Office 2004: Word Crash and Powerpoint Moan

[spongebob]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

Hello Folks.

Word Crash:
I have a word Document that was created on a PC in Office 2003 SP3 (Windows XP SP2)
and Im trying to open it in OS X in Word 11.3.8 (070817) under Leopard OS X 10.5.2.

I open it on the Macbook Pro of my colleague that shows the problem:
The document has 20 pages or so and on page 15 or so it has an image on it. I copy and paste the image back to make a copy of the image beside the first one. Then I put the cursor in front of the first image and hit return a few times and, Word CRASHES, without any message whatsoever.
Just says bye bye and theres no reminant of word left on the screen.

The problem is reproducible.
okay I think, lets try the file on MY MacBook Pro, you know, the one that "never has a problem", wit the EXACT same versions OSX and Word.
Result->SAME PROBLEM.
Copied the entire file with copy paste into a new file Result->SAME PROBLEM.
Copied ONLY THAT PAGE with the image into a new file and saved it and tried (the file is now only 1 page long) Result->SAME PROBLEM.

Any ideas anyone PLUS A GENERAL QUESTION:
Is Word 11.3.8 (070817) OFICIALLY SUPPOSED TO BE WORKING under Leopard OS X 10.5.2 ?

And whilst Im posting something that will probably earn me 1000 flames in this forum:
Powerpoint Moan: Why is powerpoint on Mac such a total and utter complete disaster? PC presentations take AGES TO OPEN (no remedy needed I know the problemset and solution) and the compatibility SUCKS BIG TIME for Powerpoint.
Its UNUSABLE for anything containing more than 30-40 slides with images which I dare say most people have often.

Is this deliberate to make the Mac bad at Microsoft? I mean they had years to fix this stuff and they did nothing...If I see the message "converting metadata" one more time instead of hthe mac just simply opening the ppt file like a PC does, in 0.2 seconds; I can no longer tell people confidently "everything on macs works". Because: Powerpoint just DOESNT.

thanks for any help and comments

 

[spongebob]

Update:

its definately go to do with the image. If I remove the image from the file the problem is gone. Paste it back in and just put the cursor in front of the image and hit return, and Word says bye again.

Any clues folks?
Thanks

 

[John McGhie]

You're going to hate me...

My suggestion is "Yeah, don't do that!"

The interior of a Word document is very complex, and not a little fragile.
The interior of an image is extremely complex and makes things worse.

This was the reason for the new file formats that have been introduced with
Office 2007/8. The old binary formats are just too fragile to support all
the modern artefacts they are required to contain these days.

The exact relationship between a picture, its surrounding paragraphs, and
the other artefacts in the document is often just too much for the old file
format.

You have found an instance of that. There are lots. I would not use that
particular method of moving any picture or table, because I know from
experience that Word is "likely" to go bang when you do.

Good Sir! I would never dream of flaming you about PowerPoint! But anyone
who inflicts a presentation containing more than 40 slides on a hapless and
doubtless captive audience has obviously missed their calling. Give the CIA
a ring, they are not allowed to water-board people any more, so they could
use your services

No: Seriously, Microsoft knows that PowerPoint has some issues in 2004. I
have done very little with PowerPoint 2008, but I understand that it is an
improvement.

And KeyNote works really nicely

Cheers

Update:

its definately go to do with the image. If I remove the image from the file
the problem is gone. Paste it back in and just put the cursor in front of the
image and hit return, and Word says bye again.

Any clues folks?
Thanks

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[spongebob]

You're going to hate me...

-- no I wont at all!

My suggestion is "Yeah, don't do that!"

-- okay so what do you suggest I tell the user? This user opens a new word document on the mac. On the Mac she copies images out of a Powerpoint Presentation into the Word document and then everything goes haywire.

Is there a way we could create this document ON MAC and have a workaround?

I mean we dont ask much buhaaahahaaaa (crying with tears everywhere now) all we want is to put some images from powerpoint into word.

Is that asking too much?

How would you do that? Please suggest. We just used copy paste.

The interior of a Word document is very complex, and not a little fragile.
The interior of an image is extremely complex and makes things worse.

This was the reason for the new file formats that have been introduced with
Office 2007/8. The old binary formats are just too fragile to support all
the modern artefacts they are required to contain these days.

The exact relationship between a picture, its surrounding paragraphs, and
the other artefacts in the document is often just too much for the old file
format.

You have found an instance of that. There are lots. I would not use that
particular method of moving any picture or table, because I know from
experience that Word is "likely" to go bang when you do.

-- okay pls tell me which method you would use? Funny, I never had an issue with pictures in Word and I tried with pictures I made with screenshots: no problems there at all. So I wonder what is so damn special about THESE images that cause the crashes. Maybe its because these are slightly hires? 300 dpi. They are not physically huge. Half the A4 page each image.

Currently the user runs a windows emulation on the Mac and uses Powerpoint and Word in there AND IT WORKS FINE. Thats just embarassing for the mac! (but still faster than a PC LOL)

Plus something else.
We copy paste an image in the windows environment from Powerpoint to Word, enlarge it in word to 200% and print. That gives GREAT quality.
Do that in the MAC Versions, using THE SAME DOCUMNETS, copy paste the same image in the MAC environment from Powerpoint to Word, enlarge it in word to 200% and print. Gives VISIBLY WORSE quality (was probably coerced to 72dpi; HOW can I switch that off???).
Finally to make the disaster absolutely perfect:
Open the Powerpoint presentation in KEYNOTE and do the same and the quality is ALSO worse. The Mac Powerpoint and Keynote transform the quality of the images to lower resolution I Imagine but I cant be 100% sure as the options of the image on the mac DONT SHOW the damn resolution. Just Swell!

In all, a total failure for the Mac or more precisely, Microsoft. Terrible.

We now dont know what to do, bar work in the windows emulation which we would rather avoid...can we still do this on a mac?

Please, Ill even save in html format and recycle the documents as firelighters three times if I haveto...but please dont force me into a windows environment because I wanto copy and paste a few pictures yes? please please please? Beg Beg grovel!

Good Sir! I would never dream of flaming you about PowerPoint! But anyone
who inflicts a presentation containing more than 40 slides on a hapless and
doubtless captive audience has obviously missed their calling. Give the CIA
a ring, they are not allowed to water-board people any more, so they could
use your services

-- okay! As a mortal being serving the planet I would normally agree with you, but I dont at all. I deal with researchers who take pictures under Microscopes. AND THAT MEANS: lots of pretty images that are nice and colorful to look at. Our record FOR ONE PRESENTATION is 360 slides (takes 2 hours to open in Powerpoint Mac whooohooo look at it go). Its just not doable on Powerpoint Mac. And I think you will find thats the case in many more industries than we thin

 

[spongebob]

You're going to hate me...

-- no I wont at all!

My suggestion is "Yeah, don't do that!"

-- okay so what do you suggest I tell the user? This user opens a new word document on the mac. On the Mac she copies images out of a Powerpoint Presentation into the Word document and then everything goes haywire.

Is there a way we could create this document ON MAC and have a workaround?

I mean we dont ask much buhaaahahaaaa (crying with tears everywhere now) all we want is to put some images from powerpoint into word.

Is that asking too much?

How would you do that? Please suggest. We just used copy paste.

The interior of a Word document is very complex, and not a little fragile.
The interior of an image is extremely complex and makes things worse.

This was the reason for the new file formats that have been introduced with
Office 2007/8. The old binary formats are just too fragile to support all
the modern artefacts they are required to contain these days.

The exact relationship between a picture, its surrounding paragraphs, and
the other artefacts in the document is often just too much for the old file
format.

You have found an instance of that. There are lots. I would not use that
particular method of moving any picture or table, because I know from
experience that Word is "likely" to go bang when you do.

-- okay pls tell me which method you would use? Funny, I never had an issue with pictures in Word and I tried with pictures I made with screenshots: no problems there at all. So I wonder what is so damn special about THESE images that cause the crashes. Maybe its because these are slightly hires? 300 dpi. They are not physically huge. Half the A4 page each image.

Currently the user runs a windows emulation on the Mac and uses Powerpoint and Word in there AND IT WORKS FINE. Thats just embarassing for the mac! (but still faster than a PC LOL)

Plus something else.
We copy paste an image in the windows environment from Powerpoint to Word, enlarge it in word to 200% and print. That gives GREAT quality.
Do that in the MAC Versions, using THE SAME DOCUMNETS, copy paste the same image in the MAC environment from Powerpoint to Word, enlarge it in word to 200% and print. Gives VISIBLY WORSE quality (was probably coerced to 72dpi; HOW can I switch that off???).
Finally to make the disaster absolutely perfect:
Open the Powerpoint presentation in KEYNOTE and do the same and the quality is ALSO worse. The Mac Powerpoint and Keynote transform the quality of the images to lower resolution I Imagine but I cant be 100% sure as the options of the image on the mac DONT SHOW the damn resolution. Just Swell!

In all, a total failure for the Mac or more precisely, Microsoft. Terrible.

We now dont know what to do, bar work in the windows emulation which we would rather avoid...can we still do this on a mac?

Please, Ill even save in html format and recycle the documents as firelighters three times if I haveto...but please dont force me into a windows environment because I wanto copy and paste a few pictures yes? please please please? Beg Beg grovel!

Good Sir! I would never dream of flaming you about PowerPoint! But anyone
who inflicts a presentation containing more than 40 slides on a hapless and
doubtless captive audience has obviously missed their calling. Give the CIA
a ring, they are not allowed to water-board people any more, so they could
use your services

-- okay! As a mortal being serving the planet I would normally agree with you, but I dont at all. I deal with researchers who take pictures under Microscopes. AND THAT MEANS: lots of pretty images that are nice and colorful to look at. Our record FOR ONE PRESENTATION is 360 slides (takes 2 hours to open in Powerpoint Mac whooohooo look at it go). Its just not doable on Powerpoint Mac. And I think you will find thats the case in many more industries than we thin

 

[spongebob]

LAST PART
-- okay! As a mortal being serving the planet I would normally agree with you, but I dont at all. I deal with researchers who take pictures under Microscopes. AND THAT MEANS: lots of pretty images that are nice and colorful to look at. Our record FOR ONE PRESENTATION is 360 slides (takes 2 hours to open in Powerpoint Mac whooohooo look at it go). Its just not doable on Powerpoint Mac. And I think you will find thats the case in many more industries than we think...usually the world is just 90% full of exceptions.....
And as to the CIA; geez Im sure they have more than 60 Terror suspects by now. Surely anyone not voting for Bush or watching Fox News is a suspect? Thats 60 billion slides right there. So you see....LOL

No: Seriously, Microsoft knows that PowerPoint has some issues in 2004. I
have done very little with PowerPoint 2008, but I understand that it is an
improvement.

And KeyNote works really nicely

-- as stated, no it doesnt. If I open my ppt file in Keynote, Keynote REDUCES the quality of the images. Its awful. Can I avoid that? But you only see that if you zoom in to 150% or 200% and print (laser printer black and white will do for this test). And I have Keynote 08. Do that on the SAME DOCUMENT in Powerpoint PC and you dont have the problem, when printing enlarged the quality is by far better.

If I was a tester, as slick and nice as keynote is, it gets a big fat F for that. PLUS it also converts the ppt file which takes time. Much more time than Powerpoint PC to open a document.

However its Powerpoint for Mac that truly deserves the Golden Turkey Award for "most annoying software ever made".

I dont have gripe with that except but one thing: Microsoft has known this for many many years. Plus they have oooooodles of money and they could have fixed it for the clients. But they dont. Thats purpose. Why? Because, they dont care. That, is my gripe.

Please lemme have your comments, we are eager for them

Much love
Spongebob

 

[spongebob]

Spongebob is a PC and Mac Sysadmin taking care of 40 PCs, 20 Macs, 3 clusters, 11 webservers and a partridge in a pear tree. Qualified IT Specialist with two IT Degrees, 26 years of heterogeneous IT experience.

 

[John McGhie]

And you have a name? We kinda like real names in here: makes us feel like
we're talking to "people". Which is why we do this.

The issue you have with "Pictures" is that Microsoft insists on "converting"
from the PC native formats to the Mac native formats when you copy and paste
between them.

Microsoft assures me this is a good idea. I don't buy it. And it does mean
the thing is both extremely slow, and damned flaky.

To "move" or "Copy" an image, I would "Cut" or "Copy" it, then "Paste" it
where I wanted it. That way, I can be sure that all of the associated code
has moved in one lump. Slightly less crashes...

Similarly, in PPT 2004 you are getting both down-sampling and file format
conversion happening between Windows and PC PPT formats. Again, they should
tell us why this is a good idea, because all I have ever seen is a raft of
compatibility problems. 2008 doesn't down-sample, but it still converts...

If the PowerPoint image contains any drawn artefacts, PPT 2004 converts on
import to PICT. Word doesn't handle PICT well In 2008 it converts to
PDF, which works a lot better. But it won't go back to Windows in editable
form {sigh!}.

You may try saving the images out from PPT Windows as "Files", preferably in
..PNG format. Then "Insert" then on the Mac using Insert>Picture>From
File... .PNG is a native format for both, so there is no conversion
involved. From memory, you have to force PPT Win not to down-sample when it
saves.

As you will know, .PNG performs better than JPEG because while PNG drops
colours to maintain resolution, JPEG drops resolution to maintain colour.
PNG does 24-bit colour, which is all Microsoft applications can handle
anyway, so effectively you lose nothing.

PowerPoint performance in PPT 2004 is treacle-in-winter-slow, and there is
nothing you can do about it. It's not a lot better in PPT 2008.

Lotsa memory will help some. "NOT" having a Windows Virtual Machine running
in the background will help some. But it IS slow.

Seriously, there IS no answer to this problem.

I am afraid I have Word 2007 and Parallels running on this Mac. I can't see
a viable way forward in 2004 or 2008. Oh: Sorry, you begged me not to say
that...

However its Powerpoint for Mac that truly deserves the Golden Turkey Award for
"most annoying software ever made".

Riiight... Don't use Vista, then, I see....

Cheers

Spongebob is a PC and Mac Sysadmin taking care of 40 PCs, 20 Macs, 3 clusters,
11 webservers and a partridge in a pear tree. Qualified IT Specialist with two
IT Degrees, 26 years of heterogeneous IT experience.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]