Need Help From Word Experts

[anon k]

I haven't experimented with Adobe. Adobe is known for not being well behaved
when using with Word.

I've had no problem at all from Distiller when making pdfs from Word,
including extensive graphics and footnotes. The pdfs are unnecessarily
large, however, especially when graphics are involved. The same
document treated with LaTeX -> dvips -> pdf can comes out as much as two
thirds smaller. I suspect that this is at least partly because I use
eps graphics in LaTeX but png in most other software (including Word).

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I still think the "phony styles" you're seeing in Word are just formatting.
Have you tried clearing the check box for "Keep track of formatting" on the
Edit tab of Tools | Options?

jon_banquer wrote:
[..]

"There are, however, empty paragraphs every other page (well, I didn't
look too far into the document, to be honest) -- that's something which
is a no-no in any long document."

Only time I do that is to get the manual page breaks I put in to be the
lowest thing on the page.

Don't use manual page breaks. If you want to force a paragraph unto a
new page, set its paragraph property (Format | Paragraph in the 2nd tab:
"Page break before").

Also I do it this on the top of each page in
case I need to do further editing as this at one point seemed to help
me.

OK, if you take an empty paragraph that you still need to insert
something in there, that's fine. While you are at that stage of the
document, you should not at all think about final pagination, though
(and not about whether a certain paragraph should have more or less
spacing before/after).

Since you did take the time to download my document but have not looked
through it maybe you can look through it and see why I chose to /
needed to have the same Heading with different spaces before and

after.

I have looked "through" it, but it still escapes me why you would _want_
to have differently spaced heading 2 styles. Nothing in there will tell
me that, only you can.

I gotta tell you that even though I just started using Open Office
Writer I'm not having these problems in Open Office Writer !

Makes me wonder why. :>)

Maybe it suits your way of working better. Word's styles, esp. when it
comes to heading/numbering styles, have a somewhat steep learning curve.

Also the documentation that is written by their volunteers is just
excellent. Way better than what MS provides with Word !

Well, you just have to check out the documentation by the MS volunteers,
too! ;-)

In any case more specifics on what I should change after you have
looked through the rest of my document would be very helpful.

I suggest you take a look through all the answers in this thread again,
carefully, and read up on referenced material. And answer questions by
those who try to help you. [But don't expect anyone on the Usenet to do
your work for you ... ]

HTH
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MS
\ / | MVP
X Against HTML | for
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word

Hi Robert,

"Don't use manual page breaks. If you want to force a paragraph unto a
new page, set its paragraph property (Format | Paragraph in the 2nd
tab: "Page break before")."

Okay. This is how I'm now creating manual page breaks using Open Office
Writer. I have decided to port what I have done in MS Word to Open
Office Writer which so far does *exactly what I want* with Styles and
with Headings. I am not having the problems with Headings or Styles in
Open Office Writer that I was having with MS Word. I can name the
Headings whatever I want and how I want. I also don't have phony Styles
appearing like I did with MS Word. The Open Office program
documentation written by people like Jean Weber is superior in IMO to
what I consider to be the crap that is provided with MS Word or in any
of the Word books I have seen. Here is a link for anyone who wants to
see what I believe quality documentation looks like:

http://oooauthors.org/en/authors/userguide2/published/copy_of_index_html

"I have looked "through" it, but it still escapes me why you would
_want_ to have differently spaced heading 2 styles. Nothing in there
will tell me that, only you can. "

Okay. Fair enough. One reason is that I often have Headings that follow
each other with no text after then and I want space between the
Headings. The minute I try and create say several types of Heading 2
Styles, MS Word starts to break my chops. Open Office Writer doesn't.
What would you do if you sometimes needed a Heading 2 Style with say 6
after and sometimes you didn't? Another example would be following a
table where I need the Heading to have 6 pts before so there is space
between the table and the Heading. What do you do in this case? Do you
create a table that has phony space so that the text has separation
from the table?

"Well, you just have to check out the documentation by the MS
volunteers, too! ;-)"

Nothing on the sites that have been posted deal with MS World creating
phony styles that I can't get rid of... well one sort of does but the
technique does not work to get rid of the phony styles that MS Word had
created in my document! Nothing on these sites deals with why MS Word
gives me so much grief with Heading Styles where Open Office Writer has
no problem with what I want to do with Headings. So far Open Office
Writer does not break my chops on how I name a Style and so far Open
Office Writer has not renamed any of my Styles. :>)

At present I feel that MS Word has unneeded restrictions on Headings
and Styles that Open Office Writer does not have. For me MS Word does a
very poor job with giving the user real control and a easy way to deal
with Headings and Styles.

"Maybe it suits your way of working better. Word's styles, esp. when it
comes to heading/numbering styles, have a somewhat steep learning
curve."

What has been posted sound like elaborate work arounds that are not
required in Open Office Writer.

I have made a good deal of changes in my document based on a book that
I have been reading authored by Robin Williams. I have reduced the size
of my body text to 10.5 points and changed to a serif font for the
body. I reduced the size of the font used for my Headings and changed
from Arial to Bitstream and made the Headings blue instead of black. I
have made even greater use of tables for data and have given them a
blue border with light gray cell lines. I'm trying hard to open things
up and give this very long document a lighter feel that makes it more
enjoyable to look at and easier to read.

Jon Banquer
Phoenix, Arizona

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

I've had no problem at all from Distiller when making pdfs from Word,
including extensive graphics and footnotes. The pdfs are unnecessarily
large, however, especially when graphics are involved.

Then change Distiller's joboptions.

Greetings
Robert

 

[anon k]

Then change Distiller's joboptions.

My experience is that Ghostscript tends to produce more compact pdf
files, even for text-only documents. Fiddling with Distiller's
joboptions doesn't seem to bring the bulk down to the same level.

 

[jon_banquer]

I still think the "phony styles" you're seeing in Word are just formatting.
Have you tried clearing the check box for "Keep track of formatting" on the
Edit tab of Tools | Options?

Suzanne,

You are correct. Unchecking the check box for Keep Track Of Formatting
removed them.

Thanks. :>)

I have to be honest, I like Open Office Writer so much better than I'm
just Writer at the moment to finish the big file I uploaded. I'm about
20 percent done. I've had zero problems so far with Open Office Writer
and greatly prefer it. Writer is very logical and is very stable. One
thing I especially like are Writers Frames which allow me to control
space above and below the extensive bitmaps I'm using.

Curious to know how you control spacing above and beyond a Word Table ?
The only way I can see to do it is by controlling the text around the
Word Table.

Jon Banquer
Phoenix, Arizona

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Although it has been suggested (to MS) that some other method be introduced,
at present the only way to add space above or below a *bordered* table is to
add it to the paragraphs above and below. For unbordered tables, it can be
added to the top and bottom rows.

 

[jon_banquer]

Although it has been suggested (to MS) that some other method be introduced,
at present the only way to add space above or below a *bordered* table is to
add it to the paragraphs above and below. For unbordered tables, it can be
added to the top and bottom rows.

That's what I thought.

For me working in Open Office Writer with it's concept of Frames is so
much easier then what Word offers. In general I find Open Office Writer
to be a much better thought out program then what MS Word is.

It seems to me that to get many things done in MS Word require work
arounds and kluges that are not necessary in Open Office Writer.

I appreciate your input. Thanks again.

Jon Banquer
Phoenix, Arizona