text in graphics screwed up

[matt neuburg]

I have a Word document containing a graphic which itself contains some
text. This document is fairly old (it's my letterhead template,
actually, for printing personal letters).

Using Word X, the text in this graphic looks and prints just fine.

Using Word 2004, the text in this graphic on computer A looks and prints
rather blocky, and on computer B it prints (and, at magnifications over
100%, looks) as black blocks, not letters at all.

I think something has gone wrong with Word 2004's treatment of this sort
of thing (text in a graphic), possibly because of the revision of the
text engine associated with the Unicode capabilities.

m.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Matt:

Yes, I would agree with your diagnosis.

It's not so much Unicode, but the use of Apple Type Services for Unicode,
that causes the problems. ATSUI renders text completely differently to
QuickDraw. Word X used QuickDraw (which doesn't support Unicode). Word
2004 uses ATSUI.

First: Make sure the font smoothing settings are correct in the System
Preferences on all machines. Next ensure the correct fonts are actually
installed. Then check that the latest version of QuickTime is installed.
Finally, "Open" the graphic in Word 2004, and close it, then re-save the
document.

That sometimes cures these problems.

Hope this helps

I have a Word document containing a graphic which itself contains some
text. This document is fairly old (it's my letterhead template,
actually, for printing personal letters).

Using Word X, the text in this graphic looks and prints just fine.

Using Word 2004, the text in this graphic on computer A looks and prints
rather blocky, and on computer B it prints (and, at magnifications over
100%, looks) as black blocks, not letters at all.

I think something has gone wrong with Word 2004's treatment of this sort
of thing (text in a graphic), possibly because of the revision of the
text engine associated with the Unicode capabilities.

m.

--

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

 

[matt neuburg]

Hi Matt:

Yes, I would agree with your diagnosis.

It's not so much Unicode, but the use of Apple Type Services for Unicode,
that causes the problems. ATSUI renders text completely differently to
QuickDraw. Word X used QuickDraw (which doesn't support Unicode). Word
2004 uses ATSUI.

Right - I didn't say "Unicode", I said "the text engine associated with
the Unicode capabilities". That means ATSUI - I wanted to be
informative, rather than using alphabet soup.

First: Make sure the font smoothing settings are correct in the System
Preferences on all machines. Next ensure the correct fonts are actually
installed. Then check that the latest version of QuickTime is installed.
Finally, "Open" the graphic in Word 2004, and close it, then re-save the
document.
That sometimes cures these problems.

Well, ultimately I have not found a way to cure the graphic on the
machine where its text would not print at all. I reconstructed the
graphic from scratch, and the new version still prints far better under
Word X than under Word 2004. I have to conclude that the problem is Word
2004. So, to repeat my implicit conclusion, users having trouble
printing documents containing graphics that contain text may wish to
revert to Word X temporarily for this purpose. m.

 

[syatabe]

I have experienced text in graphics appearing with a black background
it the original had a transparent background. The original graphic can
even come from WinWord 2000 (drawn using the built in drawing tools).
I first noticed this when pasting-in plots from Kaleidagraph. The
really strange thing is that this error is not consistent. I can paste
the same graphic some other time (within minutes sometimes) and the
effect disappears/appears. Synergy (producers of Kaleidagraph) have
replicated this. It only occurs with Word 2004. Unfortunately, I've
gone from Word98 (OS9) to Word2004 (OS X), otherwise I'd back-up to
Word-X.

If I attempt to edit the Word-Draw graphic by changing the text
background to white, the result is a white background but with a thin
grey border. No amount of fiddling with line colour, or setting "no
line" etc. will get rid of this line. In the end, the graphic has to
be redrawn. So... better revert to pre-1983, get out your scissors and
do the physical cut/paste thing if you want graphics in your documents!

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi,

There are hundreds of different kinds of graphics, plenty of different
fonts, and lots of other variables that could be coming into play here.

May I trouble you to to post a step-by-step? Which drawing object did
you put text into? What font? Did you use any settings in particular or
the default settings?

I take it you have a Word document from Word 2000 with some drawing
objects that have text in them, but some additional details will help
those of us with both products to try to replicate it.

-Jim

 

[syatabe]

There are hundreds of different kinds of graphics, plenty of different

fonts, and lots of other variables that could be coming into play

here.

fonts: Helvetica, Arial
graphics: one was a WinWord2000 "drawing" containing "textboxes" on
top of a bitmap photo
The other have been from Kaleidagraph v3.6.4 (a Carbon
app?). When copying from Kaleidagraph, you have the choice of
enabling/disabling: Postscript Pict, High-res Pict, and "minimize
white space ... that simply crops the frame. It doesn't matter what
settings you use, the fault still appears (randomly). I assume the
default format is PICT.

May I trouble you to to post a step-by-step? Which drawing object did
you put text into? What font? Did you use any settings in particular or
the default settings?

In the case of Kaliedagraph I'm copy/pasting simple line plots and the
text items are the axis labels and traced keys.

In the case of the WinWord2000 "drawing", the text items are "textboxs"
added on top of a bitmap (as stated above).

Settings? What settings? The graphics can be positioned/wrapped in
any fashion allowed by word without changing the fault. I can try
moving the textboxes forward or backward in the drawing ... no effect
on the black background, I don't know what else you mean by
"settings".

I take it you have a Word document from Word 2000 with some drawing
objects that have text in them, but some additional details will help
those of us with both products to try to replicate it.

I look forward to any suggestions that anyone may have, but I strongly
suspect that this is something that Microsoft will have to fix, and
that means my best approach is to try to get a copy of Office-X.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hmmm. OK. I sortof remember reading something similar to this in the
past. Hang on a sec while I check Google.

Drat! I found a previous message but there was no suggested cure.

Is there any chance you could put a sample file on the web and reply
here with the URL?

-Jim

 

[syatabe]

Simple sample files can be found at:
http://www.magma.ca/~syatabe/word_text_in_graphics.pdf
http://www.magma.ca/~syatabe/word_text_in_graphics.doc

The PDF shows how it prints for me. On the screen I don't see the
outline around the text, just a vertical line on the left side of the
text.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi again,

This may be hardware specific. I opened the doc in Word 2004 on my
TiBook 500 mhz and all looked fine. No. line. No transparency problems.
I don't have a printer connected, but in print preview for my HP inkjet
printer everything looks fine, too.

Things to try:
Change the default printer before opening Word. See if that changes
things. This could be a printer driver problem.
Try opening the doc on a different kind of Mac with the same printer.
Try opening the doc on the same Mac with a different kind of printer.

-Jim

 

[syatabe]

Change the default printer before opening Word. See if that changes
things.

This could be a printer driver problem. Try opening the doc on the same
Mac with a different kind of printer.

No effect. It may be some time before I can find another Mac running
Office 2004 (BTW under OS10.3.7) to try your suggestion to:

Try opening the doc on a different kind of Mac with the same printer.

Note that the file looks fine under Word 98 on OS9.2.2 (on a few older
Macs that I've tried). This includes a Mac that is connected to the
same printer as the one with Word2004. Also, it looks fine from icWord
3.2 (MacLinks Plus) under OS10.3.7 (same Mac with Word2004).

Print Preview from within Word2004 looks the same as in page and normal
view.

 

[syatabe]

Jim Gordon seems to have hit on something with the suggestion re my
problem with "no fill" text boxes generated under WinWord2000 being
displayed with black background. The suggestion being that it may be
hardware specific. I have an iBook (1.2GHz 12", built 2004 Nov.). My
brother-in-law does not have this problem (with the posted test files)
with a 1 yr. old eMac. We are both running Word2004 v11.1 040910 under
OS10.3.7.

This prompted me to fiddle with the display preferences. Low and
behold, the problem disappears if I set the # of colours to 256.
(Problem persists for millions or thousands of colours ... grey scale
is not an option with this Mac.)

On the positive side, this seems like a big hint for anyone trying to
solve/fix this. On the negative side, I suspect that the chances of
the problem being addressed are reduced if the problem is not
"widespread" beyond a few 10's of thousands of users.