Turn off fractional widths in page layout?

[Patrick Houlihan]

Is it possible to turn off fractional widths in Word's page layout? I
am using Word to create some pdfs that will be read online. They'll be
much more readable with fractional widths off.

Thanks!

Word 2004

 

[matt neuburg]

Is it possible to turn off fractional widths in Word's page layout?

In Normal view, yes. In Page Layout view, no, because Page Layout view
shows you the document as it will be printed.

I
am using Word to create some pdfs that will be read online. They'll be
much more readable with fractional widths off.

I'm afraid I don't believe that one. Do you see anything that could be
"much more readable" about out TakeControl series of ebooks? Yet they
are pdfs generated from Word documents. Surely the way to make a
document legible is to listen to the font designer, who has gone to so
much trouble to work out the letter spacing. m.

 

[Phillip M. Jones, CE.T.]

In Normal view, yes. In Page Layout view, no, because Page Layout view
shows you the document as it will be printed.




I'm afraid I don't believe that one. Do you see anything that could be
"much more readable" about out TakeControl series of ebooks? Yet they
are pdfs generated from Word documents. Surely the way to make a
document legible is to listen to the font designer, who has gone to so
much trouble to work out the letter spacing. m.

The only thin I've seen turn off Fractional width do in the past was
create strange looking letter spacing problems in Non-monospaced fonts.

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[Patrick Houlihan]

I'm afraid I don't believe that one. Do you see anything that could be

"much more readable" about out TakeControl series of ebooks? Yet they
are pdfs generated from Word documents. Surely the way to make a
document legible is to listen to the font designer, who has gone to so
much trouble to work out the letter spacing. m.

According to Microsoft, fractional widths "Improves character and word
spacing of fonts in printed documents, but may make text more
difficult to read on the screen. This option is turned off by default
in normal view so your text will look better on the screen. The option
is turned on by default in page layout view so you can view our text
as it will appear when printed."

With some fonts, at some sizes, I've seen differences. When there's a
difference, the screen view is always better, in my opinion, with
fractional widths off.

What makes this confusing is that Microsoft uses the same term,
"default," for normal view and page layout, yet there is an option to
turn it on or off in normal view. "Default" implies that there is an
option for a different selection. Also, in older versions of Word, you
could turn it off in page layout.

Patrick Houlihan

 

[matt neuburg]

According to Microsoft, fractional widths "Improves character and word
spacing of fonts in printed documents, but may make text more
difficult to read on the screen. This option is turned off by default
in normal view so your text will look better on the screen. The option
is turned on by default in page layout view so you can view our text
as it will appear when printed."

With some fonts, at some sizes, I've seen differences. When there's a
difference, the screen view is always better, in my opinion, with
fractional widths off.

But you said you wanted to make pdfs. Let's keep our eye on the ball.
The way a PDF is rendered on the screen is not the same as the way
Microsoft Word renders a Word document on the screen - the rendering is
performed in a completely different way by a completely different engine
in a completely different program. So you can complain all you like
about Page Layout view being harder to read on the screen (though I do
not find this); it's irrelevant. It doesn't matter, for your purposes,
how a Word document looks. It only matters how the resulting PDF looks.
What I'm saying is that you should test that, and I think you'll find
that it looks fine. m.

 

[Bill Weylock]

You have probably gone onto other things by now, but in case someone else
might find this useful...

I agree with others that it¹s rarely necessary, but I have had exactly the
same problem printing to PDF files. Have never experimented to see what made
it occur, because it is intermittent. Also, I have not seen it for a long
time. Maybe you have shared your docs with other users on Windows Word?

For the record, I was astonished and very annoyed by the tone of some of the
other responses to your perfectly reasonable question and your entirely
correct and apt quoting of the help references on the subject. I wish help
could be offered sans patronizing insults.

If this might still be useful, please try going into your
preferences/compatibility settings and uncheck ³Use printer metrics to lay
out document.²

That will disable fractional widths entirely, so you will want to go back
and check it again after this application.

I can¹t promise this will work for you, but it works for me.


Best,


- Bill

According to Microsoft, fractional widths "Improves character and word
spacing of fonts in printed documents, but may make text more
difficult to read on the screen. This option is turned off by default
in normal view so your text will look better on the screen. The option
is turned on by default in page layout view so you can view our text
as it will appear when printed."

With some fonts, at some sizes, I've seen differences. When there's a
difference, the screen view is always better, in my opinion, with
fractional widths off.

What makes this confusing is that Microsoft uses the same term,
"default," for normal view and page layout, yet there is an option to
turn it on or off in normal view. "Default" implies that there is an
option for a different selection. Also, in older versions of Word, you
could turn it off in page layout.

Patrick Houlihan

Panther 10.3.5
Office 2004