Reveal Codes

[DJT]

Having used WordPerfect for many years, we are now beginning to use Word. In
WP, there was a feature that allowed you to see all formatting codes called
Reveal Codes. Is there a similar feature in Word? Thanks.

 

[Daddy]

In which version of Word?

For example: In Word 2002/2003 > Format > Reveal Formatting

With fond memories of WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS,

Daddy

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

See http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/RevealCodes.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Bert Coules]

Suzanne,

Thanks for that link. I hadn't realised quite how fundamentally different
Word is from WordPerfect. After many years with latter (I started with 5.0
for DOS) it's small wonder that I'm having trouble getting to grips with the
former.

Bert

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Yes, I've used both, and both have their good and bad points.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Bert Coules]

Yes, I've used both, and both have their good and bad points.

That's a refreshing viewpoint. I've encountered Word users who loathe WP,
and vice versa.

I suppose it's merely because WP came first for me, but I can't deny that
its sequential approach seems more logical. I've wondered about using WP
myself, privately, then converting to Word for emailing files to people who
have only that, but I'm concerned about compatibility and integrity.

Maybe WP converted to PDF is the answer? But I've run into problems
printing Word-PDF files - the recognised printable area seems to shrink, and
the font size with it - so maybe WP docs would suffer the same effect. I
must do some more experimenting.

Bert

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Your printable area shouldn't shrink when printing to PDF; if so, it should
be possible to redefine it in your PDF software. Word conversions from WP
have never been perfect (see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/WordPerfectConverters.htm), and I have the
sense that they are worse than they used to be, perhaps because WP has
diverged even further from Word.

I have always maintained that a preference for Word or WordPerfect depends
on which you started with (your "cradle tongue," as it were), and yet I used
WordStar, XyWrite, and (for quite a long time) WordPerfect before moving to
Word, and I took to Word like a duck to water; it has always seemed more
intuitive to me. Part of that, I'm sure, was that Word was the first Windows
word processor I used, and the GUI made everything easier; WP was slow to
move to a GUI and made a hash of it at first, so it lost the race by being
slow off the starting blocks. It's a shame in some ways, as WP is still
better adapted to some uses, especially in legal offices, but Word is the de
facto standard, and even lawyers have to accept that all their clients will
be using Word, so they have to as well.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Bert Coules]

Your printable area shouldn't shrink when printing to PDF; if so, it
should be possible to redefine it in your PDF software.

I've experimented a fair bit with this, and whatever settings I adopt in my
PDF reader (Adobe Reader 9) the printable area *does* shrink. The
page-by-page formatting remains absolutely spot-on, but the margins (top and
bottom as well as left and right) all increase, with a subsequent reduction
in the font size. I can see no reason for it and it's somewhat baffling.

I took to Word like a duck to water; it has always seemed more intuitive
to me. Part of that, I'm sure, was that Word was the first Windows word
processor I used, and the GUI made everything easier; WP was slow to move
to a GUI and made a hash of it at first...

Ah, that didn't affect me, since I continued to use WP 5.0 for DOS long
after I first (reluctantly) installed Windows for other reasons. I saw no
need to move to a GUI version, partly because the DOS software already did
everything I required, and partly because I was very familiar with it and
didn't want to start learning all over again.

I suspect that how well you take to either program depends at least slightly
on what type of writing you do and how you do it. For me, the linear
approach makes perfect sense: You set up a number of conditions (margins,
font, spacing and all the rest) then enter text until you need to change one
of them. Make the change, then off you go again. Simple, obvious and
logical!

Bert

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I prefer to do the writing or typing first and determine the layout later. I
concentrate first on getting the words right. Word makes this much easier
because you can fiddle with formatting indefinitely and experiment with
style definitions to propagate changes across an entire document.

As for the PDFs, it appears that it is not the printable area that is
shrinking but the print area; are you sure you're printing with "No
scaling"? Could this be a result of printing to a specific printer?

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Bert Coules]

Suzanne,

I prefer to do the writing or typing first and determine the layout later.

Ah, you see, I can't work like that. I have to do content and layout
simultaneously.

As for the PDFs, it appears that it is not the printable area that is
shrinking but the print area...

I think I see what you mean. Certainly, I can print a page from a Word
document and have it come out exactly as I intend; but if I convert it to
PDF (and I've tried several different conversion programs, all with the same
result) then the shrinkage occurs.

...are you sure you're printing with "No scaling"?

Thanks for the thought, but yes, I'm completely sure.

Could this be a result of printing to a specific printer?

Ah, I've no way of checking that, having only the one. Besides which, the
whole point of looking into converting to PDF was so that documents could be
emailed and printed by someone else with the formatting intact: if the
results differ from printer to printer then the approach isn't worth my
pursuing.

Bert

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Agreed that the PDF format should ensure consistency. I can't imagine what's
causing the problem in your case. What application are you using to do the
conversion? You mention Adobe Reader, which suggests you don't have Acrobat.

As for content vs. layout, I do usually have some layout in mind, or the
author whose work I'm typing/typesetting has indicated a layout, but often I
have to tweak the layout many times, and the author may have been wildly
inconsistent in numbering items or assigning heading levels, and that has to
be straightened out. If a document is very complex, I may have to experiment
at some length to get it right. For example, I worked on one book that
included, in addition to the narrative text, long extracts from a diary and
letters and other sources. The long diary extracts included block quotes; if
I indented the extracts themselves, and then further indented the block
quotes within them, the text column (already only 4.75" inches, since this
was an octavo volume) would become undesirably narrow, so I made the
decision to use a different font for the long extracts and indent only the
block quotes within them. For the letters I used Bradley Hand, the best
compromise I could find between a "handwriting" font and legibility. But all
these choices were experimented with and refined over the course of the job,
as I became more familiar with what I was working with.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Bert Coules]

"Suzanne,

What application are you using to do the conversion?

I've tried two: PrimoPDF and PDF Converter. Both give exactly the same
result.

As for content vs. layout, I do usually have some layout in mind, or the
author whose work I'm typing/typesetting has indicated a layout, but often
I have to tweak the layout many times...

As I suspected, your situation is quite different from mine. Ninety percent
of my work is done using just one layout, which is fixed and which I never
change or tweak. The remaining ten percent uses two or three additional
layouts, about which the same thing is true: I never change them.

Bert

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

PrimoPDF is frequently recommended in these NGs, but it's possible that
those who recommend it are just grateful to get any kind of PDF result and
are not being picky about scaling. I do know that Acrobat (for me at least)
seems to produce a reasonable facsimile of my original word document.

Although I do a lot of the same sort of thing and use pretty much the same
layout and styles for most things (using templates designed for the
purpose), every job is different, and I encounter a wide variety of jobs,
both personal and in my business.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Bert Coules]

Suzanne thanks for that. Perhaps I should investigate the full-blown
version of Acrobat.

Bert

 

[Graham Mayor]

To test this premise I 'printed' a document from Word 2007 to PrimoPDF and
printed the same document to an Epson ink jet. I then printed the PDF to the
same printer. I defy you to identify which is which. They overlay perfectly.
On very close examination, one is slightly sharper than the other, but I
would have to print them again to determine which that was. Primo PDF may
not have the same range of functions as Acrobat (when the latter is driven
from the add-in from Word), but the quality of the prints is excellent.

My guess is that there is a scaling option set in the print dialog of Adobe
reader and/or the page sizes don't match.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP


<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

 

[Bert Coules]

Graham, thanks for that. Clearly something is amiss in my particular setup;
I'll investigate further.

Bert