J
John Lockwood
Today I was asked by a user (again) to help with PowerPoint as it was
crashing repeatedly (nothing new about that, can you tell I am getting
cynical in my old age?).
The situation is a PowerPoint file containing just three slides (although I
suspect one slide would have been enough to cause the problem).
The user wanted to copy a graphic from the first slide (which consisted
solely of the graphic), and paste it in to Adobe InDesign.
The graphic had been created totally within PowerPoint and consisted of
boxes, circles, arrows, text and the boxes etc. had been filled with
different colours. Hardly a complex graphic!
One could copy the graphic to the clipboard but EVERY SINGLE TIME one tried
to paste it in to a none Microsoft program first PowerPoint v.X would crash
and then the other program (e.g. InDesign). Reboots, throwing away all
Office preferences, logging in as a different user, all made no difference.
I was further able to reproduce this with MS Word, if I did a paste special
in Word as Picture this would produce the same crash, even trying to view
the clipboard in the Finder also produced the same crash.
The common factor, is that all the above involve the computer asking
PowerPoint to convert the graphic to a QuickDraw object (i.e. a PICT).
Even copying the graphic to the clipboard, creating a new empty PowerPoint
file, and trying to paste special as Picture (not Microsoft Office Drawing
Object) would cause the same crash!
Note: this problem is very common in PowerPoint v.X.
Now, the user will be pleased to hear I managed to devise a workaround (two
in fact), but first I would like to vent my spleen.
I am increasingly sick and tired of the appallingly bad quality (in terms of
reliability) of Microsoft Office (for Mac). This covers Word, Excel and of
course PowerPoint. Interestingly it does not cover Entourage which IS
reliable.
I have been a Mac owner and user since 1984, and was first an Apple II owner
user from 1979. As an IT Manager of many years experience I also have
considerable experience of Windows (and Unix).
I much prefer using Macs and have to be dragged kicking and screaming to use
a Windows machine.
Nethertheless, it is an absolute fact that the Mac version of Office (v.x
AND 2004) is far, FAR less reliable than the Windows versions.
Statements from Microsoft MVPs in this group and others about how good
Office is on the Mac ring increasingly hollow and merely rub salt in to the
wounds in the face of copious evidence to the contrary. In fact such (false)
claims echo equally false claims from Microsoft Marketing in the past about
how the new XYZ version brings the Mac version up to and exceeds the windows
version. As an example, you still can't use .PST files on a Mac (despite
LOTS AND LOTS of user requests), and you still can't do right-to-left text
(despite the Israeli government no less giving Microsoft a bashing over the
issue).
I have read postings saying that
Office/Word/PowerPoint/Excel preferences can become corrupt and cause
problems
Corrupt fonts can cause problems
Corrupt templates can cause problems
Corrupt documents can cause problems
Corrupt Font Menu cache can cause problems
Fast save can cause problems,
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
And this is for Word, a Word Processor for God's sake!
No other program(s) on the Mac have as many reliability issues as Office.
This is despite that fact that Office is undoubtedly the single most
frequently used application on the Mac (I deleted the word popular as that
would not be true).
Now I personally, do not have as many of these problems as a) I do not use
Office as much as other users, and b) thanks to years of battling with
Office automatically avoid many of its problems.
For those interested, the two workarounds are :-
1. Save the presentation as a scrapbook file. Then open in the Scrapbook
Desk Accessory (under Classic), then copy to the clipboard and paste in to
whatever program you want WITHOUT CRASHES.
2. Print the slide you want in PowerPoint and save as a PDF (not sending to
the printer).
Both the above will preserve the graphic as line are (i.e. resolution
independent) rather than it ending up as a bitmap.
crashing repeatedly (nothing new about that, can you tell I am getting
cynical in my old age?).
The situation is a PowerPoint file containing just three slides (although I
suspect one slide would have been enough to cause the problem).
The user wanted to copy a graphic from the first slide (which consisted
solely of the graphic), and paste it in to Adobe InDesign.
The graphic had been created totally within PowerPoint and consisted of
boxes, circles, arrows, text and the boxes etc. had been filled with
different colours. Hardly a complex graphic!
One could copy the graphic to the clipboard but EVERY SINGLE TIME one tried
to paste it in to a none Microsoft program first PowerPoint v.X would crash
and then the other program (e.g. InDesign). Reboots, throwing away all
Office preferences, logging in as a different user, all made no difference.
I was further able to reproduce this with MS Word, if I did a paste special
in Word as Picture this would produce the same crash, even trying to view
the clipboard in the Finder also produced the same crash.
The common factor, is that all the above involve the computer asking
PowerPoint to convert the graphic to a QuickDraw object (i.e. a PICT).
Even copying the graphic to the clipboard, creating a new empty PowerPoint
file, and trying to paste special as Picture (not Microsoft Office Drawing
Object) would cause the same crash!
Note: this problem is very common in PowerPoint v.X.
Now, the user will be pleased to hear I managed to devise a workaround (two
in fact), but first I would like to vent my spleen.
I am increasingly sick and tired of the appallingly bad quality (in terms of
reliability) of Microsoft Office (for Mac). This covers Word, Excel and of
course PowerPoint. Interestingly it does not cover Entourage which IS
reliable.
I have been a Mac owner and user since 1984, and was first an Apple II owner
user from 1979. As an IT Manager of many years experience I also have
considerable experience of Windows (and Unix).
I much prefer using Macs and have to be dragged kicking and screaming to use
a Windows machine.
Nethertheless, it is an absolute fact that the Mac version of Office (v.x
AND 2004) is far, FAR less reliable than the Windows versions.
Statements from Microsoft MVPs in this group and others about how good
Office is on the Mac ring increasingly hollow and merely rub salt in to the
wounds in the face of copious evidence to the contrary. In fact such (false)
claims echo equally false claims from Microsoft Marketing in the past about
how the new XYZ version brings the Mac version up to and exceeds the windows
version. As an example, you still can't use .PST files on a Mac (despite
LOTS AND LOTS of user requests), and you still can't do right-to-left text
(despite the Israeli government no less giving Microsoft a bashing over the
issue).
I have read postings saying that
Office/Word/PowerPoint/Excel preferences can become corrupt and cause
problems
Corrupt fonts can cause problems
Corrupt templates can cause problems
Corrupt documents can cause problems
Corrupt Font Menu cache can cause problems
Fast save can cause problems,
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
And this is for Word, a Word Processor for God's sake!
No other program(s) on the Mac have as many reliability issues as Office.
This is despite that fact that Office is undoubtedly the single most
frequently used application on the Mac (I deleted the word popular as that
would not be true).
Now I personally, do not have as many of these problems as a) I do not use
Office as much as other users, and b) thanks to years of battling with
Office automatically avoid many of its problems.
For those interested, the two workarounds are :-
1. Save the presentation as a scrapbook file. Then open in the Scrapbook
Desk Accessory (under Classic), then copy to the clipboard and paste in to
whatever program you want WITHOUT CRASHES.
2. Print the slide you want in PowerPoint and save as a PDF (not sending to
the printer).
Both the above will preserve the graphic as line are (i.e. resolution
independent) rather than it ending up as a bitmap.