Word and Tiger

[JKGiants]

Since upgrading to Tiger, all my word (office 2001) documents look
harsh and too bold. I have tried everything I could think of.I changed
the system preference to turn off text smoothing or change the font
size. I enabled quartz smoothing (in Office 2001) and disabled. (I
don't see the option in Office 2004). I logged in as another user, I
trashed the preferences, ran Onyx, reinstalled Tiger, reinstalled Word.
Finally, I upgraded to Office 2004. The problem is still there.

Anyone have any ideas?

I don't see a way to attach a snapshot of it, but I did attach one on a
different forum. http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=49638.

I am also happy to send it as an email attachment. I write for a living
and this is really hard on the eyes. Help!!

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I'm not very good on this topic--so maybe someone will correct me--but I
don't think this your complaint is due to anything going wrong, really--

I read through your entire other forum thread, where they put a lot of
effort into trying to help you solve this for Office X.
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=49638

Actually, it seemed as though someone gave you a process that got the
desired result for Office X, but you didn't say whether or not you could
replicate it.

Unfortunately, to my eyes, in your last post, Picture 1 looks much better
than Picture 2, while you seem to prefer Picture 2 (which you got by
highlighting). Is that correct?

Picture 1
http://forums.macosxhints.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1046&d=1137014577

Picture 2
http://forums.macosxhints.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1047&d=1137014659

I fear that you have run into some sort of fundamental change that MS or
Apple or even monitor makers thought would satisfy the majority of people,
and you are one of the few who preferred it the old way. I'm guessing that
such a change would be connected to knowing that "white text on blue
background" is a setting designed for the very old days of computing, and
companies thinking most people aren't using it anymore. It may even be
connected to newer brighter monitors. In fact, I think Picture 2's
appearance is frequently complained of as "bad anti-aliasing fonts" when
highlighted, or somesuch.

I'm guessing that you got a new computer for the change to OS X, which would
account for having the same complaint about Office 2001 in Classic, Office X
and Office 2004?

Try all the preference combinations you can find to see if you can get
something you like. No, Office 2004 no longer has a quartz smoothing
preference, so perhaps returning to Office X so you can turn it off will
work best for you. If you can't find a preferences combo that you like, I
think you may need to change your habits, I'm not sure you can get the old
way back.

Sorry not to be more encouraging.

Other things to experiment with:
--adjusting the brightness on your iMac
--using black text on white background instead
--finding a new default font--even if you have to reformat to send out, that
might be worth the time to not strain your eyes--a font with thinner lines
might bother you less
--mess with the Zoom settings in Word

Word doesn't let you set the window color--but you could try doing the
majority of your basic composing in View | Online Layout. If Word thinks
you are creating a web page, it will let you insert a background using
Format | Background. This would let you get black text on some happy color.
The background only shows up in Online Layout, though, cause it's only for
web pages.

 

[JKGiants]

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

To clarify: There was never a problem with Office 2001. I was running
Office X on my flat screen iMac, using Panther. So far, so good. I
upgraded to Tiger and found that the look of Word seemed very harsh to
my eyes.

I tried all of the preference combinations everyone on the other Board
suggested and nothing worked. But you raise a fascinating point about
the white text on a blue background. I had no idea that that was
unusual. Do you know why that is from the "old days" of computing?

I may just have to get used to black on white. Thanks so much for
taking so much time to write a thoughtful response. It is much
appreciated.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

You're welcome.

To clarify: There was never a problem with Office 2001. I was running
Office X on my flat screen iMac, using Panther. So far, so good. I
upgraded to Tiger and found that the look of Word seemed very harsh to
my eyes.

Okay, well, actually, that makes more sense, because the look of Classic is
so different from the look of OS X.

I tried all of the preference combinations everyone on the other Board
suggested and nothing worked. But you raise a fascinating point about
the white text on a blue background. I had no idea that that was
unusual. Do you know why that is from the "old days" of computing?

I really don't know. But I googled "blue background white text":

A few comments here
<http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=1032
62>

And here:
http://www.webword.com/reports/contrast.html

Apparently, Word has the option because they wanted to convert WordPerfect
users, back in the 1980s, I think.

I've always assumed that back in the days when monitor tech was not so
advanced, light text on a dark background was easier to look at, but that
advances in technology have gotten dark on white to a point where eyes can
focus, or somesuch. Those links suggest the same, e.g., black on white on
an LCD flatscreen is much easier to read than on a big CRT monitor. The
links also suggested that light on dark is easier when monitors aren't very
bright--well, these days they are just getting brighter and brighter.

I may just have to get used to black on white. Thanks so much for
taking so much time to write a thoughtful response. It is much
appreciated.

I would love to see a system-wide preference for window background color. Or
application preferences, actually preferable. Word's white on blue strikes
me as godawful but when I was using TextWrangler, black on a very pale blue
was very nice to use.

All websites with white on black drive me insane, though, rarely are they
worth reading for me.

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

I would love to see a system-wide preference for window background color.

Here:

System Preferences/Universal Access/Display: White-on-Black

There are also prefs to use grayscale and to reduce and enhance contrast.

At least in Tiger: I've forgotten if all those prefs were also in Panther,
but I think so.


--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

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PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Here:

System Preferences/Universal Access/Display: White-on-Black

There are also prefs to use grayscale and to reduce and enhance contrast.

At least in Tiger: I've forgotten if all those prefs were also in Panther,
but I think so.

Yeah, that's in Panther. But it's *not* what I was asking for. I meant
picking any color for a custom default background, like TextWrangler allows
for their docs. I think Windows does allow this, for the system windows,
and that it carries over to MS apps, at least, if not all apps. Probably
too difficult for an OS to implement, so I'd rather see more apps allow such
preferences.

I turned on White on Black the other day, just to see what it was like. I
think it would give me seizures, personally. Greyscale would probably send
me into depression. But I think black on a nice relaxing pale yellow or
pale blue could reduce eyestrain, and would probably switch colors across
apps.

Daiya