer's File\New menu in the desired folders in which I was working, but
Works 6.0 lost that capability.

I may have "tainted" Works 7.0 by using the Windows 98se version of TweakUI
in a new Windows XP OEM system in which Works 7.0 was bundled. (I may even
have installed my Works 6.0 "template" in the File\New menu in Windows XP
and Works 7.0!) That was bad enough, but I'd been losing the contents of
Works' custom dictionary constantly in Works 6.0 and I'd been restoring the
file from a back-up TXT file which I updated frequently. I also installed
the Windows 98se/Works 6.0 dictionary back-up file when I first began to use
Works 7.0 in Windows XP. I worried that these two blunders may have
"tainted" Works 7.0's word processor. I reformatted my drive in 10-05 and
that may have purged any "taint" other than whatever remained in my files,
which I'd backed up to an external hard drive, and which I later pasted to
the reformatted drive. I never reinstalled any version of TweakUI at that
point. I'd already moved far beyond my single template file, and I began to
use my large "pattern book" of different file types, creating all of my new
files as "straight copies" of my own "sample" files. (By "straight copy" I
mean "Edit/Copy" and "Edit/Paste," in the file's context menus, or via the
keyboard, or in Windows Explorer's Edit menu, or by use of its Copy and
Paste buttons on its icon bar, etc.) I've created my own new "sample files"
in Word 2007. I haven't used converted copies of my Works 7.0 files.

Graham Mayor created a WPS-to-DOCX file-conversion macro in the Document
Management group this past spring. I used his macro to convert > 23K Works
word processing files to Word 2007. I believe Graham's macro was fully
effective and I'm not suggesting in any way that it contributed to my Word
2007 problem but I wonder if any "ghost in the machine" type "taint" which I
*may* have created in any of the old Works files could have been propagated
to Word 2007 and I wonder if such a "taint" might be relevant to my current
Word 2007 "Can't Save" problem...

2. "Venting" about Word 2007 Help:

I may not be using this feature correctly. I remember what I think of as
"true contextual Help" from Office 97: Each on-screen window or dialog had
a "question mark icon button" at the right end of its top "frame" or title
bar. Left-clicking that button would transform the mouse cursor to a
question mark, and left-clicking that question mark cursor on an element in
an on-screen display would either produce a tool tip type of Help text or an
explanation that no such text was available for that particular item. Those
texts were all "local," in that they were all displayed from the
application's own text files or databases or whatever, on the user's drive.
The texts were brief, but they were targeted precisely, which is why I think
of them as "truly contextual."

Word 2007 uses the same "question mark icon button" in its on-screen
displays but the application's default response to the left-clicking of this
button is to connect the user to a Help Web page which may or may not be
relevant to the item about which the user wished to obtain guidance. I
realize that the application can be set only to display "local" Help content
rather than to include "remote" content from Microsoft's site, but I prefer
to have access to the larger set of information. I think much of the Help
content is of **extremely** high quality and much of it has helped me
greatly. I appreciate the obvious care which has been taken in the creation
of much of this content. However, I'm often annoyed to find that I've been
"dumped" at an irrelevant Web page during this process. It's as if Word
delivered me to the door of a library and said, "Here you are! Spend the
rest of your day browsing around here, looking for the information you need!
It's in here somewhere! Good luck!"

I appreciate that I can search for Help in the interface which appears
"within" Word's GUI, on my screen, but I like to create browser short cuts
("favorite icons") which I can save to folders throughout my directory. I
also like to paste URLs to my files when I'm recording my research, and I
don't see any way of extracting addresses from this interface other than by
using the "Copy short cut" option in the context menus of the hyperlinks
which are displayed on these pages. I can then paste those URLs to my files
or I can actually go through a somewhat time-consuming process of creating
browser short cuts for them by pasting them into TXT files which I can then
change to URL files, etc. I don't see any way of saving the URLs of entire
search-response sets, as I can save Google response sets. I'd prefer to be
able to save the "addresses" of such sets so I can refer to them in the
future but I don't see how this can be done. (I realize this may be "picky"
because I can always simply repeat the searches "anew" in the future, but it
would save a few steps to be able to regain access to search response sets
in the future with single mouse clicks.)

I tried to get around this limitation by finding the URL of the remote Help
directory, in the hope that I'd be shown the addresses of all Help texts in
the Address Bar of my browser (IE8) but the on-line directory doesn't seem
to offer the same searching interface which is offered by the display which
is offered to me "within" Word 2007! Wow!

JLH

Okay, I don't blame you for being slightly disgruntled about this. I have
seen quite a few questions about problems of this sort and have passed them
over because I haven't the faintest idea what might be causing them.
Apparently no one else knows, either, much less how to fix them, and I agree
that this is unsatisfactory. I can't help wondering, however, if the issues
might be caused by some (incompatible) add-in or other.

The most common cause of getting a Save As dialog when you're expecting Save
is that you have inadvertently created a new file based on a template
instead of opening the template as you thought, but that is unlikely to be
the case when you are working on an existing document. I believe that even
if a template has a .doc or .docx suffix, Word will recognize it as a
template if it is one, but again, this problem would be obvious to you
because your title bar would save Document# instead of the name of the file
you think you're working on. So I really have no idea what could be causing
this problem, which I've (thank goodness) never experienced.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org



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[Jeffrey L. Hook]

Suzanne:

I should explain that I don't know much about "template files" in Word 2007
but I do understand the difference between "an actual template" file and
what I've called a "sample" file. I've used "sample" to distinguish one
type of file from the other. The Works files which I formatted as I wished
and which I then "installed" in Windows Explorer's File\New menu were "true
templates": the application created all of its new files as copies of those
template files. I began to use "sample" files before I switched from Works
to Word 2007 and all of my new Word 2007 files are now mere copies of my own
"sample files," which I create in Windows Explorer, but the original
"ancestors" of the "sample files" in my Word 2007 new-file "family tree"
were created "anew" in Word 2007 from the application's own templates.

I must have created my first Word 2007 file by using Word's default template
in the application's "new file" process. Once I'd created that first Word
2007 file I then modified its formatting to produce various "sample" files
and I copied them through successive "generations." I soon attempted to
create my own template files, without knowing what I was doing, and various
half-baked templates may have been created, each "spawning" its own
"lineage" of "sample" file copies, etc. !

(Conditions rapidly become *somewhat* complicated... ! )

Jeff Hook, NJ, USA




You're a good sport for staying with this, Suzanne! THANKS! I'm encouraged
merely to have brought this particular problem to the attention of someone
who I respect so highly. (snipped)



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[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Reading this in tandem with your follow-up about templates:

1. It's clear you do understand the difference between a true template
(.dot, .dotx, or .dotm) and a "sample" document. In that regard, you're
already far ahead of most users (and if you use styles correctly, you're
even farther ahead of the pack). Without trying to follow in detail or
completely understand the process by which you've transferred your Works
templates to Word, it sounds as if you've probably done it in a reasonable
way. I like the way you've added descriptive material to your templates and
samples to remind yourself what they're for. I ought to add more notes to
myself this way. That said, it does seem possible that the Works ancestry in
the templates might have something to do with the problem. Do you ever
experience the "can't save" problem in documents based on templates created
new in Word 2007? Rereading your description, I'm not clear whether you've
actually created any templates in Word 2007 or are still using just sample
documents. This could be an important detail.

2. I think pretty much everyone agrees that Word 2007's Help sucks badly,
especially the offline Help. I do know that the UA (User Assistance) team
really sincerely wants to remedy this, and that's one reason so much online
assistance is provided (and I think, through updates, some of it is even
added to the offline Help files). I don't think there's anyone who doesn't
wish we could get contextual Help back, but it appears that's probably not
going to happen. The real problem, though, is not so much the quality of the
Help available as the search engine and the way results are prioritized. I
haven't even tried to use Help much (Google seems more helpful most of the
time), but when I do try to find basic help on basic features (the sort of
thing Word 2003 Help actually does pretty well), it seems like the first
search result provided is inevitably an online video tutorial, when all I
want is something that will tell me what keyboard shortcut to use to open
the Mark Table of Contents Entry dialog (or similar).

One of the things Help has done that is both gratifying and frustrating is
to leverage existing third-party content. This can be disastrous. An
example: Years ago I wrote an article for word.mvps.org about how to create
an exclusion dictionary. When I started trying to revise all my
word.mvps.org articles to cover Word 2007, I found that the procedure
regarding exclusion dictionaries had radically changed in Word 2007.
Fortunately, however, there was an article at Microsoft's Web site that
explained exactly what to do. Whew! Instead of having to figure this out for
myself and write it up, I could just include a link to that article, so I
did. That was Act I.

In Act II, I became aware that Word 2007 Help, if you searched it for
information on exclusion dictionaries, was linking to my article. And my
article was linking to the Microsoft article. So far, so good (albeit a
little indirect).

In Act III, I looked at the Microsoft article again and realized that all
the detailed content had been removed, and the article was now just linking
to my article, which was linking back to that article...

As soon as I realized what was going on, I managed (through use of the
Wayback Machine) to locate a copy of the original Microsoft article that
included the instructions and added that content to my own article.
Meanwhile, however, there had been an explosion in our Webmaster's apartment
building, and he was unable to get in and get his computer and was therefore
having difficulty updating the Web site, and so it was quite some time
before my updated article went live. And all this time, anyone who wanted
information on exclusion dictionaries in Word 2007 was being sent to an
article that had nothing in it about Word 2007!

I made the UA team aware of this, but nothing was done. Rather horrifying,
and it does make me wonder how many other instances of such nonsense there
are. It doesn't help that MS is constantly moving Web pages and breaking
links in everyone else's pages, so if they're linking to our pages, and
we're linking to their pages that are no longer where we think they are...

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Jeffrey L. Hook]

Suzanne:

You showed good faith by staying with this thread even when I added a lot of
detail about the history of my use of templates and "sample" files. I don't
want to be greedy or to try anyone's patience, so I'll give you the option
of signing off if you wish at any point.

I added information about templates and sample files because I honestly
thought Word 2007's templates might be involved in the "Can't Save" problem.
I thought it was my "duty" to try to report as much information as I could
because I thought a clue to the "Can't Save" problem might be "lurking" in
those details. I now doubt that templates are involved in the problem so I
apologize for loading this thread with "verbiage" which now seems
irrelevant. My intentions were good but the template topic may have been a
"red herring"!

I thought I'd be able to clarify the template file topic in additional
optional content below my signature, but I failed, as I explain below.

I'm amused that you responded to my complaints about Word 2007's Help
directory by "venting" even more vehemently than I did! Your complaints are
more important than mine, because you have so much more standing with
Microsoft. I do think that much of the Help content is excellent so I'm not
complaining about its quality. I think much of the content has been created
with care. I think those efforts paid off because the content is extremely
effective. Much of it has helped me greatly.

I only regret that the Help content seems to be organized so poorly. Your
comments about broken links and other irregularities seem to confirm my
observations. I agree with your comment that:

++++

....The real problem, though, is not so much the quality of the Help
available as the search engine and the way results are prioritized. I
haven't even tried to use Help much (Google seems more helpful most of the
time)...

++++

This may be a chronic weakness of Microsoft. I remember reading years ago
that Bill Gates was suspected of using Google to search Microsoft's own
Knowledge Base. I find that my searches of the Help content from within
Word 2007 often seem to cite content which is irrelevant to my search terms.

I'm also surprised that the on-line content *seems* to lack a "search
interface." (I see the on-line content in my browser, IE8, at
http://office.microsoft.com/client/helphome.aspx?ns=WINWORD&lcid=1033 .) Am
I missing something or is it simply not possible to search the Web content?
If the on-line Help directory can't be searched by use of keywords, etc.
then using the Web-based Help pages might almost literally be like "looking
for a needle in a haystack." It might be a process of following entire
paths of text links from one page to another, only to conclude, "No, it
wasn't there, let's go back to the main page and head down another path."
Wow!

I'm equally surprised that the "local" display of the content seems to lack
any Address Bar. (I'm talking about the Help display which I see when I use
the "Help button" "in" Word 2007, rather than the display of the same
content which I see in my Web browser.) Am I right about that? If this
"local" display mode included an Address Bar the location of each "page" of
content could be shown in the bar. Full file paths on the user's own drive
could be displayed for "local" content as they're shown in Windows
Explorer's own Address Bar and URLs could be displayed for "remote" or Web
content as they're shown in a browser's Address Bar. This would facilitate
returning to that content in the future.

Thanks again for your interest and for your tolerance of my "prolixity"!

Optional additional content is below my quotation of your last message.

Jeff Hook, NJ, USA

Reading this in tandem with your follow-up about templates:

1. It's clear you do understand the difference between a true template
(.dot, .dotx, or .dotm) and a "sample" document. (snipped)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I said this in the sixth message in this thread, yesterday:

++++

....It's impossible to delete the original files immediately after a "new
file" with a "different name" has been saved in the "Save As" dialog. I'm
told the original file's in use, etc. The "problem" files can't be deleted
until all Word 2007 files have been closed, apparently because Word's
complex archives of "unseen" XML files seem to be connected to each other or
to common file templates or whatever in some mysterious way. If I have many
files open simultaneously I won't try to delete the "problem" files due to
the inconvenience of closing and reopening so many files...

++++

I learned that the DOCX files which users see in Windows Explorer are really
compressed archives of many XML files. That suggested that Word 2007 was
much more complex than it seemed to be on its surface. I'd seen how
multiple files which had been created from the same template all shared
common formatting, and those two observations suggested that the "Can't
Save" problem could result from some complex interaction among multiple
files. The "Can't Save" error messages clearly showed that files were
connected to each other. Ditto the messages which explained that I couldn't
delete the files which I'd been unable to save because those files were
still "in use" somehow. I'd observed that I could only delete those problem
files when all other Word 2007 files were closed, and that suggested that
one or more of the Word files which had been open had been "connected" to
the problem files somehow.

I felt "guilty" about not having studied Word 2007's use of templates
thoroughly. I explained in the eighth message in this thread how I thought
I might have contributed to the "Can't Save" problem by using templates
incorrectly:

++++

....I may have done some damage by unwittingly creating file templates before
I began to study the application and those first templates may continue to
"haunt" me now...

++++

I now doubt that my use of templates is involved in the "Can't Save" problem
but I introduced the topic and I think I should try to explain why it
doesn't seem to be relevant.

Suzanne, I'll add reference numbers to this text from your last message, to
facilitate a quick response:

++++

....it does seem possible that the Works ancestry in the templates might have
something to do with the problem. Do you ever experience the "can't save"
problem in documents based on templates created new in Word 2007? (1)
Rereading your description, I'm not clear whether you've actually created
any templates in Word 2007 or are still using just sample documents. (2)
This could be an important detail...

++++

(1) Yes, the "Can't Save" problem afflicts files which were based on my
most recent Word 2007 templates.

(2) Yes, I have created a few very simple Word 2007 "true templates."

I'm forced to signal defeat! The "Can't Save" problem has bested me! I now
think I simply don't know enough about Word 2007's use of file templates to
be able to comment usefully. I tried to get off to a good start with Word
2007 when I installed the Home and Student Version of Office 2007 on
1-14-09. I may find that my contemporaneous records are pretty good, but
they've hopelessly confused me so far. I must go back and study them
carefully in order to make sense out of them. Until I've done that, I'll
need to run up the white flag before I "lose it" entirely!

Thanks again for your help, Suzanne!

JLH



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[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

To answer your question about the "address" of Word's online content. You
can find this by right-clicking in any topic and choosing Properties. In
Word 2003, what you get is the local file path of offline content and an URL
for online content, but Word 2007 seems to offer an URL even for offline
content (more helpful in some ways, such as when I want to cite a Help topic
for someone else, but less useful if you're trying to find it on your own
computer). You won't be able to see the entire path (the display is limited
to two lines), but you can select it with the mouse by swiping until you get
it all (the display will scroll).

Once you get online, there is a search capability, but it is less confined
than Help's since it ranges over all of Microsoft's vast backlot, and it
seems to be very difficult to focus it. This is a longstanding complaint
about searching the KB: not only has it become increasingly difficult to
confine search to the KB itself (which is much more loosely defined now than
it once once), it seems to be impossible to confine the search to a specific
application or version: searches for help on Word 2007 inexplicably bring up
links to articles about Outlook 2003 or Excel 2002 or whatever.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org