Hi Melanie:
This is not (technically) a PC vs Mac compatibility issue. It's a "Mac Word
X doesn't work right and Microsoft can't afford to fix it" issue.
You can sometimes get the Red X's to reappear by selecting the picture and
choosing right-click Edit Picture. If the picture appears, simply save it
and the document and it will "sometimes" cure it.
"Red X" means simply "Cannot find the picture file". In the Word document,
the pictures are all collected in a container at the end: Mac Word sometimes
cannot find the members of the container, particularly in a document that
has been edited on a PC in RTF.
I don't know WHY you are using RTF for this purpose: it is very unlikely to
withstand this kind of operation (from PC to Mac to PC to Mac). You will
have a much higher chance of success if you do this in Word Document format.
Mac Word cannot read or respond to all of the items that PC Word adds to its
RTF, and that's part of your problem.
These problems are all fixed in the next version of Word for Mac, Word 2004.
So you should get hold of a copy just as soon as you can. Then you will
have a whole brand new set of problems
But generically, if you can get RTF (or any other foreign format) out of
your production process, things will go a lot more reliably for you. If you
simply cannot use the Word Document format, the next one I would try is "Web
Page". Note: "Web Page" and NOT "Web Page (Filtered)". The difference is
that the "Filtered" version really is a web page that does not have enough
information in the file to re-create a Word document. The "Web Page"
version is actually an XML file that contains everything that the Word
Document does. The latest versions of word on both PC and Mac can read it
and re-create a Word document from it. Yes, it is a lot larger (Word
Document is a compressed format, XML is not...) and it does respond a lot
more slowly when editing. If it were me, I would get the Web Page format,
save it as a document, do my editing, then save it back to a web page again:
it's too slow otherwise.
But it is reliable.
Hope this helps
This responds to article <
[email protected]>,
from "Melanie said:
Hi,
Hope you don't mind me jumping into this thread. It is so similar to
problems I am having. I have a client that wants 60+ page docs
translated into several foreign languages. We split this up between
layout artists, some work on PCs and I work on a Mac. The English
language doc is sent to translators as an RTF with all of the proper
formatting and graphics in place (several on a page and often even
little symbols right in the text). When it comes back, the
translators have typed over the English in thier respective languages.
My PC coworkers open the rtf files in Word and the graphics are still
present. They only have to do a little formatting to make the
document look good again with regards to page flow, etc. However,
when I open them on my Mac (running OS 10.3 and Word Ver 10.0.0) I get
boxes with red Xs where the graphics were. And, even if I tediously
import all the graphics and do the formatting, when I return the
document there is often page shifting and text reflow. Is this a PC
vs Mac compatibility issue? I never have these problems with Adobe
products or Quark when passing to PC users. My work around has been
to import the foreign text into a program like InDesign and use coding
and style sheets to format the whole thing, placing graphics as I work
through the document. But, I cannot compete for the speed with which
my PC coworkers are accomplishing the same thing with a lot less
effort.
Any suggestions to fix this on a more global scale than cutting and
pasting?
Thanks!
Melanie Anderson
John McGhie said:
Yes, there are huge problems printing graphics from Word or Office X, and we
do not have any good solutions to any of them.
Try copying the picture in PowerPoint, then going to Word and using
Edit>Paste Special>Picture. This pastes the graphic in as a WMF file, which
is a simple format that presents less of a challenge and may work better.
Then again, it may not...
If you have proper graphics software, paste the picture into that, then save
it out as WMF and use Insert>Picture in Word to insert the result. That
usually works.
If you get really stuck, paste the picture from PowerPoint into a graphics
application and save it as a JPEG or PNG file, then insert that. These are
bitmap (raster) formats that won't print so nicely, but they rarely play up.
A direct paste from PowerPoint pastes an OLE object into the document. It's
an encapsulated PowerPoint file, and as such it represents a real challenge
to print it. Later versions of PowerPoint will enable you to save the
slides out from PowerPoint as a graphics file: you will have a lot more
success if you do that.
Hope this helps
This responds to article <
[email protected]>,
from "mps38 said:
Running Office v.x 10.1.5
Panther OSX latest version
powerbook g4 768mb ram
Hi, while opening a document created through office in windows, i
encountered several problems with viewing and printing the graphics in
the document.
The document was created primarily in windows, charts and graphics
were pasted in as pictures from powerpoint.
Problems:
1) Charts lose their fill colors.
2) additional lines appear over arrows or text boxes where they are
not suppposed to.
3) Some Pictures are completely replaced by a red [x] box
When i print this document from my mac, all these problems show up on
paper. However, i tried saving the document on mac, sending it to a PC
and then viewing it and printing again, all the problems with graphics
seem to not exist.
Is this some strange compatibility issue? I'm sure its not Ram memory
cause i pretty much have more than enough and no other applications
open.
Please help.
Thank you.
Melvin Soh
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John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:
[email protected]