P
peregrand
Dear MVP moderators,
summary: (Word 2008) table alignment doesn't work, tables occasionally disappear from within saved documents and it may be related to printing files to pdf
Full version: I recently upgraded to Office 2008 and am generally quite happy with the improved functionality. I was especially psyched to discover the Publishing Layout View in Word. However, I find myself having a few key errors (bugs?) that are really crippling my work flow and causing loss of time and data.
My problem revolves around tables but may be the result of pdf'ing documents. More on that towards the end.
Specifically, inserting tables into my documents (saved as .docx) seems to make my files unstable. In my Word 2008 experience, i have so far worked exclusively in the publishing layout view. For one thing, I have never been able to properly align my tables. Aligning data within the tables is fine, but aligning the table itself relative to the page just doesn't work. The alignment options under table properties (within the table tab) are not greyed out but they simply don't function. I click but nothing happens. Very frustrating and my only option is to manually drag and eyeball it.
Today, as a test, I opened an older word document and the table alignment properties suddenly seemed to work. I then inserted a new table and the same problem occurred. There were also other strange old-new interaction problems, but that's another issue and I've read on this forum there are all kinds of problems relating to word 2008's ability to handle older documents.
Another issue with tables is that once I've inserted a table to my documents, the document will periodically hang on saving (i find this especially true if I've copied and pasted a table from one page to the next). And, sometimes when a document saves properly, I will reopen the file to find a table missing. Really odd. I actually tried opening one such document using OpenOffice and found that the table had somehow moved up to the first page - but when I reopen it in word it's still missing. I suppose it could be hidden in the first page somehow, but i have no idea how to see it and fix the issue. What's going on here?
PDF Caveat. I have to admit that my troubles seemed to start after I printed a few documents to pdf using the mac's built-in pdf functionality. After printing to pdf I noticed that a table in the pdf had somehow disappeared during the printing process. When I went back to the original .docx, the table had disappeared from there too. I figured it was possible that i accidentally deleted it but I knew something more was afoul when i tried to draw a new table onto the blank spot and save the document again. Instead of saving word stalled and crashed. I repeated this several times.
Then, thinking that perhaps just this document had been corrupted, I pdf'd a different document and the same thing happened. Although, it seems random which table it chooses to disappear. Also, it doesn't always happen. Just most of the time. Essentially, using Word seems a crap-shoot. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not.
Post installation of leopard 10.5.2 (i was previously on 10.5.1) I regained the ability to create new data on these "corrupted" files and resave them with no issues. But just today - without pdf'ing a document - I re-opened a new project to find another missing table. Aargh.
Any notion of what's going on?
summary: (Word 2008) table alignment doesn't work, tables occasionally disappear from within saved documents and it may be related to printing files to pdf
Full version: I recently upgraded to Office 2008 and am generally quite happy with the improved functionality. I was especially psyched to discover the Publishing Layout View in Word. However, I find myself having a few key errors (bugs?) that are really crippling my work flow and causing loss of time and data.
My problem revolves around tables but may be the result of pdf'ing documents. More on that towards the end.
Specifically, inserting tables into my documents (saved as .docx) seems to make my files unstable. In my Word 2008 experience, i have so far worked exclusively in the publishing layout view. For one thing, I have never been able to properly align my tables. Aligning data within the tables is fine, but aligning the table itself relative to the page just doesn't work. The alignment options under table properties (within the table tab) are not greyed out but they simply don't function. I click but nothing happens. Very frustrating and my only option is to manually drag and eyeball it.
Today, as a test, I opened an older word document and the table alignment properties suddenly seemed to work. I then inserted a new table and the same problem occurred. There were also other strange old-new interaction problems, but that's another issue and I've read on this forum there are all kinds of problems relating to word 2008's ability to handle older documents.
Another issue with tables is that once I've inserted a table to my documents, the document will periodically hang on saving (i find this especially true if I've copied and pasted a table from one page to the next). And, sometimes when a document saves properly, I will reopen the file to find a table missing. Really odd. I actually tried opening one such document using OpenOffice and found that the table had somehow moved up to the first page - but when I reopen it in word it's still missing. I suppose it could be hidden in the first page somehow, but i have no idea how to see it and fix the issue. What's going on here?
PDF Caveat. I have to admit that my troubles seemed to start after I printed a few documents to pdf using the mac's built-in pdf functionality. After printing to pdf I noticed that a table in the pdf had somehow disappeared during the printing process. When I went back to the original .docx, the table had disappeared from there too. I figured it was possible that i accidentally deleted it but I knew something more was afoul when i tried to draw a new table onto the blank spot and save the document again. Instead of saving word stalled and crashed. I repeated this several times.
Then, thinking that perhaps just this document had been corrupted, I pdf'd a different document and the same thing happened. Although, it seems random which table it chooses to disappear. Also, it doesn't always happen. Just most of the time. Essentially, using Word seems a crap-shoot. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not.
Post installation of leopard 10.5.2 (i was previously on 10.5.1) I regained the ability to create new data on these "corrupted" files and resave them with no issues. But just today - without pdf'ing a document - I re-opened a new project to find another missing table. Aargh.
Any notion of what's going on?
