Tiger + Word 11.1.1 + 30" Cinema Display = A Disturbing Display Bug

[Geoff]

I am at wits end after upgrading my operating system to Tiger. When I
launch Word on my G4 15" powerbook (2005 model) attached to my 30"
Cinema Display. Initially, document windows appear normally when I
resize them to the full height of the monitor, but after a bit of
interaction and switching between apps, I drop into a mode where the
window remains the same size, but the document is only viewed in the
upper half of the window. The document is forced to fit into a space
approximateing the hieght of the PB display. Below the document, the
navigation bar and layout buttons normally seen at the bottom of the
window are now at the bottom of the displayed document (in the middle
of the window). Below this bar is a white space. I cannot grab the
lower right wiindow corner to resize. It is stuck until I quit Word and
relaunch. Moreover, paging of the document once this occurs is very
screwy with all kinds of bizarre corruptions of the display. I would be
happy to send some screen catures to anyone who might be able to help.

Has anyone out there heard of this problem or have a solution???

Thanks,

Geoff

 

[Elliott Roper]

I am at wits end after upgrading my operating system to Tiger. When I
launch Word on my G4 15" powerbook (2005 model) attached to my 30"
Cinema Display.

Has anyone out there heard of this problem or have a solution???

No, but I'm jealous.

 

[Geoff]

Updating the problem:

It is not seen with Word X with service release 1, but I don't want to
go back to that!! Any microsoft folks visiting the forum?

Geoff

 

[Krishna]

I am having the same exact problem. I am using Tiger + Word 11.1.0 +
21" Cinema Display. I have removed and reinstalled Office, removed all
duplicate fonts, used disk utility to repair permission several times
but the problem persists. If I quit Word and restart, it works fine.

It does not happen with Office v.x.

Krishna

 

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

Hi Geoff:

Yes, the Microsoft folks have been and seen your post and they are trying to
figure out what is causing it.

Chances are it's yet another of the issues Apple has with their ATSUI
rendering engine.

But the reason the Microsoft folks are not saying anything is that they
haven't managed to get the problem to happen for them yet.

We could usefully get a lot more detail: versions and levels of all of your
software, your graphics card, its driver software, etc.

They need enough information to be able to build an exact copy of your
computer in the text lab. If you send me an email, I will tell you a quick
way to collect all of this, and where to send it.

Cheers

Updating the problem:

It is not seen with Word X with service release 1, but I don't want to
go back to that!! Any microsoft folks visiting the forum?

Geoff

--

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 4 1209 1410

 

[Krishna]

I am using Mac OS 10.4.2 on a 15" powerbook with a 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4
processor and a ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 graphics processor. The
problem has occurred with Office 11.2 as well as 11.1. I am not sure at
this point but the problem started when I upgraded to OS 10.4.2.

I did further tests and found that the problem occurs only on the Apple
21" cinema screen. If I switch the image to the 15" built in display of
the powerbook it appears fine. Therefore I suspect that it may be an
image rendering problem of OS 10.4.2.

 

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

Hi Krishna:

I would be surprised if a 15" Powerbook's graphics card had enough video
memory to drive a 21" Cinema display at full resolution and full colour
depth.

Try reducing your display colour depth. If it works then, you need to add
Video memory to your display adaptor or continue with a lower colour
setting.

Cheers

I am using Mac OS 10.4.2 on a 15" powerbook with a 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4
processor and a ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 graphics processor. The
problem has occurred with Office 11.2 as well as 11.1. I am not sure at
this point but the problem started when I upgraded to OS 10.4.2.

I did further tests and found that the problem occurs only on the Apple
21" cinema screen. If I switch the image to the 15" built in display of
the powerbook it appears fine. Therefore I suspect that it may be an
image rendering problem of OS 10.4.2.

--

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 4 1209 1410

 

[Elliott Roper]

Hi Krishna:

I would be surprised if a 15" Powerbook's graphics card had enough video
memory to drive a 21" Cinema display at full resolution and full colour
depth.

Try reducing your display colour depth. If it works then, you need to add
Video memory to your display adaptor or continue with a lower colour
setting.

Cheers

According to the specs for Krishna's machine it should be good for
2048*1536 pixels at millions while also displaying the internal LCD at
millions. Not good enough for the 30", but 21 and 23 inch displays are
fine.

I don't think video memory is an installable option in Powerbooks

 

[andfurthermore]

I'm having this problem too on 10.4.2, though using a 17" LCD monitor
connected to a new (9/05) 12" iBook using Screen Spanning Doctor. Word
2004 11.2 won't let me resize the window past the dimensions of the 12"
display, and I get funky pagination stuff too. I realize the use of
Screen Spanning Doctor probably makes my config unsupportable, but
wanted to chime in with my indication that it's probably not a lack of
video memory. Also wanted to point out this thread:

http://groups.google.com/group/micr...132f688d1b1c398?sa=X&oi=groupsr&start=1&num=3

Restarting Word after plugging in the monitor does the trick for me
until something better comes along.

 

[Geoff]

To John McGhie and all other interested parties:

Hi,

I was bad and did not revisit this thread, so I did not realize that
you had answered my post - apologies.

I have done a clean install of the operating system and upgraded to
10.4.3, but am still having the same problems. My powerbook 15 inch has
the following specs:
Machine Name: PowerBook G4 15"
Machine Model: PowerBook5,6
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.2)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.67 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.9.1f1

Chipset Model: ATY,RV360M11
Type: Display
Bus: AGP
VRAM (Total): 128 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x4e50
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-xxxxx-145
Displays:
Color LCD:
Display Type: LCD
Resolution: 1280 x 854
Depth: 32-bit Color
Built-In: Yes
Core Image: Supported
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Cinema HD Display:
Display Type: LCD
Resolution: 2560 x 1600
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Supported
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Rotation: Supported

Please note that this model Powerbook with the Radeon 9700 was
specifically designed to accomodate the 30" cinema display in a
non-mirrored mode. It works with all other apps, including Office apps,
except Word. Hopefully this information is sufficient to reproduce the
problem, but if you need more info, please let me know. I am anxious to
fix this troublesome problem.

Thanks,

Geoff
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Geoff]

Whoops, forgot to mention, I also upgraded Office to v. 11.2

 

[Matt Centurión [MSFT]]

I am at wits end after upgrading my operating system to Tiger. When I
launch Word on my G4 15" powerbook (2005 model) attached to my 30"
Cinema Display. Initially, document windows appear normally when I
resize them to the full height of the monitor, but after a bit of
interaction and switching between apps, I drop into a mode where the
window remains the same size, but the document is only viewed in the
upper half of the window. The document is forced to fit into a space
approximateing the hieght of the PB display. Below the document, the
navigation bar and layout buttons normally seen at the bottom of the
window are now at the bottom of the displayed document (in the middle
of the window). Below this bar is a white space. I cannot grab the
lower right wiindow corner to resize. It is stuck until I quit Word and
relaunch. Moreover, paging of the document once this occurs is very
screwy with all kinds of bizarre corruptions of the display. I would be
happy to send some screen catures to anyone who might be able to help.

Has anyone out there heard of this problem or have a solution???

Thanks,

Geoff

This is an issue that was brought about due to an incompatiblity with Tiger
(OS X 10.4). Panther (OS X 10.3) works fine in this regard. The problem
occurs when you cause display/resolution changes to occur while Word is
launched. Current workaround is to quit and re-launch Word after any
display/resolution changes (including plugging/un-plugging external monitor)

We are working with Apple to come up with a solution, in the form of either
a future OS or Word update (we don't know yet)

Matt
MacWord Testing
Microsoft

 

[Geoff]

Thank you. I'm glad that MSFT is aware and focused on a fix.

Cheers,

Geoff