Scrolling problem using Word 2004 on 2nd monitor

[PThompson509]

Hi Folks,

I am running Tiger (10.4.4) on a 17" powerbook. I have the latest
updates for the OS and for MS Office 2004.

My problem: after the latest microsoft update I am no longer able to
scroll through docs when the doc is presented on a 2nd monitor (with
mirroring turned off).

Any clues as to how to fix this problem?

Cheers,
Peter Thompson

 

[Clive Huggan]

Did you connect the 2nd monitor while the PowerBook was switched off, Peter?

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
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[Elliott Roper]

Did you connect the 2nd monitor while the PowerBook was switched off, Peter?

Another data point:
Since I'd just applied the 11.2 » 11.2.1 upgrade and I'm also on OS X
10.4.4, I immediately tried to repeat Peter's problem, but it scrolls
fine for me, both with keyboard and by dragging the scroller lozenge.

Also, I have a 12" PB which has no restraint on the external monitor
socket (miniDVI) I can tell you that hot plugging the second monitor
does not have too many bad effects here. The cable falls out a couple
of times a day, and I simply slam it back in and wait for the displays
to stop arguing with one another (about 5-10 secs).

I sometimes see the other reported problem where the second display's
window gets many lines of text horizontally 'fractured', but so far,
have not seen that with the 10.4.4 /11.2.1 combination.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Another data point:
Since I'd just applied the 11.2 » 11.2.1 upgrade and I'm also on OS X
10.4.4, I immediately tried to repeat Peter's problem, but it scrolls
fine for me, both with keyboard and by dragging the scroller lozenge.

I can't repro the problem either. It all scrolls fine here on my dual
monitor setup,

Corentin

 

[PThompson509]

Hi Folks,

I have not tried booting up with the 2nd monitor, it is always a hot
insertion.

One of my colleagues had mentioned that there might be a bad
interaction between Word and X11, though. I also run the Gimp, which
requires X11. I have the X11 from the Tiger disk installed.

I've been tempted to re-install office to see if that fixes the
problem. I'll do that later today and let you know how that works out.

Cheers,
Peter Thompson
San Diego, CA

 

[PThompson509]

Hi Folks,

I rarely run X11, and can consistenly reproduce the error. I open the
doc, it scrolls fine on the main powerbook screen, move the doc to the
other monitor (dragging), and the doc will no longer scroll. I bring
the doc back to the main screen and the scrolling takes place. Very
strange.

I'll look for the info on de-installing office and if necessary, will
follow.

Cheers,
Peter

 

[Kohn]

I also have a problem with scrolling. When I have my external monitor
connected to my laptop, scrolling in "Page Layout" view leads to the
text becoming garbled. Scrolling under "Norma" view is fine. I am
able to scroll without any problems in "Page Layout" view when I am
working off of my laptop's display.

Not sure if these problems are related.

 

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

That's a display driver problem. See if there is an updated driver for your
video card.

It may also mean that your video card does not have enough memory for the
resolution/screen-size/colour depth you are using.

If all else fails, try changing the colour depth of your display: that will
often hide the problem.

Cheers

I also have a problem with scrolling. When I have my external monitor
connected to my laptop, scrolling in "Page Layout" view leads to the
text becoming garbled. Scrolling under "Norma" view is fine. I am
able to scroll without any problems in "Page Layout" view when I am
working off of my laptop's display.

Not sure if these problems are related.

--

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 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Kohn]

change color depth = change # of colors? I changed it to thousands
from millions and that didn't get rid of the problem

It can't be a driver problem because I'm running the latest version of
MacOS and Apple has never released any firmware updates for the the
Apple display.
I strongly doubt it's a matter of how much video memory. My Powerbook
has 64MB and had no problem scrolling through large Word documents in
the previous version of MS Word.

Not trying to rip your suggestions; I just think the ones you offered
aren't correct. I'd welcome any other ideas about how to remedy the
problem.

Nick

 

[Chris Langford]

I'm seeing the same problem on a user's 12" powerbook/ Apple 20" cinema
display. Here are some things we've noticed:

It only happens in Word.

It happens in both Word X and Word 2004.

It happened under 10.3.9 (I think).

It has happened on the powerbook display, but only running Word X.

Changing the screen resolution from 1680x1050 to 1600x1000 seems to have
fixed it for the time being. Looks like crap, however.

My question to the group: Does this only occur on Apple displays?

Her laptop has the nVidia GeForce FX Go 5200 in it. The ROM Revision is
2069.1. How do I tell if this is the latest?

Chris

 

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

Hi Chris:

No, it doesn't occur only on Apple displays. This is an ancient "issue"
that first surfaced on the PC in about 1989....

Word attempts "lazy" redraws and "partial" redraws of the screen to save
processing power and thus improve responsiveness. On some graphics cards,
particularly if the graphics subsystem is struggling for memory, the problem
is "worse".

Usually, you can 'cure' each individual case by paging BACK two or three
screenfuls, then paging forward again. This forces Word to flush the screen
buffer and do a full re-draw.

Something happened in the latest updates to Word and Apple OS X that have
led to a little rash of this issue being reported. I do not know what it
was: but we haven't heard of this issue for quite a while, and all of a
sudden we get several of them.

I have not heard of any recommendations to "cure" it. My experience is that
all computers do it "sometimes", but that computers with hot graphics cards,
lots of graphics memory, and updated graphics drivers seem to suffer from
the issue "less often".

Cheers

I'm seeing the same problem on a user's 12" powerbook/ Apple 20" cinema
display. Here are some things we've noticed:

It only happens in Word.

It happens in both Word X and Word 2004.

It happened under 10.3.9 (I think).

It has happened on the powerbook display, but only running Word X.

Changing the screen resolution from 1680x1050 to 1600x1000 seems to have
fixed it for the time being. Looks like crap, however.

My question to the group: Does this only occur on Apple displays?

Her laptop has the nVidia GeForce FX Go 5200 in it. The ROM Revision is
2069.1. How do I tell if this is the latest?

Chris

--

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 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[PThompson509]

Since there does not appear to be a good work around (and booting with
the monitor attached is not an option, as this is a display in a group
meeting), is Microsoft aware of this bug? Since I'm a chair for a
working group and need to display documents on a regular basis, this is
a big drawback.

The only work around that I have right now, is to drag the document
back to my main screen and then all the scrolling suddenly takes place.
The scrolling does not happen when the doc is on the 2nd display.

Thanks for the help!
Peter

 

[Elliott Roper]

Since there does not appear to be a good work around (and booting with
the monitor attached is not an option, as this is a display in a group
meeting), is Microsoft aware of this bug? Since I'm a chair for a
working group and need to display documents on a regular basis, this is
a big drawback.

The only work around that I have right now, is to drag the document
back to my main screen and then all the scrolling suddenly takes place.
The scrolling does not happen when the doc is on the 2nd display.

It is still a puzzle to me, I never have never seen the problem you
describe.

However, as a workaraound for your meetings, why not try running the PB
displays in mirror mode.
fn-F7 toggles mirroring. (ensure both displays are set to the same
number of pixels for best results)

 

[Clive Huggan]

It is still a puzzle to me, I never have never seen the problem you
describe.

However, as a workaraound for your meetings, why not try running the PB
displays in mirror mode.
fn-F7 toggles mirroring. (ensure both displays are set to the same
number of pixels for best results)

Peter and Kohn,

Just so we can define this problem a bit better for future advising, and
when MacBU look at it, would you kindly clarify some points that I'm not
clear on after looking at the observations in this thread by the two of you?
(I realize your problems may be different):

1. Does this occur equally in Page Layout and Normal views (Peter only)?

2. Can you move the page up/down using the Page Up / Page Down keys? If
so, does the problem with scrolling persist immediately afterwards?

3. Does the problem occur using the thumb (lozenge) or the scroll arrows,
or both?

Elliott, although I [now] realize this thread describes a situation
different from previously reported faults and that booting with both
monitors plugged in apparently won't fix it, my observation is the same as
yours, namely that if the cable falls out, all I have to do is put it back
in and wait a few seconds for the displays to stop arguing with one another.
My assumption had been that since Word had detected the characteristics of
the 2nd display on startup, it retained that knowledge when the 2nd display
was re-connected. Any comment?

I would have to say I'd be hugely inconvenienced if I had to put up with
this, since I work all the time with Word documents across both my 17"
PowerBook and Apple 20" (sometimes 17") LCD displays. Makes me very
cautious about installing OS 10.4.4.

Cheers,
Clive Huggan
============

 

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

Hi Peter:

Yes, Microsoft is very aware of the bug.

My understanding of the situation is this: The bug is that Mac OS X is
supposed to "tell" applications when the display system "changes". There
are two notifications it is supposed to maintain.

It is maintaining only one. Many current pieces of software, including
Word, are listening for the "other" notification. It never arrives.

If you start Word with both displays plugged in, Word pre-emptively "asks"
the system how many monitors there are and what their settings are. When it
does that, the OS updates both notifications.

So: Yes, Microsoft knows about the bug, but it's in Apple's code, not
theirs, so there's nothing Microsoft can do about it. Apple also knows
about the bug, but they have apparently decided not to fix it, or at least,
not "soon".

Chances are, the next version of Microsoft Office on the Mac will be changed
to use the "other" notification.

Twenty-odd years ago, Microsoft learned some very painful lessons about the
need to "NOT" change how an operating system behaves while users are trying
to use software depending on it. Lessons that go back to the beginning of
computing, on the mainframe. Try telling your bank sometime that their
General Ledger System suddenly doesn't work right because you "made a little
patch to the IBM operating system" They may send a bunch of lawyers with no
sense of humour to have a little "chat" with you... I guess Apple is
still in the process of learning just how much pain will result from this


Cheers

Since there does not appear to be a good work around (and booting with
the monitor attached is not an option, as this is a display in a group
meeting), is Microsoft aware of this bug? Since I'm a chair for a
working group and need to display documents on a regular basis, this is
a big drawback.

The only work around that I have right now, is to drag the document
back to my main screen and then all the scrolling suddenly takes place.
The scrolling does not happen when the doc is on the 2nd display.

Thanks for the help!
Peter

--

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 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Kohn]

-only occurs in Page Layout views while using External monitor

-Page Up button produces no problems
-Page Down button produces very little problems (maybe 2 lines of text
out of 12 are disturbed)
-Scrolling Up with the mouse produces no problems
-Scrolling Down with the mouse produces major problems (one line of
text is repeated through the entire document, blocking the view of the
other lines of text)
-Scrolling Up wth the scroll arrows/bar produces no problems
-Scrolling Down with the scroll arrows/bar produces major problems (one
line of text is repeated through the entire document, blocking the view
of the other lines of text)

Hope this helps,
Nick

 

[Clive Huggan]

Thanks, Nick!

Hopefully Elliott's and John's ideas have allowed you to put limits on the
problem now.

Clive Huggan
============

 

[Kohn]

"Releasing the mouse button..."
unfortunately clicking does not remedy the problem. If I stop
scrolling with the mouse, the top line of text remains repeated through
the entire document. The only way for Word to display the actual text
(and not just that one line of repeated text) is to either:
-Scroll up with the mouse upwards
-Use the PageUp or PageDown buttons
-Switch to Normal view

Also, I forgot to mention in my earlier post that using the arrow keys
(on the keyboard) to scroll down causes the same problem. However,
using the arrow keys to scroll up does not cause the problem.

So, in summary: using the mouse scroll or the keyboard down key to
scroll downwards while in Page Layout view causes the problem.

"Sorry to be so unhelpful"
No need to say that. You have been extremely helpful and patient in
helping remedy this problem. I very much appreciate it.

Nick

 

[Clive Huggan]

So, Nick, maybe the moral is?:

1. Work more often in Normal view, which has a quicker response in many
respects anyway (when I need to see pagination etc I key Command-Option-p to
go into Page Layout view, then I immediately return via Command-Option-n).

2. When the beastie occurs, [Page Up key] twice, [Page Down key] twice.

Cheers,

Clive
======

 

[PThompson509]

Sorry for the long delay - I'm at a meeting in France, and the jetlag
is only now receding.

It looks like there are some workarounds that I will have to try, and
will report back once I have access to a display. For what it is
worth, I have the problem regardless of whether I start Word after
plugging in the external monitor or not. I also use Print mode all the
time (Normal mode won't work as we are trying to show the docs to a
large group and they want to see how it will look on paper). Doing
single clicks of the mouse will just repeat the line of text.

I will try the pageup, pageup, pagedown, pagedown trick. I'll also try
switching between Normal and Presentation views.

I thank everyone for their time, and hope that this will be resolved in
the next OS update.

Cheers,
Peter