Help with 2 weird behaviors in Word 2004

[Zack]

Hello all -

Thanks for all the help with my previous questions. I've got two more:

1. I've just 'upgraded' from Word 5.1a to Word 2004, so all of my
preexisting text files are in Word 5.1a format. When I open up a
preexisting 5.1a text file, make some changes in Word 2004, and try to
'save' or 'close', I get the 'save as' window. When I then try to save
the file as a 'Word Document' (ie, in Word 2004 format) without
changing the name of the file, I get a warning message which reads, "A
document [with the same name] already exists in this location. Do you
want to replace it with the one you are savings?" When I click
'replace', which should be the end of the matter, I instead get
returned to the 'save as' window in an endless loop which can only be
broken by either cancelling the save, changing the name of the
document, or saving the document to a different location. Is this a
bug, and is there any way to defeat it? I have hundreds of Word 5
documents that I need to work on and revise; I don't want to start
changing all of their names or saving them to new locations.

2. When writing emails that I want to save for future reference, I
sometimes compose in Word and then cut and paste the text into my email
program, Apple's Mail. This worked fine with Word 5, but when I do
this with Word 2004, any paragraph returns contained in the original
get doubled. In other words, in Word 2004, I write a paragraph, then
hit 'return' to start a new paragraph. In the Word document, there
will be no blank line between the two paragraphs. But when I paste
into Mail, there will now be a blank line between the paragraphs. If
there is a single space between the paragraphs in Word 2004, there will
be a double space between the paragraphs in Mail. If I put a double
space (hit 'return' twice) between the paragraphs in Word 2004, there
will be 4 blank lines between the paragraphs in Mail. The formatting in
the Word document is correct -- if I choose 'show all' there are no
weird or stray characters, and the proper number of 'paragraph' marks
are shown in the correct place. Any ideas why this is happening and
how I can fix it (and please don't tell me to switch to Entourage!)

Thanks for any help,
Zack

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hello all -

Thanks for all the help with my previous questions. I've got two more:

1. I've just 'upgraded' from Word 5.1a to Word 2004, so all of my
preexisting text files are in Word 5.1a format. When I open up a
preexisting 5.1a text file, make some changes in Word 2004, and try to
'save' or 'close', I get the 'save as' window. When I then try to save
the file as a 'Word Document' (ie, in Word 2004 format) without
changing the name of the file, I get a warning message which reads, "A
document [with the same name] already exists in this location. Do you
want to replace it with the one you are savings?" When I click
'replace', which should be the end of the matter, I instead get
returned to the 'save as' window in an endless loop which can only be
broken by either cancelling the save, changing the name of the
document, or saving the document to a different location. Is this a
bug, and is there any way to defeat it? I have hundreds of Word 5
documents that I need to work on and revise; I don't want to start
changing all of their names or saving them to new locations.

I'm not completely sure on this; I've never had to deal with a situation
like that, and I only know Word 5.1 from the many moving legends told by the
MVPs on this newsgroup. I suppose the problem is caused by the fact that
Word 5.1 and the more modern iterations of Word use differently structured
file formats, but use the same .doc extension. In other words, it is a
different file format, but then again, it isn't. So you get the Save As
dialogue because Word does not want to change the original file format. When
it then tries to overwrite the original file, it recognises again that this
is not really the same file format, so it just goes back to the Save As
dialogue. That's just a wild hypothesis, mind you, so don't rely on it. As
I've said, I don't know anything about pre-97 versions of Word, so someone
else might be able to give you a better and/or more correct explanation.

2. When writing emails that I want to save for future reference, I
sometimes compose in Word and then cut and paste the text into my email
program, Apple's Mail. This worked fine with Word 5, but when I do
this with Word 2004, any paragraph returns contained in the original
get doubled. In other words, in Word 2004, I write a paragraph, then
hit 'return' to start a new paragraph. In the Word document, there
will be no blank line between the two paragraphs. But when I paste
into Mail, there will now be a blank line between the paragraphs. If
there is a single space between the paragraphs in Word 2004, there will
be a double space between the paragraphs in Mail. If I put a double
space (hit 'return' twice) between the paragraphs in Word 2004, there
will be 4 blank lines between the paragraphs in Mail. The formatting in
the Word document is correct -- if I choose 'show all' there are no
weird or stray characters, and the proper number of 'paragraph' marks
are shown in the correct place. Any ideas why this is happening and
how I can fix it (and please don't tell me to switch to Entourage!)

What version of OS X are you using? And when you compose messages in Word,
what kind of formatting do you use? Any space before/space after settings
for your paragraph? And in Mail, what format do you use to encode your
messages, simple text or rich text? I've tried copying paragraphs into Mail,
and I can't reproduce the error you're experiencing. Also, what happens if
you select "Paste and Match Style" from Mail's "Edit" menu?

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Zack -

Re 1 - Guess you could call it a bug... I just call it lazy design. The
problem is that the file _cannot_ overwrite itself becaused it is open.
That is a source of confusion that has been around for some time (PC &
Mac) and should never have been presented in that manner.

Suggestion: Create a new folder & save the 'conversions' into it with
their original names. You can then delete the old folder of stuff &
rename the new folder -or- delete the old files & move the new copies
into the old folder -or- just move/copy the new copies into the old
folder and overwrite the originals. Either way make sure none of the
files are open at the time, of course.

Re 2 - Welcome to the wonderful world of HTML, which has it's own
interpretation of line spacing. Am not at my Mac to double check, but
have you tried Mail's Edit menu for a Paste Special option? Also, if
Mail is set as your default client I believe you can also use the
File>Send To command.

There will probably be more expert replies to #2 and perhaps someone
can provide you with a means of automating #1.

Regards |:>)

 

[Zack]

What version of OS X are you using? And when you compose messages in Word,
what kind of formatting do you use? Any space before/space after
settings
for your paragraph? And in Mail, what format do you use to encode your
messages, simple text or rich text? I've tried copying paragraphs into
Mail,
and I can't reproduce the error you're experiencing. Also, what happens
if
you select "Paste and Match Style" from Mail's "Edit" menu? <<<<<

Sorry, should have mentioned this in my original query. I'm using
10.3.3, space before/after paragraphs is set to '0', in Mail I use
plain text with HTML turned off.

I just tried 'Paste with Current Style' from the edit menu, and it
solved the problem! I hadn't known this option even existed. So,
thank you for the work-around -- though I'd still like to know why this
behavior is occurring in the first place.

Zack

 

[Michel Bintener]

Sorry, should have mentioned this in my original query. I'm using
10.3.3, space before/after paragraphs is set to '0', in Mail I use
plain text with HTML turned off.

I just tried 'Paste with Current Style' from the edit menu, and it
solved the problem! I hadn't known this option even existed. So,
thank you for the work-around -- though I'd still like to know why this
behavior is occurring in the first place.

Zack

I can't really tell you what's going on, either, but here are a couple of
suggestions to find out more.

What happens when you copy the text that's messing up Mail messages into
TextEdit? Do the double paragraphs show up there as well? Mail and TextEdit
both use Apple's text engine, so it might be worth trying.

Also, the latest update for Mac OS X Panther is 10.3.9; you should update
your system and see if the many bug fixes that are included in this update
fix your problem.

 

[Zack]

I can't really tell you what's going on, either, but here are a couple of
suggestions to find out more.

What happens when you copy the text that's messing up Mail messages into
TextEdit? Do the double paragraphs show up there as well? Mail and TextEdit
both use Apple's text engine, so it might be worth trying.

Also, the latest update for Mac OS X Panther is 10.3.9; you should update
your system and see if the many bug fixes that are included in this update
fix your problem.

When I paste text from Word 2004 into Text edit, it works fine -- no
double paragraphing. The same text pasted into Mail causes double
paragraphing, unless I choose the 'Paste with Current Style' option.

I've stayed with 10.3.3 because the Quicktime upgrade associated with
10.3.9 is buggy (I use my Mac primarily for video editing), and the
upgrades from 10.3.4 onwards caused Word 5 to not function properly in
Classic -- a delay was introduced between the moment a key was typed
and the moment the character appeared on screen. Though once I wean
myself off Word 5 (if that ever happens), I guess I could try upgrading
to 10.3.8.

Zack