Conflicts between Teacher and Institional Version

[TomW]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Processor: Intel I am using the Teacher version of Word 2008 at home and the School version of the same at work (I am a university professor). To my dismay, a Word file created at home is not displaying and printing the same as it does at school(on a G-5 running OS 10.5). The school version stretches out the document vertically and makes it typically 4 lines shorter. This completely screws up pagination, splits tables in the wrong place, and so on. I thought the problem might lie in the monitor at school, which is a 22" Sun, but the IT people tested the file on a Mac monitor and the same problem occurred. They are convinced that there is a conflict between my Teacher version of Office 2008 and the School version. How could this be? This never happened with Office 2004?

Tom W

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Tom;

There is no difference between the programs in one edition of Office &
another. The most likely cause of the discrepancy is a difference in
printers/drivers & updates for both the printers as well as Office on the 2
Macs. Next comes a difference in paper specification (A4 v. Letter, for
example) followed by possible font issues.

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

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Tom:

Bob is correct: There is no difference between Word in the two SKUs. None
at all: the difference is entirely in the licence and the optional add-ons.

My first pick is that you do not have the same paper size specified in both
places. Four lines difference in an academic paper is about the difference
between A4 and Letter paper size.

Next I would check that the same type of printer is in use, with the same
driver version, in both places. Word gets all its measurements from the
printer driver: if they're different, so is the document.

Last I would check if the versions of the fonts installed in both places are
the same. The newer fonts in Office 2004 have different metrics from the
older ones. That's unlikely to produce a difference of FOUR lines per page,
but it can certainly throw a single-column page out by two lines.

Hope this helps

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Processor: Intel I am
using the Teacher version of Word 2008 at home and the School version of the
same at work (I am a university professor). To my dismay, a Word file created
at home is not displaying and printing the same as it does at school(on a G-5
running OS 10.5). The school version stretches out the document vertically and
makes it typically 4 lines shorter. This completely screws up pagination,
splits tables in the wrong place, and so on. I thought the problem might lie
in the monitor at school, which is a 22" Sun, but the IT people tested the
file on a Mac monitor and the same problem occurred. They are convinced that
there is a conflict between my Teacher version of Office 2008 and the School
version. How could this be? This never happened with Office 2004?

Tom W

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]

 

[TomW]

Dear Bob and John, I am writing to report that I solved the problem. With your help. The problem lay in the fact that the Palatino font that I use on the home machine was for some unknown reason not installed in the Font Book on the institutional machine. This fact remained unknown to me because when I opened the document at school the font name "Palatino" showed up in the font field on the Word menu bar. So I had no idea that the font was not installed! My guess is that when Word or perhaps OS 10.5 sees a document with a font that is not installed it tries to re-draw it on its own and retain the name. The trouble, as I reported, the re-drawn Palatino added four lines to each page! Anyway, without your help I would never have guessed that the problem might lie with the font. The IT people at my work, by the way, remained to the end completely baffled by my problem. My heartfelt thanks. Tom West

 

[CyberTaz]

Your interpretation is fairly accurate Word displays the name of the
font actually specified in the document & uses that font if it is available
on the system. If that font isn't available the program substitutes a
similar font for display purposes only. It does not, however, replace the
font, however, & the substitute may very well cause display/flow issues.

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