tables - visually disappearing, but are there in reality.

[chapklc]

I'm having the worst time with Word 08 since I upgraded from Word 04. Between the line spacing with the normal template to crazy functioning in the notebook layout to simply working with two page tables and a 1/4 of the way down it visually disappears. Almost like a page break, but isn't, because if i copy and paste to a blank doc, it appears correctly... However, on the blank doc, working with the table, I'm editing and about 1/4 way down, disappears again. It makes working with this table very difficult. I'm about to remove office 08. Any suggestions?

 

[John McGhie]

No, not really.

The disappearing table bit is a bug that will be fixed in the next couple of
months. However, it only appears if you are coding a table in a way that
really is not recommended

The rest of the issues are the way Word is designed to work. It's a
high-end industrial-strength Word-processor, and like a Boeing 747, the
results are much better if the driver is fully trained.

It sounds as though Office 2008 may not be the right product for you.

However, if you really want to get your money's worth, then let's address
your problems one-by-one.

To begin with, let's have a look at the Table problem. I suspect this is an
unhappy confluence of your settings of the "Keep With Next" and "Keep Lines
Together" paragraph properties, and the "Allow Row to break across pages"
Table property.

Select the whole table and turn the first two off and the last one ON, and
see if that solves the problem.

Also: make sure the Table Text Wrapping property is set to "None" and hop
into Word>Preferences>View and turn on Text Boundaries and Non-Printing
Characters (all) so you can see what you are doing. Make sure that no part
of the table appears outside the text boundaries.

Hope this helps

I'm having the worst time with Word 08 since I upgraded from Word 04. Between
the line spacing with the normal template to crazy functioning in the notebook
layout to simply working with two page tables and a 1/4 of the way down it
visually disappears. Almost like a page break, but isn't, because if i copy
and paste to a blank doc, it appears correctly... However, on the blank doc,
working with the table, I'm editing and about 1/4 way down, disappears again.
It makes working with this table very difficult. I'm about to remove office
08. Any suggestions?

--
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
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia

 

[chapklc]

I have never been so frazzled before... I've used Office since waayyy back and I'm a heavy user But this is only my 2nd version on MAC... in the past I was strictly PC... I know, I know...

I've never had problems with my very simple tables, four columns, come on...just text, and several rows, and no calculations, no nothing, straight text.

Anyway, for some reason, that particular row was not expanding automatically and when it would run out of space, it would create "blank space" dead air so to speak. Once I manually raised the width of the row, it was fine. The other rows are just fine. I will take into to consideration what you said and when i get some time, go back into that and test it out. It seems like to me with this version of word, I have very little control. And I really hate the normal template. actually I need to post for another question.

 

[John McGhie]

Sorry

From your first post, you sounded like a n00b

Word 2008 is full of bugs at the moment, so all manner of strange things are
failing when they really shouldn't.

Word can corrupt a two-column, two-row table!

Try converting the thing to text, then convert it back again. Remember, we
have a new Table Engine in Word 2008, and it ain't perfect yet!

Cheers

I have never been so frazzled before... I've used Office since waayyy back and
I'm a heavy user But this is only my 2nd version on MAC... in the past I was
strictly PC... I know, I know...

I've never had problems with my very simple tables, four columns, come
on...just text, and several rows, and no calculations, no nothing, straight
text.

Anyway, for some reason, that particular row was not expanding automatically
and when it would run out of space, it would create "blank space" dead air so
to speak. Once I manually raised the width of the row, it was fine. The other
rows are just fine. I will take into to consideration what you said and when i
get some time, go back into that and test it out. It seems like to me with
this version of word, I have very little control. And I really hate the normal
template. actually I need to post for another question.

--
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
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia

 

[Clive Huggan]

Once you have a "successful" table, you'll probably benefit from creating an
AutoText item to insert copies of it in future.

For ideas on handling various numbers of columns, formatting them to
minimize corruption, and why you should include the preceding paragraph in
the selection that becomes the AutoText item*, take a look at some notes on
the way I use Word for the Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will", which are
available as a free download from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html). The article is
titled 'Example ‹ creating and inserting a pre-formatted table via AutoText'
on page 124.

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

* This *may* not be necessary with Word 2008, which I don't use yet.

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from North America and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
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