compatibility issue

[katielee]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

Hi,
I tried to find the answer to my problem but anything that has been suggested I have tried so I thought I would try to get some new ideas for a solution. I have a new white macbook with Office for Mac 2008. It's a Mac os x 10.5 with leopard.
I have tried to send word documents via email that I created on this Mac and they could not open them. These are resumes and final papers for professors. They are using pc's. I've used Mac's before and have never had a problem with sending word documents. Obviously, the 2008 version has some bugs!!
I've tried to send them as .doc and .docx and either they can not open them or when they open them the font is wrong or they look terrible.
I would like a simple and easy solution. Please help!! Should I just download an earlier version of Office for Mac?
Thanks,
Katie

 

[Keir_Wells]

Hi, Katie

There are a couple of things you can try:

1. Save the document as Word 97-2004 compatible

2. Before doing a final save of the document, ensure the text colour of *everything* is set to Automatic. I know this sounds weird, but it helped me get over the same problem.

A question - When you send through your documents, do you have any visible tracked changes? I found that this tended to cause problems when some recipients were using earlier versions of Word in a Windows environment.

With regard to the font, the first thought that comes to mind is that you're using a font the recipients don't have. Try Times New Roman.

Best of luck...Keir

 

[John McGhie]

Hi KatieLee:

If you send in .docx format, the PC user needs to have Office 2007, or they
need to have applied the free update that Microsoft issued about two years
ago that gives them the ability to read and write the new formats.

If you send in .doc format, as Keir suggests, you need to be careful which
fonts you send. The new fonts provided with Office 2008 (most have names
beginning with "C") are designed to be an exact match for the same fonts
distributed with Office 2007 on the PC.

However, some corporations are terribly inefficient about the way they
handle their computers, and they sometimes won't roll out the fonts. God
knows why...

So you are better off to stick to Arial and Times New Roman, until the rest
of the world catches up.

Even so, I don't think that's your problem. Even if they don't have the
fonts, wile the pagination will move around a little, the document won't
look "horrible". The PC (or Mac) at the other end will silently substitute
the closest fonts it DOES have.

I suspect that your issue is more to do with misconfigured email programs at
the other end. I suspect those programs are "helpfully" un-Zipping your
..docx files.

A .docx file is a zip file internally, but if you un-zip it, Word can't read
it!!

To prevent this, I suggest that you Zip the file yourself before you send
it. Just right-click it in the Finder, and choose "Create archive..." Send
the result. That way, if the other end DOES unzip it, the result will be an
intact .docx file that they CAN read.

Also: make sure your email program is set up to encode attachments for
Windows (MIME/Base 64). Hi-quality email programs will handle the file
however it is encoded, but the cheaper the email program or the worse it is
set up, the more likely it is to have trouble with anything other than MIME


Don't send any of the Apple formats to Windows, the grief is not worth it.
They should be able to handle them -- if they're correctly set up they CAN
handle them, but trying to explain what to do to someone who got into the
problem in the first place -- you won't live long enough... Any computer
in the world can handle MIME, and it saves all the arguments!

Try those settings and see if that makes a difference.

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

Hi,
I tried to find the answer to my problem but anything that has been suggested
I have tried so I thought I would try to get some new ideas for a solution. I
have a new white macbook with Office for Mac 2008. It's a Mac os x 10.5 with
leopard.
I have tried to send word documents via email that I created on this Mac and
they could not open them. These are resumes and final papers for professors.
They are using pc's. I've used Mac's before and have never had a problem with
sending word documents. Obviously, the 2008 version has some bugs!!
I've tried to send them as .doc and .docx and either they can not open them or
when they open them the font is wrong or they look terrible.
I would like a simple and easy solution. Please help!! Should I just download
an earlier version of Office for Mac?
Thanks,
Katie

--
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, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]