Word 2008: odd repeated/deleted chunks of text etc

[whitman]

I've been working on a detailed document in my new Word 2008 and suddenly had odd behaviour. The cursor would not move to an edit point, and then a large chunk of text disappeared, and then another chunk suddenly appeared repeated.

I have reverted to Word 2004, because I cannot afford for this document to be messed up.

Anyone else notice a similar problem? It's getting to the point where I wonder if I can continue using Word 08.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

This sounds like a screen refresh issue. Usually Paging Backward and
then Forward a few times resets the screen. (Or maybe it's forward and
then backward).

 

[whitman]

Never had screen refresh probs with 04. Anyway, such a prob would be my fault or MS's?

 

[John McGhie]

It's not YOUR fault, we can say that for sure

We can't say "whose" fault it is (and the guilty party is not likely to come
forward...). It could be MS, Apple, or the manufacturer of the graphics
card.

Either way: it's relatively common in various versions of Word: this release
is the first time we have seen it in Mac Word for a while, and so far we
have reports from only a handful of users.

Basically, all modern applications use a "partial redraw" algorithm to work
out which parts of the screen have changed, rather than redraw the whole
screen on each change. It's a power/battery-saving measure which makes a
huge improvement in performance.

But it's a tricky piece of coding to get right. Either Word is failing to
tell OS X that it needs that section of the screen redrawn, or OS X is
failing to pick up the phone, or the graphics driver is ignoring both of
them.

If you page BACK two screenfuls when it happens, then come forward again,
you will usually clear it. Word buffers the screenful you can see, plus the
one before and about five afterward.

Paging back two screenfuls forces Word to re-load its buffer, as a result of
which it has to perform a full redraw of the whole screen. That usually
clears it.

Another trick is to change the number of colours displayed, or the
resolution of the display. The problem seems to be specific to particular
combinations of hardware/software/OS Version and colour depth.

We can expect a patch eventually from one of the manufacturers involved.
But they will never tell us whose fault it was

Cheers

Never had screen refresh probs with 04. Anyway, such a prob would be my fault
or MS's?

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50

 

[whitman]

Interesting description, John, but this shouldn't be happening in such an elevated piece of software.

I've gone back to Word 08 in the hope that it might somehow (magically?) improve, but the more I use a long document the more I see similar problems recurring. (I'm on an Intel iMac, system 10.4.11, millions of colours.)

For example, occasionally when scrolling with the wheel on my Microsoft mouse, the top three or the second and third lines go a sort of faux-bold. If it's the top three lines, this can trigger the 'erratic cursor' thing I talked about earlier. Scrolling a page or two will fix this - but I don't want to have to do this. It feels like something you'd find yourself having to do in an amateur freeware program and not in the most sophisticated word processor on the planet.

I'm also finding that the view will sometimes move 'too far' when you use the click-above-the-marker-in-the-right-hand-scrollbar method to move up the doc.

In addition to what I was describing earlier, something seems very wrong here. Surely others are having similar problems?

 

[John McGhie]

I am sure that "others" are having similar problems, but probably only a
handful in the whole world. Yours is the first I have seen in here in Mac
Word 2008 in English.

There is another user experiencing a different partial redraw problem, who
discovered that it appeared only when he was running in Italian language.

This will probably turn out to be a very minor oversight: something like one
integer is wrong by 1 ‹ 1018 instead of 1019 ‹ in one line of code.

You're right, it shouldn't be there. But just like the mistakes you and I
make, they probably didn't intend it to be there, and probably still don't
know it is there.

So make sure you use Help>Send Feedback to clearly explain what the problem
is. In fact, put in two reports, because the excess scrolling issue will be
a separate issue, and only the top issue in your report will ever be seen.

It is not physically possible to test everything about a piece of software.
Even trying to fully test "one tenth" of Microsoft Word would increase the
selling price to ten times its current value! I would not regard that as
"forward" progress

Cheers

Interesting description, John, but this shouldn't be happening in such an
elevated piece of software.

I've gone back to Word 08 in the hope that it might somehow (magically?)
improve, but the more I use a long document the more I see similar problems
recurring. (I'm on an Intel iMac, system 10.4.11, millions of colours.)

For example, occasionally when scrolling with the wheel on my Microsoft mouse,
the top three or the second and third lines go a sort of faux-bold. If it's
the top three lines, this can trigger the 'erratic cursor' thing I talked
about earlier. Scrolling a page or two will fix this - but I don't want to
have to do this. It feels like something you'd find yourself having to do in
an amateur freeware program and not in the most sophisticated word processor
on the planet.

I'm also finding that the view will sometimes move 'too far' when you use the
click-above-the-marker-in-the-right-hand-scrollbar method to move up the doc.

In addition to what I was describing earlier, something seems very wrong here.
Surely others are having similar problems?

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia

 

[whitman]

Understood, John. I will report these matters. I expect the corrections will make the March 11th update! (I should point out that that was a joke.)

 

[John McGhie]

I would expect the corrections to make the March 11th Service Pack 1, also.
And that's NOT a joke

We need to be aware that March 11th is a "target date". That means that if
it is not ready, they won't ship it until it is.

But when they do ship it, this fix should be in it.

Cheers

Understood, John. I will report these matters. I expect the corrections will
make the March 11th update! (I should point out that that was a joke.)

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia

 

[whitman]

I'm impressed by your knowledge of the upcoming patch, John. What else will they be fixing?

 

[John McGhie]

The only thing I KNOW about the forthcoming patch is the "target date" at
which they intend to publish it.

And THAT is not cast in stone either, if it's not "ready" on March 11th,
they will hold it until it is

Sorry to raise your hopes

I'm impressed by your knowledge of the upcoming patch, John. What else will
they be fixing?

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia

 

[whitman]

Sorry for the erroneous word 'knowledge'. Put it another way: given that you expect the discussed errors to make the patch, whenever it may appear, what else do you expect to be in it?

 

[John McGhie]

Sorry: You're still not going to get any useful information out of me,
simply because I don't HAVE any Microsoft does not tell us which bugs
they have logged, whether they are scheduled for fix, or when.

Basically, I expect any bugs reported before February have a ticket in the
lottery. Whether they make it or not depends on how difficult the fix is,
and whose code (Apple or Microsoft) the problem was found in.

I've spent the past 30 years working in and around software development
teams, so I have some "feel" for which bugs are likely to be "hard" and
which ones should be only a one-line code change.

Based on my crystal-ball gazing and tea-leaf assessment, the "missing chars"
bug ought to turn out to be a bad font pointer, which means it should be
"easy", and it was reported a while ago.

Sorry

Sorry for the erroneous word 'knowledge'. Put it another way: given that you
expect the discussed errors to make the patch, whenever it may appear, what
else do you expect to be in it?

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia

 

[whitman]

So, as it turns out, none of this was fixed in the 12.0.1 update. Ah well, let's wait for the next one. Six months, maybe?

 

[John McGhie]

Hang on, I will stir the tea-leaves again...

If I were a betting man, I would have a little money on "June/July". And an
each-way bet on "November/December".

This thing is very, very broken. The 12.0.1 patch was nowhere near as
comprehensive as they would have liked. I suspect some of the fixes they
hoped to include just weren't ready in time.

In which case, I would expect another fix a little earlier than six months.

I have been wrong a lot, you know

Cheers

So, as it turns out, none of this was fixed in the 12.0.1 update. Ah well,
let's wait for the next one. Six months, maybe?

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Clive Huggan]

On 19/3/08 11:29 PM, in article C4073D4A.CBF3%[email protected], "John

I have been wrong a lot, you know

Is *that* why you wouldn't take a bet on those two flies on the wall last
year, John? ;-)

CH
===

 

[John McGhie]

Certainly not!!

The one on the left was going to leave first, and I knew that.

But the guy I was with was suffering from the dreaded LongPocket disease.

Cheers

On 19/3/08 11:29 PM, in article C4073D4A.CBF3%[email protected], "John



Is *that* why you wouldn't take a bet on those two flies on the wall last
year, John? ;-)

CH
===

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Clive Huggan]

I *do not* have LongPocket Syndrome. :-|

But, um, at times my arms are a bit short...

CH
===