Where is the normal view?

[Mark Warner]

Word is glacially slow when scrolling document pages that contain embedded
images. I had hoped this would be rectified in Office 2008, but it still
remains poor on my MacBook Pro. There used to be a way to select a view
("normal" I believe) that would only show the text and allow for fast
scrolling. Where has this feature gone?!?

Also, What is the "draft" view used for. And MS, please wake up and make a
help system for your software that actually helps the user...searching for
"draft view" returns no help!

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Mark -

Draft view is simply Normal view renamed - according to market research it
seems MS found that most users don't normally use Normal view - many didn't
even know it existed or why it was there - so it was re-christened with a
more descriptive & more definitive moniker.

As to the lacking state of Help: MS is aware of the problem & is diligently
improving it daily. If you have an active web connection just make sure
Online Help is set in the lower left corner of the Help window.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Mark Warner]

Thanks for the explanation. So, why are images still viewable in Draft view?
Is there a way to make them go away so document scrolling is improved? With
today's processors, graphics cards, and amount of RAM, I just don't
understand how an imbedded JPEG image can gum things up so much in Word.


(e-mail address removed) wrote on 3/11/08 12:41
AM:C3FB85CF.357E3%[email protected]

 

[CyberTaz]

Ah - that's a different story, but, again, no different than in the [recent]
past...

Images that are set to be In Line with Text are displayed in Normal/Draft
view because they are a part pf the text layer. With Text Wrapping applied
they are "moved" to the drawing layer & not displayed in those views.
Apparently your images are formatted as In Line.

If you don't need to have images dislayed at all go to Word> Preferences -
View then check the box for Image Placeholders & - depending on the actual
type of objects - remove the check for Drawings.

There are a number of things that can influence performance when graphics
are involved, but right now there does seem to be an issue with Word 2008 &
Leopard. Hopefully it will be resolved soon.

 

[Carl Witthoft]

Well, that's a philosophical point. I often find it frustrating that
Floating objects are NOT visible in Normal/Draft view, since it's
helpful for me to see just what picture authors are referring to when
they write goofy stuff (this is for various in-house technical
documents). Objects pasted InLineWithText are visible, unless they
changed that in office2008.

So I guess the ideal situation would be for Word to have a Preference to
display or not display stuff in Draft view.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Carl -

Philosophical it may very well be, but as to

<snip>

So I guess the ideal situation would be for Word to have a Preference to
display or not display stuff in Draft view.

<snip>

The "ideal situation" is to use the proper view for the purpose at hand
If they *both* did the same thing there would need be only one. Draft
(formerly Normal) is intended to speed performance in large, highly
structured, complex documents so the system doesn't have to redraw all the
artsy stuff every time you move your insertion point up & down.

No disrespect, but it's quite understandable that those who don't work with
manuals & manuscripts upwards of 500 pages with numerous sections having
their separate Headers, Footers, page numbering schemes plus numerous
tables, images not to mention TOCs, TOTs, TOFs, Indexexes, etc. can hardly
have a full appreciation of what Draft View is all about.

Long story short, the Preference setting you want for Draft/Normal is
already there - it's called Print Layout View

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Carl Witthoft]

No argument there. But let me add some other thoughts .

Even without displaying Objects (pictures and the rest), it drives me
nuts when people insist on writing a document while displaying
Header/Footer, Rulers, and usually about 8 Toolbars they never use,
thus reducing the available space for the darn text itself by 50%.
Even for small documents, the workflow is improved by a factor of about
10:1 (OK, I made that up) after people learn to do all the writing and
content editing before getting mired in layout tasks. I always urge
people to turn off the damn colored underlining for spelling/grammar so
they don't get distracted from the task at hand.

And I can't count the number of times folks come to me wondering why
their fonts, indents, etc. foul up as they cut & paste, and I try my
best to get them to work with Paragraph Markers (and spaces, tabs, etc)
displayed.

:-(