Margins

[Kath]

Hi,

I am running Word 2001 with OS 9 on a beige Macintosh G3 at my home
office.

I have set margins on a Word document that needs to look professional.
However, I have learned that after e-mailing the document to others, my
margin settings are lost, and my initially professional document thus
looks like a mess once they print it!

Does a method exist in which I could preserve my margin settings so
that no matter what computer I send it to - PC or Mac - my margin
settings will be saved within my document?

If such a method does not exist for the work environment described
above, my second choice would be to try it at school. My college is
running Office 2004 with the Tiger OS. Does this version of Word have
such a feature?

I look forward to your response. Thanks!

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Kath-

The problem is probably not Word or version specific, but more likely
the manner in which it is being handled via email.

Make sure that you are saving it as a Word document and sending it as
an _attachment_ to an email message rather than as message content.
Also, if your email software has a setting for "Windows friendly"
attachments be sure to use it (although it shouldn't make much
difference as PCWord since Office 97 & MacWord since version 6 use the
same file formats).

Also, try to make sure that the recipients are handling the attachment
correctly... saving it as a Word doc & working with the saved copy
rather than working from the attachment, itself, and/or saving it in
some other format.

HTH |:>)

 

[CyberTaz]

PS- For more 'in-depth' info on a closely related subject you might
want to review the llast few posts in the following thread:

http://groups.google.com/group/micr...09/c4f8d3726d492b67?lnk=raot#c4f8d3726d492b67

Regard |:>)

 

[CyberTaz]

PS- For more 'in-depth' info on a closely related subject you might
want to review the llast few posts in the following thread:

http://groups.google.com/group/micr...09/c4f8d3726d492b67?lnk=raot#c4f8d3726d492b67

Regards |:>)

 

[Kath]

PS- For more 'in-depth' info on a closely related subject you might
want to review the llast few posts in the following thread:

http://groups.google.com/group/micr...09/c4f8d3726d492b67?lnk=raot#c4f8d3726d492b67

Regards |:>)

Thanks, Guys! You're the best!

However, since I have found that most people aren't very good
listeners, I will be shying away keeping the files in Word and
subsequently giving instructions. Instead, I will make the Word files
into PDFs before sending, since I just discovered that the margins stay
in tact when making them into PDFs.

Take care and thanks again.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

However, since I have found that most people aren't very good
listeners, I will be shying away keeping the files in Word and
subsequently giving instructions. Instead, I will make the Word files
into PDFs before sending, since I just discovered that the margins stay
in tact when making them into PDFs.

Take care and thanks again.

PDFs is an *excellent* solution--but I'm just curious--what types of margins
are these?

If the margins were set in Format | Document, there is no way they should
change on another machine (unless as CyberTaz said, you were sending as HTML
instead of as an attachment).

If the margins were set by using Format | Paragraph and changing the
indents, then you might have run into the problem explained here.

http://shaunakelly.com/word/sharing/WillMyFormatChange.html

 

[Clive Huggan]

PDFs is an *excellent* solution--but I'm just curious--what types of margins
are these?

If the margins were set in Format | Document, there is no way they should
change on another machine (unless as CyberTaz said, you were sending as HTML
instead of as an attachment).

If the margins were set by using Format | Paragraph and changing the
indents, then you might have run into the problem explained here.

http://shaunakelly.com/word/sharing/WillMyFormatChange.html

Kath,

Separately from the present line of discussion:

I also noticed your comment "my initially professional document thus
looks like a mess once they print it". Could this mean you have page breaks
in the document? Or maybe you're referring to something like headings
appearing on the bottom line of a page on the other party's computer.
Phenomena such as these, and easy work-arounds, are discussed in Appendix A:
"Minimum maintenance formatting" in some notes on the way I use Word for the
Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will", which are available as a free
download from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/Bend/BendWord.htm).

[Note: The document is designed to be used electronically and most subjects
are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you read elsewhere in the
document, be sure to read the front end so you can use the document to best
advantage and select the right settings for reading it.]

The overall cause is that Word has no concept of a "page" (for good reasons,
but we won't go into that) and even the most minor differences in the
working environment, such as printing from a different printer albeit from
your computer, may just be enough to push the pagination along.

But without a doubt, supplying a PDF for people to print is the better
option if they do not need to work on the electronic Word doc.
Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is at least 7 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
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[Helpful Harry]

Thanks, Guys! You're the best!

However, since I have found that most people aren't very good
listeners, I will be shying away keeping the files in Word and
subsequently giving instructions. Instead, I will make the Word files
into PDFs before sending, since I just discovered that the margins stay
in tact when making them into PDFs.

Take care and thanks again.

It's not likely the margins that are changing, but the page size
probably is. Most printer software defaults to US Letter, so if you've
set your document to A4 and send it to someone else with different
printer or printer software, it then gets reset back to US Letter.

This isn't a Word problem, but happens in any document type that is
moved between computers (assuming the document type uses a page size of
course). It's due to a total lack of consistency and standardisation
between printer software. (

It could also be a difference between the font definitions and display
handling on the Mac and Windows causing some lines of text to be
reflowed.

The other problem when designing documents in Word is that the other
person may well have their preferences set up differently, so the nice,
clean looking document on your computer may well turn up on theirs with
lots of green underlining (where Word thinks the grammar is wrong), red
underlining (where it thinks the spelling is wrong), text borders
displayed, etc.

PDF is a better idea, but may not be a great solution either since
Windows computers don't often ship with the Acrobat Reader installed so
the other person may well have to download and install that before they
can read the document. \








Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

 

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

Hi Kath:

You may have misunderstood the suggestions the other posters were making.

A Word document saves your margins as an essential part of its internal
structure If you send a Word document, your margins will remain intact.

You have been sending an HTML document! (A web page...) HTML has no
"margins" and no "pages" either. So yes, you would lose your margins in
that format.

If you save your document in Word, then attach the document to your email,
your users will get the margins. However, Word will also be able to adjust
the document so that it prints out correctly on the paper size loaded in
their printer.

If you send the document as a PDF, it will print correctly only on the paper
size you made it for. If you make it for A4 and send it to the USA, users
with only letter-sized paper may get the footer chopped off. If you make it
for letter, the rest of the world may get the sides chopped off.

If you MUST use PDF, I recommend that you set the document for A4 paper, but
set a bottom margin of three centimetres. That way, the A4 user will get a
big footer and the Letter user will get wide margins but both of them will
print the whole page

Cheers

Thanks, Guys! You're the best!

However, since I have found that most people aren't very good
listeners, I will be shying away keeping the files in Word and
subsequently giving instructions. Instead, I will make the Word files
into PDFs before sending, since I just discovered that the margins stay
in tact when making them into PDFs.

Take care and thanks again.

--

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

 

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

Hi Harry:

It's great to see someone raising these issues

However, I think in this circumstance, we may be over-stating the case a
little, in terms of the application to Kath's original problem.

It's not likely the margins that are changing, but the page size
probably is. Most printer software defaults to US Letter, so if you've
set your document to A4 and send it to someone else with different
printer or printer software, it then gets reset back to US Letter.

I think this would be better expressed as "Most printers are loaded with A4
paper. In one of the world's 180 countries, that's not the case. In that
country, the USA, most printers are loaded with Letter paper, which is wider
and shorter than A4."

The printer software will default to the size of paper actually loaded in
the printer.

If the user attempts to print a Word document that has been set for a paper
size that is not loaded in the printer, the printer will stop and ask the
user what to do. The user can either instruct the printer to go ahead and
print the document on the paper available, or they can cancel printing and
reformat the document for the correct paper size.

It could also be a difference between the font definitions and display
handling on the Mac and Windows causing some lines of text to be
reflowed.

Here, I think we're under-stating the case I would prefer to say that
as "Documents will render slightly differently on each computer, depending
upon the operating system, fonts available and printer model installed. If
the document is correctly set up, the differences will be unnoticeable. If
the document has been badly formatted, using hard page breaks and spaces to
make things fit, it will collapse on one or other of the platforms.

The other problem when designing documents in Word is that the other
person may well have their preferences set up differently, so the nice,
clean looking document on your computer may well turn up on theirs with
lots of green underlining (where Word thinks the grammar is wrong), red
underlining (where it thinks the spelling is wrong), text borders
displayed, etc.

Well, yes, but it won't print that way. As documentation professionals, we
should make every effort to control what the user sees on paper. That's our
job, and users expect us to do that. However, we should also make no
attempt to control what the user sees on screen. That's NOT our job, and
the user does not give us "permission" to do that No matter what I do
to my document, YOU have the perfect right and ability to control how it
appears on your screen. I have no right to try to interfere with that, any
more than I do to tell you what colour to paint your house

PDF is a better idea, but may not be a great solution either since
Windows computers don't often ship with the Acrobat Reader installed so
the other person may well have to download and install that before they
can read the document. \

I don't believe that's valid any more. Almost EVERY Windows computer you
see will have Adobe Reader installed these days. If it doesn't, Windows
will automatically go and get it when the user attempts to open a PDF.

However, PDF is not necessarily a *better* idea If you wish to allow
your readers only to read and print the document, it's fine. But it
prevents them from doing anything else with it. Most users would want to
re-use "part" of a document they get sent in documents they make: with PDF,
that's almost impossible, so that class of user gets very annoyed by PDFs...

Notice that I did not anywhere say that I thought Harry was "wrong"? I
don't believe that he is wrong: I just don't share his concern that what he
says applies in this particular case

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 4 1209 1410

 

[Helpful Harry]

Hi Harry:

It's great to see someone raising these issues

However, I think in this circumstance, we may be over-stating the case a
little, in terms of the application to Kath's original problem.

It's not likely the margins that are changing, but the page size
probably is. Most printer software defaults to US Letter, so if you've
set your document to A4 and send it to someone else with different
printer or printer software, it then gets reset back to US Letter.

I think this would be better expressed as "Most printers are loaded with A4
paper. In one of the world's 180 countries, that's not the case. In that
country, the USA, most printers are loaded with Letter paper, which is wider
and shorter than A4."

The printer software will default to the size of paper actually loaded in
the printer.

Actually that's not true. All printers I deal with are loaded with A4
paper, but the printer drivers all default to US Letter.

Unfortunately the default paper size is hardcoded into the driver
software when you install it, and it's always US Letter ... although
some printer software will ask the user to set a default when being
installed or can be changed with preference settings, but many users
don't bother doing this.

Almost all printer drivers do not check the size of the paper in the
printer, and in fact most printers can't do that since the "paper size"
is only set using a sliding plastic side holder and perhaps a bottom
holder - there's no electronics attached to them.

Here, I think we're under-stating the case I would prefer to say that
as "Documents will render slightly differently on each computer, depending
upon the operating system, fonts available and printer model installed. If
the document is correctly set up, the differences will be unnoticeable. If
the document has been badly formatted, using hard page breaks and spaces to
make things fit, it will collapse on one or other of the platforms.

Depending on the font, they can have slightly different deifnitions and
the OSes have different ways of handling the display of fonts, so they
can (and do) shift slightly. There's nothing the user can do or has
done that creates this problem ... although using spaces instead of
tabs to align text is often the most obvious sign.

Well, yes, but it won't print that way. As documentation professionals, we
should make every effort to control what the user sees on paper. That's our
job, and users expect us to do that. However, we should also make no
attempt to control what the user sees on screen. That's NOT our job, and
the user does not give us "permission" to do that No matter what I do
to my document, YOU have the perfect right and ability to control how it
appears on your screen. I have no right to try to interfere with that, any
more than I do to tell you what colour to paint your house

True to a certain extent, but it makes doing website work, for example,
an UTTER pain in the "sit-upon". Users can set their browsers the
change text size (for example) which destroys a carefully designed
layout of a webpage.

It's also highly annoying when you've created your résumé to look
"perfect" on your screen, only to show up full of underlined "spelling
mistakes" on someone else's screen because they're using a different
dictionary or with lots of textbox borders simply because they've got
the preferences set differently. \

PageMaker gets around this problem by saving some (maybe even all) of
the preferences with the document. This means the document opens
exactly as you set it and the paper size is the same (at least until it
reaches whatever the the printer is set to use) ... although font
problems can still cause reflow.

I don't believe that's valid any more. Almost EVERY Windows computer you
see will have Adobe Reader installed these days. If it doesn't, Windows
will automatically go and get it when the user attempts to open a PDF.

Nope (although that may well be true in the US).

Someone I work with bought a brand new PC laptop (the fool!) only a few
months ago and it still didn't have Acrobat Reader installed and came
with Works instead of Word.

However, PDF is not necessarily a *better* idea If you wish to allow
your readers only to read and print the document, it's fine. But it
prevents them from doing anything else with it. Most users would want to
re-use "part" of a document they get sent in documents they make: with PDF,
that's almost impossible, so that class of user gets very annoyed by PDFs...

The reusability of a PDF document depends on how you set the security
options, although for an complicated layout design you would need
something like Illustrator or InDesign to be able to get the PDF
editable. Otherwise you can easily copy text and images out of a PDF,
even with just Acrobat Reader.

Notice that I did not anywhere say that I thought Harry was "wrong"? I
don't believe that he is wrong: I just don't share his concern that what he
says applies in this particular case

They were just all ideas as to why "margins" appear to change and also
why moving documents between computers (even using the same OS) is
often a painful experience. (






Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

 

[Helpful Harry]

There is another problem that I'd forgotten about. On the HP laser
printer at one place I work, Word REFUSES to believe that the page is
A4. Even though Page Setup says it is A4 and the margins are set
appropriately (and every other application prints fine), the pages
ALWAYS comes out leaving a 1inch or more gap at the bottom. The
workaround is to set the bottom margin to 0inches and then it will
print down to a more normal gap at the bottom. This happens in both Mac
OS 9 and Mac OS X, and with various versions of Word / Office. \

Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

 

[Kath]

Hi, all --

I got wrapped up in other issues and thought that I already came to my
final conclusion on this topic. I revisited this topic just to get a
print-out. What did I find? A bunch of wonderful folks with more input!
You are truly the best. I just skimmed your replies for now, but I will
actually investigate them soon.

I lean more toward thinking that my version of the Times New Roman font
on my Mac is different than the same font on the PCs to which I am
sending my document. Although I have now learned that margins settings
and font attributes for my document match on my Mac with a PC at a
computer lab that I frequent, the Times New Roman font on a PC appears
larger than that on my Mac! Back in my graphic-design days, I remember
learning about different versions of the same font causing
inconsistency.

Since the PDFs I have been creating are résumés with security settings,
I like the idea that no one can change anything. However, some of the
folks I am sending it to are employment agencies that cannot accept
PDFs. Thus, I have been playing around with the Insert>Object command
to try to insert a PDF into a Word document, so I could have the best
of both worlds.

I have a new post titled Insert>Object, since I have been running into
problems on that front as well. Thanks again.

 

[Kath]

Hi, John --

I have not been sending a Web page. As I had mentioned in my last post,
the margin problem that I originally thought had existed was not a
margin problem at all but rather a font problem. That's why in my
art-director and graphic-designer days, print managers to whom
designers sent files insisted that they send even the most popular
fonts, for even if they have the same name, they can be different!

Thanks so much for the PDF suggestions. I haven't been looking at such
issues while creating PDFs, but even though the recipients I have sent
them to thus far have had no problems, I should follow your lead!

Thanks again.

 

[Helpful Harry]

Since the PDFs I have been creating are résumés with security settings,
I like the idea that no one can change anything. However, some of the
folks I am sending it to are employment agencies that cannot accept
PDFs. Thus, I have been playing around with the Insert>Object command
to try to insert a PDF into a Word document, so I could have the best
of both worlds.

Personally I probably wouldn't even bother with an employment agency
that can't handle something as simple and near-universal as a PDF ...
and if it was a graphic design employment agency I DEFINITELY wouldn't
bother. )



Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

 

[Kath]

Hi, John --

Sorry. I thought your message was the last in the thread. That's why
later today I was pretty much stating to you that I did not understand
why you were asking your questions and making your statements after I
had sent my message earlier today; I thought you had written today
after my earlier message.

And thanks Harry. And thanks to all!

 

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

Hi Kath:

Yeah, there's always a SNAFU going between Windows and Mac.

Microsoft includes fonts in Microsoft Office to try to overcome the
problems. The fonts Microsoft ships with Microsoft Office on the Mac are
carefully coded to try to render on the Mac as close as possible to an exact
match to how the font of the same name made by (or for...) Microsoft will
render on the PC.

However, there are two different rendering engines in use on each platform:
GDI and GDI+ on the PC, and QuickDraw and ATSUI on the Mac. I challenge
even a graphics designer to spot the difference between the two Windows
engines (I couldn't...) but the difference is noticeable between the two Mac
engines.

Design your documents so the text can reflow slightly without causing
problems

Cheers

Hi, John --

I have not been sending a Web page. As I had mentioned in my last post,
the margin problem that I originally thought had existed was not a
margin problem at all but rather a font problem. That's why in my
art-director and graphic-designer days, print managers to whom
designers sent files insisted that they send even the most popular
fonts, for even if they have the same name, they can be different!

Thanks so much for the PDF suggestions. I haven't been looking at such
issues while creating PDFs, but even though the recipients I have sent
them to thus far have had no problems, I should follow your lead!

Thanks again.

--

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