Cross-platform issue with Excel grafics in Word

[the3rdParty]

I generally prepare my docs using Office Vx on the Mac. My Word docs
very often contain graphics from Excel which have been pasted in as
unlinked pictures. The parent Excel files are massive so I avoid
pasting as an object to keep the Word file down to a reasonable size.
So far all under control.

I recently had to finalise one of my docs on a PC running MS Office Pro
2003 and the doc looked fine EXCEPT for the vertical text (y-axis
labels) on all the graphs. These were mysteriously absent. However
editing the graph in Word 2003 (using "edit picture" from the
contextural menu) revealed the y-axis label to be present and now
written horizontally... So, clicking the label's text box I could
change the text orientation to appear vertical and at last my graph
looks like it should.

Later I had to take the same doc back to my Mac. The edited graphs are
now a complete confusion of strange sized fonts, line returns
(indicating too small txt boxes) in the axis values etc etc.

I ended up going back to Excel copying out the graphs, converting them
to .png images in photoshop and pasting these files into Word. Even
this wasnt perfect as some of the horizontal txt on the graphs got
trimmed between Excel and photoshop.

There must be an easier way to control graphics between excel/word and
cross platforms. Any ideas? or am I doing something fundamentally
wrong?

Thanks
Jon

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Jon:

You are not doing anything "fundamentally" wrong You are simply using a
function that doesn't work properly cross-platform

The entire Mac interface is based upon the PostScript page description
language. That describes everything you see on the Mac screen, and is
generated by every application calling the OS X PDF generator for anything
they want to appear.

The equivalent mechanism on Windows is a thing called GDI (which uses the
WMF file format). GDI can't rotate text! There's a newer flavour
(Variously described as GDI+ and GDI2) which uses the EMF file format. This
"can" rotate text.

Now: What's a well-behaved application to insert in a document? On Mac,
there's only two choices: a bitmap and put up with the jaggies, or a PICT
containing its embedded PostScript information.

On Windows, there are three choices: Bitmap (PNG in this case), WMF, or EMF.
If you use EMF, chances are most Mac apps can't read it. So Microsoft
Office tends to fall back on WMF, for cross-platform compatibility. The
exception is the later versions of MS Office on Windows: they use EMF
anyway, because they have to be able to rotate text.

As you have discovered, when this comes back to the Mac, the results are,
Ummmm... "Not so good". I once asked a Japanese co-worker what he thought
of something and he said "Not so good". I was somewhat emotionally engaged
with the subject so I said "Well, I think it's totally 'effed' -- what's the
Japanese for FUBAR?" He grinned and said "Not so good", but you suck your
teeth before saying it

OK, there are all sorts of things you can "try" to overcome this. The one
that "works" for you will depend very much on your circumstances.

* You can make a spreadsheet that contains only the chart, and embed that
in your document. This will work most reliably, because on each platform,
Excel will handle the object and generate the platform's native display
format.

* You can copy and paste as Picture. On Windows, make sure you paste as
Enhanced Metafile. On an up-to-date Mac, the EMF import filter will convert
that to PICT on opening. You won't be able to send it back to the PC,
because the PICT import filter on the PC can't handle it unless the PC has
QuickTime 6 installed, and most of them haven't...

* You can copy and paste as Bitmap. Works on any platform, but the result
is screen resolution: not good.

* You can copy and paste into a graphics application, export as PNG at 300
dpi, and embed the PNG into the document. This will work everywhere, but
it's not editable.

To reduce the size of the PNG, set the colour depth of the PNG output filter
to the minimum needed to describe the picture. For many charts, that's 16
colours: with almost anything Office can produce you need only 256 colours.
This has a dramatic effect on the file size. If you are not going to
"print" the result, then send screen-resolution (96 dpi) -- anything else is
just wasting megabytes.

The "graphics application" in question does not have to be sophisticated --
PowerPoint will do a grand job -- but it is essential that Excel, Word, the
Chart and the Graphics application all be running at the same time. The way
the clipboard works, only the most-common formats are actually in the
clipboard after a copy. There is also a pointer to the original file. If
the graphics application calls for a sophisticated format (in this case, it
will want PDF on the Mac or EMF on the PC) it will generate it from the
original WHEN YOU PASTE. On Windows, the OS holds the file open in the
background while the image remains on the clipboard, in case you want to
paste. Mac doesn't: if you paste after closing the file the only thing
available is the stuff on the clipboard

Hope this helps

I generally prepare my docs using Office Vx on the Mac. My Word docs
very often contain graphics from Excel which have been pasted in as
unlinked pictures. The parent Excel files are massive so I avoid
pasting as an object to keep the Word file down to a reasonable size.
So far all under control.

I recently had to finalise one of my docs on a PC running MS Office Pro
2003 and the doc looked fine EXCEPT for the vertical text (y-axis
labels) on all the graphs. These were mysteriously absent. However
editing the graph in Word 2003 (using "edit picture" from the
contextural menu) revealed the y-axis label to be present and now
written horizontally... So, clicking the label's text box I could
change the text orientation to appear vertical and at last my graph
looks like it should.

Later I had to take the same doc back to my Mac. The edited graphs are
now a complete confusion of strange sized fonts, line returns
(indicating too small txt boxes) in the axis values etc etc.

I ended up going back to Excel copying out the graphs, converting them
to .png images in photoshop and pasting these files into Word. Even
this wasnt perfect as some of the horizontal txt on the graphs got
trimmed between Excel and photoshop.

There must be an easier way to control graphics between excel/word and
cross platforms. Any ideas? or am I doing something fundamentally
wrong?

Thanks
Jon

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Elliott Roper]

The equivalent mechanism on Windows is a thing called GDI (which uses the
WMF file format). GDI can't rotate text!

Of course. It would get GDI if it tried.

(I'll get my coat)

Just before I go, I'd like to add to John's excellent advice, that if
you do want to get something printable from Excel and Word on the Mac
to something printable, (but not editable) on PC, try printing the
excel chart only as "postscript as pdf', passing that through something
that can export as eps, (I was using Omnigraffle today for that) then
inserting that into your Word document. It will look *evil* on screen,
but will print beautifully to any postscript printer.

 

[the3rdParty]

John
Thanks for the detailed response. Looks like I wasnt that far off the
mark..I can only say that it has been a frusrating and V time consuming
learning curve. I recently got caught in the Quicktime 6 trap - the
PC I used for finalising the doc had this installed but the client who
got the final product didnt, and we had to go round again, modifying 67
graphics. (teeth sucking noises....)

Will this sort of cross platform detail get sorted in future versions?

JW

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Jon:

Will this sort of cross platform detail get sorted in future versions?

Yes, but probably not in my lifetime

We are lurching slowly towards "standard" file formats. TIFF and JPEG are
safe enough on any platform. ASCII, ANSI and Unicode are there for all to
use.

But while companies still believe they can make more money by trying to
coerce their users into not using other companies' products, this issue will
never lie down.

For example, TIFF is a standard: but many programs cannot handle TIFF above
24-bit (Microsoft Office applications are a case in point -- 32-bit CMYK
TIFF is beyond their comprehension. JPEG is the same: a "standard" format,
but MMS Office can't recognise CMYK JPEG. I believe the next version of
Office will handle 32-bit colour...

Unicode is a wonderful standard: font-independent and contains all the
characters in the known world. But font-foundaries continue to ship fonts
that don't contain all of the Unicode characters...

The next version of Office will use XML, an open standard with a published
set of Document Type definitions and Schemas. But Microsoft Office will
continue to produce artefacts within those files that other applications may
not be able to handle. And I am sure the fact that Microsoft Office may not
be able to handle this or that will not greatly constrain Adobe or Apple
when designing new products

So I guess it's not until you and I stop buying their products that
companies will suddenly get together and decide to standardise.

Cheers

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Klaus Kamppeter]

I generally prepare my docs using Office Vx on the Mac. My Word docs
very often contain graphics from Excel which have been pasted in as
unlinked pictures. The parent Excel files are massive so I avoid
pasting as an object to keep the Word file down to a reasonable size.
So far all under control.

I recently had to finalise one of my docs on a PC running MS Office Pro
2003 and the doc looked fine EXCEPT for the vertical text…

I'am using the same way of pasting grafics and charts (with Office
2004). And I just avoid vertical text. Furthermore, I avoid using Arial
and Times New Roman in these grafics and charts. They are not mapped
correctly on some office configurations on the Windows side (Office 2000
with Windows NT and 2000, and maybe others). So far, no problems.

bye