Trouble converting Word 6.0/95 into 97-2004 Word doc.

[dannybex]

Hi Daiya,

I just typed in my reply and clicked on "reply to author" by your name.
Maybe we can solve it here.

Some interesting things happened over the weekend -- I think the
problem is in Word 2004 itself...as the screenplay looked fine over at
Kinkos -- they have Word 2003 on their computers. On their Macs, it
looked perfect, on their PC's, it came out at 113 pages.

I burned it to a CD, brought the CD back, and sure enough it was back
to 120 pages. A friend suggested I should've saved it at Kinko's as a
Word 2003 document first, before burning it to a CD. Would that have
made a difference?

And if I do save as a 2003 version, and need to make any changes --
would I need to install Word 2003 to do so?

thanks,

d.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Dan,

Saving it as a Word 2003 document would not make a difference, it's the same
file format and the difference in Word 2004 is probably with fonts or
printer drivers. You can't install Word 2003 on a Mac unless you have
Virtual PC.

You should have printed it at Kinko's, or converted it to PDF there to print
at home, if possible (assuming you are done editing). The Kinko's webpage
suggests that Kinko's computers include Acrobat (not the Reader), which is
what you need to create a PDF. Ask them about doing that, on the PC. Or if
the Mac was running Word X, use the built-in PDF converter there.

I checked Courier on my computer in Word X and Word 2004 and I think I see
what you are talking about--they are substantially different.
http://daiya.mvps.org/Images/courier2004.gif
http://daiya.mvps.org/Images/courierX.gif

Convert to PDF at Kinko's when you are done writing sounds like a good
solution to me. I will put in a complaint and see if there is anything else
to be done about it. I suspect not, unless you want to go to the earlier
Word X instead of Word 2004.

No, you can't "reply to author" as I am using a spamproofed address, because
newsgroups are mirrored in many, many places and not all of them protect
email addresses from harvesting by spammers. I gave you the address
earlier, here it is again, remove all the caps.
<[email protected]>

But I don't think you need to email me, since I have figured out what you
are talking about.

Daiya

 

[dannybex]

THANK YOU SO MUCH Daiya for proving my point with your examples. The
spacing looks even worse if you single space between the lines. Almost
looks like a stack of bricks rather than a paragraph of sentences.

I did read on another board, in reply to someone else's similar
complaint, a post from (I think) someone who works at Microsoft. He
said they added space between the words to make it more like that seen
on PC's.

Well, that won't cut it. As I said, the script turned up at 111 pages
on the Mac, and only 113 on the PC. And here at home it jumps to 120.
Seven pages -- that is a HUGE difference.

I do have a hard copy that I printed at Kinkos several months ago. My
concern regards any futures changes I may need to make to it, not to
mention any future screenplay I will write. How could I do either with
Word 2004?I

I so very much appreciate your offer to file a complaint, as this is
entirely not acceptable. This screenplay made it to the top 2% of a
recent highly regarded screenwriting competition -- the top 110 entries
out of over 4,000. After almost 10 years of trying, this could be my
key to an extremely difficult door to open. It is my ONLY asset.

This mess -- this change -- could indeed screw up two years of hard
work and cost me my chance at success.

Thank you Daiya,

Dan

p.s. Is there an official website to register this complaint?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Dan,

Isn't there specialized screen-writing software out there that may be better
than Word for such things?

This mess -- this change -- could indeed screw up two years of hard
work and cost me my chance at success.

That's awfully dramatic--it's costing you the inconvenience/money of going
to Kinko's and PDF-ing or printing a script there each time you need to send
it out. While you are composing, estimate that one page will vanish for
every 13 that shows at home.

Or, see if you can return Office 2004 and get Office X instead/also. Even if
they do fix this (and there have been previous complaints), I suspect it
would be a new version rather than an upgrade to Office 2004.

Had we been having this conversation on the MacOffice newsgroups that I
directed you to originally, it would have worked its way to the people who
develop it. That's the only place you can post feedback at this point.
Please do so, explaining clearly and politely why this is a problem in a new
thread, and mention the comparison with WinWord.

See here for Google/Entourage gateway to newsgroups for MacWord, MacExcel,
and other MS programs for the Mac:
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/community/community.aspx?pid=newsgroups>

I'm going to try one last thing--I don't know whether it's possible that
Office X is actually using a different font version that Office 2004. It'll
take me a while to check that out.

Daiya