Manipulating edit points in Word 'curve' line on a MAC

[keithh]

Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)

If I draw a closed object with the Line/Curve tool I can access the edit points by CTRL Click but as soon as I exit Word and then reload it I can't access the edit points any more. What am I doing wrong? MAC OS 10.6.1 Word 2008

 

[Jeff Chapman]

If I draw a closed object with the Line/Curve tool I can access the edit

points by CTRL Click but as soon as I exit Word and then reload it I can't
access the edit points any more. What am I doing wrong? MAC OS 10.6.1 Word
2008

I've confirmed this as well on my end. OS X 10.5.8, Word 2008 12.2.1.
It looks like the curve points are inaccessible after you save and
reload the file. I'd recommend filing a bug report on this
with Microsoft - it definitely seems to be inconsistent and
buggy behavior. If it is intentional, at the very least it's
rather rude design, I think...

Jeff

 

[John McGhie]

What format are you saving it in?

The .doc format can't store Word 2008 SmartArt.

Cheers

Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)

If I draw a closed object with the Line/Curve tool I can access the edit
points by CTRL Click but as soon as I exit Word and then reload it I can't
access the edit points any more. What am I doing wrong? MAC OS 10.6.1 Word
2008

--

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]

 

[Keithh]

I am saving as .docx - is that wrong

As an aside, I tried to find out how to send a bug report to Microsoft
and after about an hour I almost lost the will to live. Please feel
free to pass this bug on (if it is a bug)

 

[CyberTaz]

Make sure your installation of Office is fully updated -- you've yet to
indicate your specific update level. FWIW, I cannot repro here in Tiger
10.4.11, Office 12.2.1 -- regardless of whether I save the file as .doc or
..docx the path can be edited on reopening the file.

As for the "bug report", the most convenient way is the "Send Feedback"
option from the Help menu of the program involved... But I'm not convinced
that this is one If it is, it has been generated by Snow Leopard because
I've not had a problem with the feature in either Tiger or Leopard.

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

 

[Jeff Chapman]

Hi John,

What format are you saving it in?

The .doc format can't store Word 2008 SmartArt.

We're not talking about SmartArt here - we're talking
about simple shapes drawn with the Curve tool (for instance)
in the Drawing toolbar. By all rights, you should be able
to do a right-click to edit the points of the line drawn
after saving to .docx format, closing and restarting Word.
Unfortunately, that isn't the case. Word seems to lock the
points from being edited after the file is saved, closed
and reopened.

It seems like the .docx format is the culprit -
saving in .doc format works fine in this regard.

Jeff

On 10/28/09 6:46 PM, in article C70E5E2A.3678%[email protected], "John
McGhie" <[email protected]> wrote:

 

[Keithh]

Hi Bob, I had seen one or two little problems since restoring my iMAC
so I did a complete reinstal of Office from my issued CD and two
updates to that it was as up to date as it can be and I still see the
same problem - once you have
saved a file, you cannot access the edit points. My system is an iMAC
9,1 with Intel Core Duo running under OS 10.6.1
My Version of Word is 12.2.0 (090605) with tthe latest installed
update being 12.2.1

My version is the Home/Student version but I wouldn't have thought
that would be the cause

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Bob, I had seen one or two little problems since restoring my iMAC
so I did a complete reinstal of Office from my issued CD and two
updates to that it was as up to date as it can be and I still see the
same problem - once you have
saved a file, you cannot access the edit points. My system is an iMAC
9,1 with Intel Core Duo running under OS 10.6.1
My Version of Word is 12.2.0 (090605) with tthe latest installed
update being 12.2.1

My version is the Home/Student version but I wouldn't have thought
that would be the cause

Hi,

I can confirm the misbehavior here on an iMac in Snow Leopard. Use the
Help menu and send feedback to Microsoft to alert them to the problem.

Thanks.

-Jim

 

[Jeff Chapman]

Hello,

Indeed - the Mactopia site doesn't offer a feature to send a
bug report. It's either send feedback (and pray that the "feedback"
will be noticed, logged and investigated as a "bug"), or else
file a support incident with Microsoft (again, there are some
difficulties here as well - they certainly don't make it easy.
You'll need your product ID number and possibly a Windows Live
account, and the web site itself isn't exactly the most user-
friendly thing in the world).

I've sent a bug report to Microsoft via the Send Feedback feature on this
as follows:

[BUG REPORT]
The following procedure fails in Word 2008.

PROBLEM: Word 2008's "Edit Points" command fails to work on custom-made
shapes after document is saved and reopened.

1. Open a Word 2008 document.
2. Use the Curve tool on the Drawing toolbar to draw a shape.
3. Do a right-click on the shape to Edit Points.
4. Save the document to the desktop in .docx format.
5. Close and restart Word.
6. Open the document in step 4.
7. Do a right-click (Control+Click) on the shape. The Edit Points command is
missing from the context menu, and the shape cannot be edited.

I'm using Word 2008 12.2.1, Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8, MacBook Pro 2.8 GHz
Intel Core Duo 2 with 4 GB RAM.

Jeff Chapman

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Jeff:

We're not talking about SmartArt here - we're talking
about simple shapes drawn with the Curve tool (for instance)
in the Drawing toolbar.

How do you know we are?

That's my point. Microsoft is trying to promote the use of SmartArt and
sometimes users will create things like curves that are actually SmartArt
widgets, not WMF widgets.

WMF will convert happily to .doc and RTF file formats. SmartArt is in XML,
and it won't down-convert.

You may be quite right that that's not the problem here (looks like it
isn't, from what you, Jim, and Bob have found). But we need to be aware of
the potential for those stupid squeezy graphics to create just about all the
trouble there is

Cheers

--

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]

 

[Jeff Chapman]

Hi there, John,

How do you know we are?

That's my point. Microsoft is trying to promote the use of SmartArt and
sometimes users will create things like curves that are actually SmartArt
widgets, not WMF widgets.

Interesting point. I kind of wondered the same thing
as I was writing my last post. From a user's point
of view, however, it's a "shape" or a "graphic object",
sort of a customized autoshape and not "SmartArt".
Under the hood, however, who knows how Word is actually
translating this shape into XML and back again when
it reads the file in.

This brings me to an interesting point that may lead
us further down the slippery slope: if we are saving a file
in Microsoft's flavor of the Office Open XML format
(aka .docx), then what would prevent us from saving the
file, editing the XML in the package to make it work
RIGHT, and then open it up again? :-D

Does OpenOffice (the free Office suite) support .docx?
If it does, perhaps we could save the file as .docx
in Word 2008, try opening it in OpenOffice, and seeing
if the shape's points can be edited there.
If we establish that it can, then there is a possibility
that Word 2008 is inappropriately reading in the
shape's attributes, including the user's added bezier
points on load. Of course, there's not much we can do
about it without a fix from the developers, but at
least the problem will be better identified.

Jeff

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Jeff:

This brings me to an interesting point that may lead
us further down the slippery slope: if we are saving a file
in Microsoft's flavor of the Office Open XML format
(aka .docx), then what would prevent us from saving the
file, editing the XML in the package to make it work
RIGHT, and then open it up again? :-D

Nothing at all. That's the "recommended method" and the guys in Office 2007
are already doing a lot of this.

On the Mac, you have to open the .docx in something other than Finder,
otherwise the Finder sticks the Trashes folder and the resources fork in,
which Word 2008 sees as "corruption". If you open a .docx in Finder, Word
can't open it after that.

But you can easily take a can-opener to them in Windows. Microsoft even
provides instructions

Does OpenOffice (the free Office suite) support .docx?

The question is "How well does it support .docx". This is where you get
into all sorts of finger-pointing nonsense.

I have not tried this in OpenOffice. My guess would be that although it
supports the file format, it does not contain an Escher Graphics engine, and
thus won't be able to edit the graphics.

If we establish that it can, then there is a possibility
that Word 2008 is inappropriately reading in the
shape's attributes, including the user's added bezier
points on load. Of course, there's not much we can do
about it without a fix from the developers, but at
least the problem will be better identified.

I suspect it's more likely that Word has lost the vector component entirely
in its muddle, and can only find the raster version. This would be a
regression of a bug we've had before...

Cheers

--

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]

 

[Jeff Chapman]

Hello there, John,

I suspect it's more likely that Word has lost the vector component entirely
in its muddle, and can only find the raster version. This would be a
regression of a bug we've had before...

Wha, wha... do you mean that Word is showing us the
RASTER version of a shape we've customized?
Hmmm... well, before you see anything on a screen
display, it eventually has to be converted into rasters,
true. But if the shape was really converted to rasters
by Word on save in .docx format, we would see some
graininess when magnifying the shape, no?

Would be interesting to see what the Office Open XML
format specs have to say about saving custom bezier points
(you mentioned "Escher"?) in a shape, and whether
Word 2008 is obeying that directive or not.

Jeff

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Jeff:

You should open the .docx and have a look to see what is really in there.

Word has a long history of flakiness with complex graphics.

My understanding is that each drawn picture has at least three components: a
vector component, an two flavours of raster. I think it is supposed to have
one in XML, one in PICT and one in PNG.

If it loses one or more of the versions, you get these entertainment
episodes.

Chances are, if it has lost the XML but found the PICT, you would not see
pixelation.

But I really don't know: over the past few years, I have found that these
issues are not worth chasing, because you can't repair them, or make it work
right. My standard suggestion is "buy a real graphics application and go do
the job properly"

It would be nice to get this stuff fixed. The graphics in Office 2003 were
surprisingly capable: to the point where I used them for a major project.
Then they started with all this squeezy graphics nonsense, and it all went
pear-shaped again.

Cheers

Hello there, John,



Wha, wha... do you mean that Word is showing us the
RASTER version of a shape we've customized?
Hmmm... well, before you see anything on a screen
display, it eventually has to be converted into rasters,
true. But if the shape was really converted to rasters
by Word on save in .docx format, we would see some
graininess when magnifying the shape, no?

Would be interesting to see what the Office Open XML
format specs have to say about saving custom bezier points
(you mentioned "Escher"?) in a shape, and whether
Word 2008 is obeying that directive or not.

Jeff

--

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]

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hello,

Indeed - the Mactopia site doesn't offer a feature to send a
bug report. It's either send feedback (and pray that the "feedback"
will be noticed, logged and investigated as a "bug"), or else
file a support incident with Microsoft (again, there are some
difficulties here as well - they certainly don't make it easy.
You'll need your product ID number and possibly a Windows Live
account, and the web site itself isn't exactly the most user-
friendly thing in the world).

I've sent a bug report to Microsoft via the Send Feedback feature on this
as follows:

[BUG REPORT]
The following procedure fails in Word 2008.

PROBLEM: Word 2008's "Edit Points" command fails to work on custom-made
shapes after document is saved and reopened.

1. Open a Word 2008 document.
2. Use the Curve tool on the Drawing toolbar to draw a shape.
3. Do a right-click on the shape to Edit Points.
4. Save the document to the desktop in .docx format.
5. Close and restart Word.
6. Open the document in step 4.
7. Do a right-click (Control+Click) on the shape. The Edit Points command is
missing from the context menu, and the shape cannot be edited.

I'm using Word 2008 12.2.1, Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8, MacBook Pro 2.8 GHz
Intel Core Duo 2 with 4 GB RAM.

Jeff Chapman

Hi,

I can confirm the misbehavior here on an iMac in Snow Leopard. Use the
Help menu and send feedback to Microsoft to alert them to the problem.

Hi Jeff,

The feedback from the MacTopia web site is here:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/contactus.mspx

You don't have to pray that the feedback will get noticed. The feedback,
whether from the web site or from within the Help menu of the
applications, is directed toward the appropriate people - usually
product managers. It all gets read one way or another. Bugs are entered
into the bug database so that they can be addressed as appropriate.
Actual, real, live (generally really great) people read all that stuff.

As far as this particular drawing problem is concerned, I wondered if
Mac Word inherited the problem from Windows Word. I tried to reproduce
the problem in Word 2010 in Windows 7, but the problem is not evident
there. If the trouble came from Windows Word it's already been fixed, at
least for the next version of Word.

I also copied the uneditable line drawing from Word 2008 and pasted it
into PowerPoint 2008. In PowerPoint I can edit points. When I copy from
PowerPoint 2008 and paste it back into Word 2008, I can't edit points.
So if you're experiencing the problem in Word and you want to edit
points, edit > cut the line from Word and paste it into PowerPoint where
you can edit the points. When done editing, cut or copy line again and
paste it back into Word. Certainly, this is not ideal, but it is a
workaround until the problem gets fixed.

I think it's a real bug, so if it affects you, be sure to use Word's
Help menu and send that feedback to Microsoft. One of the ways bugs get
put higher into the "it's gotta get fixed right away" queue is if a lot
of people are reporting the same bug.

-Jim

 

[Jeff Chapman]

Hi John,

My understanding is that each drawn picture has at least three components: a
vector component, an two flavours of raster. I think it is supposed to have
one in XML, one in PICT and one in PNG.

If it loses one or more of the versions, you get these entertainment
episodes.

You really cracked me up with that "entertainment episodes" bit!
Entertainment, indeed... Keep us laughin', John!

Jeff

 

[Jeff Chapman]

Hello Jim,

I also copied the uneditable line drawing from Word 2008 and pasted it
into PowerPoint 2008. In PowerPoint I can edit points. When I copy from
PowerPoint 2008 and paste it back into Word 2008, I can't edit points.
So if you're experiencing the problem in Word and you want to edit
points, edit > cut the line from Word and paste it into PowerPoint where
you can edit the points. When done editing, cut or copy line again and
paste it back into Word. Certainly, this is not ideal, but it is a
workaround until the problem gets fixed.

Interesting - the PowerPoint-Word one-two combination-kick-and-
punch saves the day, eh. Partners in crime, these two apps are!

Still, you'd think that both Word and PowerPoint would use the
same graphics engine to render the vector points of the shapes, hm.

Jeff

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Jeff;

Still, you'd think that both Word and PowerPoint would use the
same graphics engine to render the vector points of the shapes, hm.

Actually, they do use the same graphics engine... It's just that they
implement different aspects of it based the nature of the application as
well as the structure of the file format ‹ and Word isn't intended for
graphics design.

This is not at all unusual or unique to Office 2008. One example from
previous versions [both Mac & PC] is the ability to rotate shapes containing
text. You can create the same shapes with the same text & formatting in
Excel, Word & PPT & you can rotate the shapes in all 3 as well... But in
Excel & PPT the text rotates with the shape whereas in Word it doesn't.

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