Collaboration with PC users of various wordversions...help needed.

[herojig]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel I am beginning a big project where I will be collaborating on a word file between my machines: OSX SL with Word 2008, and various PCs with differing versions of Word installed.

My normal.dotm is the same on all my mac machines, but have no idea about the PCs that I will be working with.

Is there any problems that may arise there? I want the users of PCs to see exactly what I see. What do I need to do to make this so. Thx!!!

 

[John McGhie]

You need to install Parallels, a copy of Windows 7, and a copy of Word 2007.

Nothing else is worth the risk for a "big" collaborative project.

The Normal.dotm template is Word's "per user" scratch-pad. It picks up
frequent, random changes. You must always ensure that Normal.dotm is in an
"unknown" state on any workstation. Because it always will be.

You need to create a "ProjectTemplate.dotx" template especially for this
project. Get all of the styles exactly the way you want them. Put this
template on the network at a location visible to all.

Then create your project deliverables from that template and distribute them
to all your contributors. Make SURE you produce a picture-book style guide
showing which styles to use where, distribute it, and insist on sending
documents back for correction if that's not what they do.

If you are in some doubt about this, for heaven's sake hire yourself a
Technical Writer, NOW, to set this project up for you. Don't be tempted to
wait to see if you really need one: you do, and there's a limited amount we
can do to rescue you once the crisis has already hit

Taking a large, complex project cross-platform is a recipe for pain and
misery; but you won't get your real disaster until the week you are due to
ship. Then you'll lose the lot

And Mac Word 2008 does not have the power, features, or performance that you
need for a "big" project. Word 2004 will do the job, but then unless you
insist on staying in .doc format, you will get constant corruption caused by
the frequent file format conversions and the imperfect conversion in and out
of .docx into Word 2004. If you DO insist on .doc format, you will have
constant graphics hassles.

Word 2010 for Mac (or whatever they call it) is the one we are all waiting
for to take on these big, hairy projects That will be the one designed
to tame these brutes!

I have just completed working on such a project today. The last message
from the Project Director said she was going to go into Final Sign-Off
Review with half the documents not having been proof-edited. I feel deeply
sorry for her: I know what happens next. Chances are, that's five million
bucks down the hole, and it will be career-terminal for her.

Don't do it to yourself

Cheers

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel
I am beginning a big project where I will be collaborating on a word file
between my machines: OSX SL with Word 2008, and various PCs with differing
versions of Word installed.

My normal.dotm is the same on all my mac machines, but have no idea about the
PCs that I will be working with.

Is there any problems that may arise there? I want the users of PCs to see
exactly what I see. What do I need to do to make this so. Thx!!!

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Jeff Chapman]

Hello,

I would second the sentiment of what John said.
If you are working with other users who are on PCs
and who are using various versions of Word for Windows,
and it is critical for them to "see exactly what you see",
then you should set up a Windows/MS Office environment on
your Mac, pronto.

There are still many variables associated with working with
users of different versions of Word, even on Windows.
However, doing so will eliminate at least one of the
larger variables, which is the issue of OS platform.

Think of Word 2008 for Mac as essentially a different
but related flavor of Word, that just happens to read and write
..doc and .docx files with a fair degree of proficiency.
It is really a different animal in many areas.

Even with Word 2010 for Mac/Windows, I imagine that Word
on the Mac side will continue this tradition. There are
just too many features in Word for Mac that appeal to
Mac users in particular, but which cannot be duplicated in
Windows... and vice-versa.

Jeff

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Jeff:

Even with Word 2010 for Mac/Windows, I imagine that Word
on the Mac side will continue this tradition. There are
just too many features in Word for Mac that appeal to
Mac users in particular, but which cannot be duplicated in
Windows... and vice-versa.

I THINK {Hope!} it will be better than that.

The design goal is "interoperability" this time around. And I think they
will go very, very close on that score.

Yes, there are multiple bits of useless eye-candy in Word 2007 that we will
be vigorously "encouraging" them to somehow throw on the floor on the way to
Mac Word.

Amazing, the "tough decisions" that might have to be made "because they have
run out of time, funds and development effort" ... {Chortle}.

If they come looking for a list of "things that would not be missed" I can
assure you we have it ready to go

Cheers


This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[herojig]

Wow guys, thx for that. But I own a professional writing / design company and have had good luck on small documents with other PC users. But they have used Word 2007 and we use Word 2008 which are compatible with caveats.

Good point about using VMWare, as we have that on all our macs, with Office 2007 installed in Windows 7. So now the question is will a document done in Office 2007 and saved in compatibility mode look the same on all other versions of PC word, ie. 2003, 2000, etc? In the past, I have not trusted, and just PDF'ed everything to others. But in this case, we must pass the document around for editing.

I am doing the final editing in house, so I guess there won't be a big problem (I can fix anything that breaks) but during the review process it would be nice to know that everyone is seeing the same thing, as precise formatting is important in this job.

thx again!
jigs

 

[Jeff Chapman]

Hi John,

I THINK {Hope!} it will be better than that.

The design goal is "interoperability" this time around. And I think they
will go very, very close on that score.

Yes, there are multiple bits of useless eye-candy in Word 2007 that we will
be vigorously "encouraging" them to somehow throw on the floor on the way to
Mac Word.

Amazing, the "tough decisions" that might have to be made "because they have
run out of time, funds and development effort" ... {Chortle}.

If they come looking for a list of "things that would not be missed" I can
assure you we have it ready to go

Hmph. For some reason, I have a hard time getting excited about
Office 2010. There just aren't really any features that I am
dying to have in Office that I haven't already found a solution
for elsewhere. Of course, having VBA will be well and good,
but not a deal-breaker personally for me. Office 2008 is already
chock-full of goodies, much of which I don't even use in my
day-to-day operations.

Essentially, I'd prefer to see more stability and compatibility
updates these days than new functionality.
Anything that the Mac BU can do to make the
application run more smoothly, quickly, and better with Word
for Windows files, I will welcome.
In other words, make it do what it already does, only better ;-D

But then again, that kind of dedication to rock-solid stability
doesn't attract many new customers, does it.

That having been said, I was thinking (daydreaming?)
that it would be nice to be able to publish directly to a
blog engine from Word.
(The Windows version has this feature.)
I haven't been really thrilled with the blog editors I've
tried so far for Mac, including Blogo and Adobe's Contribute.
Windows Live Writer just seems to offer a cleaner, more
efficient user experience when it comes to this.
But maybe there are some apps for the Mac that I've overlooked
in this department. Any recommendations?

Jeff

 

[Rob Schneider]

My two bits: I think the goal of having/expecting everything to "look
the same on all other versions of Word" may be a red herring? If
precise formatting is the most important part of this job, are you using
the right tool?

Isn't the point of the exercise to create "a" document that will be
replicated (on paper or electronically) and that replication (I guess
the professional world would be publishing) be the mechanism that causes
the documents to look the same?

Try to get everyone on the same version (at SP level) of Word, and use
the same version of printer driver. Agree the process for review and if
fomatting is the most important part--maybe just fax the paper copy
around? Or at least PDF? (Word is an authoring tool ... it is NOT a
great tool for displaying on the screen exactly what you see is what you
get).

Define by policy the format of the document (Word 2003 DOC?).

More importantly, get everyone using the right template with the same
style names. Use the styles. Focus the large majority of the team on
content, and leave the "how it looks" to an individual or small team.
If styles, people using styles, and a managed template -- things will be ok.

I'm more concerned about your "we must pass the document around for
editing". My experience is that this process is the root cause of many
problems which sometimes kills writing projects. Don't do it.

Get a team resource, e.g. SharePoint, or something, for which you can
check out/in the document. Put the template there. Break the document
in to chapters and put those chapters in that central store. Don't "pass
the document around for editing".


--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[John McGhie]

Wow guys, thx for that. But I own a professional writing / design company and
have had good luck on small documents with other PC users. But they have used
Word 2007 and we use Word 2008 which are compatible with caveats.

OK, you have now heard from three professionals who do documents in the
1,000-page and up range for a living. They all say "don't do it". So: "Do
ya feel lucky? Well, do ya??"

Good point about using VMWare, as we have that on all our macs, with Office
2007 installed in Windows 7. So now the question is will a document done in
Office 2007 and saved in compatibility mode look the same on all other
versions of PC word, ie. 2003, 2000, etc?

No! The purpose of Compatibility Mode is "to make it look like it was
written on something else". If you set the compatibility to Word 2000, it
would look OK on Word 2000 and not so great on anything else. If you set
the compatibility mode to a version later than Word 2000, on Word 2000
compatibility mode will not function in that document.

I am doing the final editing in house, so I guess there won't be a big problem
(I can fix anything that breaks)

Our point would be: "you will have to". Page by page. Paragraph by
paragraph. Few people understand the effort impact of having a large
document go wrong close to deadline. Until it happens to them.

but during the review process it would be
nice to know that everyone is seeing the same thing, as precise formatting is
important in this job.

My suggestion is that "everyone else" should get the words right, and YOU
should do the formatting. Just ignore their formatting, and encourage them
not to do any.

The damaged caused to a document if you enable ordinary users to play with
the formatting is truly frightening. They will mean well, but they will
utterly destroy your document, because normal business users simply don't
have the knowledge or techniques for professional formatting.

I normally send out a very simply template to the contributors, using only
about five of Word's built-in styles. That's all they can cope with. In
Word 2007 I lock down the formatting to just those styles.

When the words are correct, I then switch templates and reformat the entire
document using the publication style set.

Cheers

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Jeff:

Hmph. For some reason, I have a hard time getting excited about
Office 2010. There just aren't really any features that I am
dying to have in Office that I haven't already found a solution
for elsewhere.

Rock-solid stability is the one I am looking for. Word 2010 is even more
solid than Word 2007 (and I've only used the beta so far...)

Office 2008 is already
chock-full of goodies, much of which I don't even use in my
day-to-day operations.

My point would be that it's already chock-full of eye-candy, most of which
is useless to people who want to produce office documents, and all of which
take development and testing resources away from making a fast and stable
core product

Essentially, I'd prefer to see more stability and compatibility
updates these days than new functionality.

Yeah. Imagine being able to work a whole month on long and complex
documents without having Word EVER crash/hang/freeze/quit... That's what I
get with 2010. That's what I want with Mac Word 2010.

Anything that the Mac BU can do to make the
application run more smoothly, quickly, and better with Word
for Windows files, I will welcome.
In other words, make it do what it already does, only better ;-D

I understand that's exactly what they're doing.

But then again, that kind of dedication to rock-solid stability
doesn't attract many new customers, does it.

Apple would disagree with you. So would IBM. And Boeing

That having been said, I was thinking (daydreaming?)
that it would be nice to be able to publish directly to a
blog engine from Word.
(The Windows version has this feature.)

Whatever Windows gets, we should get, this time around.

But maybe there are some apps for the Mac that I've overlooked
in this department. Any recommendations?

Not from me: I rarely read blogs, let alone publish to them

Cheers

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Jim Gordon Mac MVP]

Hmph. For some reason, I have a hard time getting excited about
Office 2010. There just aren't really any features that I am
dying to have in Office that I haven't already found a solution
for elsewhere.

I think PowerPoint will be the driving force behind adoption of Office
2010. Support for .mov and Flash files plus a variety of sound files
will be very attractive to PowerPoint users. That, plus sounds and
movies are embedded instead of linked by default will be a huge
incentive to upgrade.

Others will like the ability to customize the hated ribbon. At least
windows users won't be forced to "home a new slide" instead of "insert a
new slide" any more. "Home" isn't even a verb!

-Jim

 

[herojig]

On 4/02/10 5:46 PM, in article (e-mail address removed)2ac0,

> "[email protected]" wrote:
>
>
> OK, you have now heard from three professionals who do documents in the
> 1,000-page and up range for a living. They all say "don't do it". So: "Do
> ya feel lucky? Well, do ya??"
>
>
> No! The purpose of Compatibility Mode is "to make it look like it was
> written on something else". If you set the compatibility to Word 2000, it
> would look OK on Word 2000 and not so great on anything else. If you set
> the compatibility mode to a version later than Word 2000, on Word 2000
> compatibility mode will not function in that document.
>
>
> Our point would be: "you will have to". Page by page. Paragraph by
> paragraph. Few people understand the effort impact of having a large
> document go wrong close to deadline. Until it happens to them.
>
>
> My suggestion is that "everyone else" should get the words right, and YOU
> should do the formatting. Just ignore their formatting, and encourage them
> not to do any.
>
> The damaged caused to a document if you enable ordinary users to play with
> the formatting is truly frightening. They will mean well, but they will
> utterly destroy your document, because normal business users simply don't
> have the knowledge or techniques for professional formatting.
>
> I normally send out a very simply template to the contributors, using only
> about five of Word's built-in styles. That's all they can cope with. In
> Word 2007 I lock down the formatting to just those styles.
>
> When the words are correct, I then switch templates and reformat the entire
> document using the publication style set.
>
> Cheers
>
> This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
> matters unless you intend to pay!
>
> --
>
> John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
> McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
> Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
> +61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
>
>
>

I guess I hear you saying to send out a locked down template, and there is no hope of reviewers actually reviewing formatting if they are not on same platform/version of word. Well, that rots, but I guess it's reality. Not sure how you lock down a template, but it sounds like a good idea

 

[herojig]

Not sure what all the debate is about here regarding Office 2010, but I sure hope MS just normalizes the apps between macs and pcs - and gets rid of the ribbon or an option to revert. My wife is also a professional writer in the PC world, but when she comes back home, where we are all mac, she much prefers Word 2008 over Word 2007. And she is a typical corporate PC user who owns a macbook for home emails and whatnot.

So when is all this 2010 stuff getting released? Cheers,
jigs

 

[Rob Schneider]

Suggest you re-read the advice. Don't recall seeing anyone saying
anything about a 'locked down template'.

Even if you could lock down a template (whatever that means), there are
so many other issues you are likely to encounter ... unless you change
your ways.

Simplistically:

: coach most to do writing and use styles
: assign formatting to a few who can do
: do not email the document around
: get version control tools.
: design a template with a set of styles and *require* it be used
: if comments on format is so important, send out Fax or PDF to
be what they comment on.

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[CyberTaz]

John's use of the term "lock down" pertains to the *formatting* permitted in
documents based on the template, not the template itself. Word 2003/7 enable
protection features which restrict users from using any formatting features
other than the Styles provided in the template... No direct formatting at
all nor any access to even the built-in styles. Protection in those versions
of Word are far more extensive & sophisticated that what Mac Word offers.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[CyberTaz]

'Office 2010' is the moniker of the next release of Office for Windows. It
is already available as a public Beta & scheduled for release later this
year. I don't know if a specific date has been announced. I've not even
looked at it as yet, but my understanding is that although it perpetuates
the Ribbon UI as it's default it is more customizable than 2007. You can
check it out at:

<http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/home.aspx?cc=en&pageType=home&sections
Type=home>

It has nothing to do (at least not directly) with the next release for
Macintosh, which will not be known by that same name. What the next Mac
version will be called has not yet been announced, but it is expected to
ship late this year or early 2011.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[herojig]

Thx Bob for all of that. Good to know.

 

[John McGhie]

I guess I hear you saying to send out a locked down template,

No, you didn't, because you can't. Locking happens in the document, not the
template, and is available only in Word 2003 and above on the PC side. Mac
Word can't do it, and neither can any older version.

If you open a document whose protection is set to "Restrict formatting to
specific styles" in an older version of Word, the protection is ignored.

and there is no
hope of reviewers actually reviewing formatting if they are not on same
platform/version of word.

I sense a disaster of Biblical proportions about to engulf you, so allow me
to re-state my argument a little more forcefully. I am trying to save your
bacon here, and I do this for a living (long documents, not butchery...)

I gently suggest to you that there is no hope of reviewers making useful
comments about formatting. They simply don't know enough. Your reviewers
are there to help you ensure the technical accuracy of your document. Don't
invite them to step outside their area of expertise, or the feedback you get
will be both random and useless.

I specifically inhibit my reviewers from commenting on the formatting,
because I find that if you let them, they then fail to review the technical
accuracy of the document, which is what they are there for.

I often tell all reviewers: "The document has not been formatted yet.
Formatting will not be performed until after technical sign-off. The
formatting process will remove all formatting now in the document, so please
do not waste your time commenting on it. The spelling standard and the
grammar standard have been determined by management policy: please do not
attempt to change either spelling or grammar."

From long experience (40 years of it...) I can tell you that if you do not
bolt those doors shut, you will:
A) Get buried in meaningless comment from people who know no better
B) Get important technical errors missed, because the reviewers will be
futzing around with the typesetting, spelling, and grammar.

The way to get large documents on the press on time in Word is to work with
just four or five styles all the way through the authoring and review
process.

Don't even think about formatting or pagination until you get technical
sign-off. If you do, you are completely wasting any effort you put into
them, because you will simply have to strip it and start again when you go
to press. You cannot format or paginate a document until you get the words
right

Hope this helps

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[John McGhie]

Well, I can't resist

For the first time, in the current job, I have been required to use Word
2007 in production. Most companies wisely have avoided it. The time it
wastes and the degree to which it slows down documentation professionals is
frightening: the job I was on had to increase the documentation staff (i.e.
People whose contribution is to getting the document formatted, rather than
determining the technical content) by about 50% simply to make up the time
Word 2007 wastes.

That said, the Ribbon is here to stay. It is actually a very good idea,
into which a lot of seriously good thinking and research has gone. However,
Marketing managed to completely kill it before it drew its first breath, by
insisting that we would not be able to customise it.

In Word 2010, someone took the Marketing weenies out to the carpark and
performed a percussive Attitude Adjustment with a baseball bat. The ribbon
is fully customisable in Word 2010, and even I was surprised at how much
quicker than toolbars the Ribbon is when it is working right for your
particular job.

There will be a new version of PC Word and a new version of Mac Word
released. Microsoft has announced that both will be on-sale by December
this year.

We know they are going to call the PC version Word 2010. We do not yet know
what the official name for the Mac flavour will be.

If I were you, I would not bet a large sum of money on Mac Word not having a
Ribbon this time around. The Formatting Palette in Word 2008 is simply the
Ribbon, re-expressed vertically.

Hope this helps

Not sure what all the debate is about here regarding Office 2010, but I sure
hope MS just normalizes the apps between macs and pcs - and gets rid of the
ribbon or an option to revert. My wife is also a professional writer in the PC
world, but when she comes back home, where we are all mac, she much prefers
Word 2008 over Word 2007. And she is a typical corporate PC user who owns a
macbook for home emails and whatnot.

So when is all this 2010 stuff getting released? Cheers,
jigs

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]