Graphic in doc 'inverted' / black Word X and Word 2004

[beenie]

I am being sent large documents that contain around 70 or so images,
this is from Word 2000 on the PC.

A lot of the images are inverted, almost black, this happens in both
Vx and 2004.

I cannot requested the sender to change the way they compile the
document.

Why won't Word display this correctly?

How can I fix this. It a really poor bug.

I can get around this partially by selecting the pic, saying that its
a water mark, then saying it b&w, i can then see the detail, but its
still inverted and does not work when there is colour.

Thanks.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Beenie;

How are the docs being "sent" to you? Your post suggests that some
images are affected, but not all. What type of image files are
affected? Is there any compression software involved?

As a guess in the meanwhile, most programs do not store a full
resolution "copy" of the images placed in them. The low res data they
store is sufficient for screen display, but not for print unless it is
a very small image file (usually no more than 250K/image). The file
relies on "remembering" where and what the image is and relies on the
original for better display & print output. When the file or the
original images get separated from each other, the doc can only work
with the low res stuff it carries with it. If the images involved are
..eps (encapsulated postscript), that would explain the problem.

 

[John McGhie]

Yeah. Word 2004 does work like that: it stores the original graphics file
in the document.

Often you can fix these black graphics by simply double-clicking the picture
to Edit it, then immediately close it and save the document.

But I had one the other day that I couldn't fix. It opens fine on the PC,
the graphic is black on the Mac.

Cheers

Hi Beenie;

How are the docs being "sent" to you? Your post suggests that some
images are affected, but not all. What type of image files are
affected? Is there any compression software involved?

As a guess in the meanwhile, most programs do not store a full
resolution "copy" of the images placed in them. The low res data they
store is sufficient for screen display, but not for print unless it is
a very small image file (usually no more than 250K/image). The file
relies on "remembering" where and what the image is and relies on the
original for better display & print output. When the file or the
original images get separated from each other, the doc can only work
with the low res stuff it carries with it. If the images involved are
.eps (encapsulated postscript), that would explain the problem.

--

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

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi John-

Points well taken, but beenie is referring to files sent to him which
were created in Word 2000. I don't believe it stored complete image
files, so he is only getting what the file has to offer. If so, Word
2004 can't do anything about that.

There could also be other factors involved, I guess, but these were
just the first to come to mind.
BTW- Nice tip about the double-click technique!

 

[John McGhie]

My experience is that Word 2000 "does" store complete image files.

Word 2000 also has a user setting which enables the user to determine
whether it should "also" store the version of the image it makes up for
screen display. That comes into play only if the original picture is not a
JPEG, PNG or BMP. Word will create a PNG for display.

It would ordinarily retain that for faster display next time, but you can
tell it not to.

The problem you may get into there is that if the image is stored in both
vector and PNG formats, on the Mac it may present the bitmap as the default
format on the clipboard.

So I think we're saying the same thing: our original poster may need to use
Paste>Special to get the image out of the document later.

Cheers

Hi John-

Points well taken, but beenie is referring to files sent to him which
were created in Word 2000. I don't believe it stored complete image
files, so he is only getting what the file has to offer. If so, Word
2004 can't do anything about that.

There could also be other factors involved, I guess, but these were
just the first to come to mind.
BTW- Nice tip about the double-click technique!

--

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

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[a_temp_address]

How are the docs being "sent" to you? Your post suggests that some

images are affected, but not all. What type of image files are
affected? Is there any compression software involved?

No, just sent via normal email.

Just to add some more fuel to the fire, Apples new app 'pages' opens
the files
fine.. and renders all the images without issue.

So, there is nothing wrong with the file as such, just the way
Word for Mac interprates it.

The issue is Word X / 2004, current solution may be to move
to Apples pages!

How silly..... word - word = :-( word - apple =
thanks everyone for your help.

 

[Jeffrey Weston [MSFT]]

Hello,

To get around this issue in Word 2004 you can try copying the image to the
Clipboard, and then opening it up a graphics editor program, such as
Graphics Converter. (Which is shareware you can download from:
www.versiontracker.com)

Graphics Converter will display the image correctly and then you can save
the image to a different format if you want and Insert it back into the
document.

Hope this helps, and thanks for you're post bringing attention to this
issue.

--
Jeffrey Weston
Mac Word Test
Macintosh Business Unit
Microsoft

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Find out everything about Microsoft Mac Newsgroups at:
[http://www.microsoft.com/mac/community/community.aspx?pid=newsgroups]
Check out product updates and news & info at: [http://www.microsoft.com/mac]

 

[a_temp_address]

Hi,

When I copy to Graphic converter, its says to 'convert' the image , but
when I go to convert, its asking to convert a file and has a file
requestor.

Also.. and this is the killer, I have a 900 page Word doc, with around
200+ images and I will be receiving 200+ docs of this size. I do not
have the time to manually convert each and every image, that would take
rather long.

Is there an option within the PC version of Word that would change the
graphic format and thus render correctly in the Mac version.

I'm poised to upgrade a lot of users to Office 2004, but I can't do
that until this massive bug is fixed.

Look forward to the MBU fixing this asap!

Thanks.

 

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

The answer to your question is "maybe".

If you would care to flip me one of those documents so I can have a look at
it, I may be able to produce a routine quite quickly that will batch-convert
your entire knowledgebase.

To email me, please Zip the file and insert the following password through
my junk filter into the subject line of your email: 283460@o13g2000cwo

Just to set some expectations, I would be surprised if there is any movement
on this problem from Microsoft within the next 12 months. In fact, I would
say it's very unlikely. I suspect they will wait on the next version of Mac
OS. That's because the actual cause of the bug is partly to do with the way
Mac OS does not seem to follow its published rules. I would like to be
wrong -- but I can't see it.

Cheers

Hi,

When I copy to Graphic converter, its says to 'convert' the image , but
when I go to convert, its asking to convert a file and has a file
requestor.

Also.. and this is the killer, I have a 900 page Word doc, with around
200+ images and I will be receiving 200+ docs of this size. I do not
have the time to manually convert each and every image, that would take
rather long.

Is there an option within the PC version of Word that would change the
graphic format and thus render correctly in the Mac version.

I'm poised to upgrade a lot of users to Office 2004, but I can't do
that until this massive bug is fixed.

Look forward to the MBU fixing this asap!

Thanks.

--

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 4 1209 1410