Switching from Office XP to MAC Office 2004

[michaelssw]

I was using Word 2000 for my dell pc. I switched to MAC Office 2004.
My documents were mainly custom built outlines that used "heading 1"
etc to define them. Now when MAC Office 2004 opens them it insists on
updating the styles to its own, thus messing up the document layout.
What can I do?

Mike

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Michael:

Word 2004 will not touch your styles unless you have the document template
attached with "Automatically update styles on open" set to ON.

If you do have that bit set to ON, it still won't touch the styles if it
can't find the template, or if the template is Normal Template.

So all you need to do is open the document, identify the template name,
close the document without saving changes, rename the template, then re-open
the document and use Tools>Templates and Add-Ins to attach the document to
Normal Template and at the same time switch OFF "Automatically Update
Styles".

Once you rename the external template that is doing the damage so Word can't
find it, it will leave your styles alone.

Hope this helps

I was using Word 2000 for my dell pc. I switched to MAC Office 2004.
My documents were mainly custom built outlines that used "heading 1"
etc to define them. Now when MAC Office 2004 opens them it insists on
updating the styles to its own, thus messing up the document layout.
What can I do?

Mike

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[michaelssw]

John,

Thanks for the help. My problem is that all my files were created with
my old windows office 2000 normal template and the styles were named
heading 1, heading 2 etc. They all had automatic update checked. I
open them and Word 2004 doesn't recognize the outline. I automatically
reformats the outline and give them another number, thus it looks
like:

A. A. Outline
1. 1. Level two
a. a. level three.

If I use WORD for MAC X I am ok as long as I open Word X first. If I
double click on the document itself, it will get opened in Word for
MAC Office 2004, in the normal template and reformat the headings.

I have three other questions
1) How do I change the default template from normal in Word X?
2) MS Word the alt key was used as a shortcut to have the drop down
menus activate, thus alt F gave you the file menu. Is there a way to
get MAC WORD to do the same?
3) I use macros alot. One I haven't been able to get to work since
Word 2.0 is this: I write a macro and use the command "calculate".
Word calculates and if you hit cmd V it pastes the calculated number
in. Then save the macro. Run it again and it will put in the default
paste item, not the newly calculated number. Is there a way to get
that to work?

Your a genius if you can help on that one.

Mike

 

[michaelssw]

John,

How do you stay gracious!

As a new MAC user, which do I drop, Office 2004 or Office for MAC X. Why?

Mike

 

[matt neuburg]

As a new MAC user, which do I drop, Office 2004 or Office for MAC X. Why?

I wrote a review in TidBITS that describes what's new in Office 2004. (I
have also written an ebook on this topic, but the review is free to
read.) If you don't need any of those features and you don't already
have Office 2004, then don't buy it. If, on the other hand, you already
have Office 2004, then I recommend you use it, because it fixes some
bugs from Office X. On the other other hand, if you have both, I
recommend you keep both, because every once in a while I encounter a bug
in Office 2004 that I can solve only by opening the document in Word X!
(For example, I have some documents where I cannot get Word 2004 to
build the table of contents - it crashes - but Word X can do it just
fine.) m.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Mike:

I don't, and that's just one of my defects of character

My answer to your question is "This is a no-brainer: pitch Word X as soon as
you get Word 2004, you have no further use for it."

I know what Matt says is true, you can create documents that Word 2004 won't
open. You can also, however, create ones that crash Word X that will open
in Word 2004. And you can create documents that Word 2004 can get open that
Word 2003 on the PC can't touch.

Keep the CD by all means, in case you ever get caught with something really
valuable that can't be opened on either the PC or the Mac and you want to
try Word X. But I certainly wouldn't waste 300 MB of disk space on it.

In my opinion (and I have worked on the betas for Word 97, Word 2000, Word
X, Word 2002, Word 2003 and Word 2004...) Word X was not a good year in the
vineyard ...

For much the same reason as Word 97 and Word 2002 are "must to avoid", so is
Word X. All three products were rushed to market half-baked to hit a
schedule. Interestingly, in the case of Word X, the schedule we had to hit
was not Microsoft's but Apple's. Microsoft Office X had to hit the market
when it did or there would have been no Apple OS X, and in all probability
no Apple. The stakes were that high...

And like Word 97 and Word 2002, Microsoft will maintain support for Word X
for a while. But please be aware that it took SIX service releases to get
Word 97 to work. People who still have Word 97 are probably quite pleased
with it -- now! But I find that it is so far behind the feature curve that
it creates problems in the workplace.

Word X is unlikely to be patched to the level of maturity of Word 97. For
one thing, the Macintosh Business Unit just does not have the development
funds to go chasing the nice-to-have's. Word on the PC sits in a much
different space... Every time they change the colour of the menus, Office
PC sells 300 million: that funds a LOT of development.

So Matt has a different and equally valid opinion: mine is "Word X cannot do
Unicode and never will, so it's a no-brainer: get rid of it."

Cheers

John,

How do you stay gracious!

As a new MAC user, which do I drop, Office 2004 or Office for MAC X. Why?

Mike

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410