Hi Susan:
Let me try to give you a "sensible" answer to this
1) In general, Yes, Word 2008 is not sufficiently functional to be used for
commercial work.
Install Parallels and a copy of whichever Windows you can get cheaply, plus
a copy of Office 2007 (just the basic version is fine). Ideally, get hold
of a copy of Windows 7. Windows XP is cheap and has a low memory footprint,
but you need to be fairly technical to maintain it in Parallels. Windows 7
is faster and less power-hungry than Windows XP, and very "automatic"
Word 2008 is fine for reading the occasional document you may be emailed,
but it's just not sufficiently capable for commercial work. This will
change with Word 2010 for the Mac.
2) There is no such thing as a "Gallery" in Windows Word. There is a thing
called a "Clipart Gallery", but if he's trying to save it in there, Word
won't let him, which is what he just found
3) A Word "Template" has a different internal file structure to a document.
Unless your file has this structure, Word will try to prevent you saving it
amongst its templates. If the document does have a template structure, Word
should prevent you saving it anywhere else.
4) To make a template you need to save a document as either a .dot or a
..dotx or a .dotm.
The .dot is the old binary file format that should not be used going forward
because it will give you compatibility and security problems.
The .dotx is what you should be using, assuming that you have no active
content in it (you can't create active content in Word 2008, so it's a safe
assumption!). Word describes it as a "Word Template (.dotx)".
When you get to create active content (macros, ribbon customisations...) you
will have to send the file as a .dotm (Macro-enabled template).
5) The majority of the problems belong at the customer's end in this case.
He needs to hire an IT Administrator of some kind that can walk him through
the setup he needs to do and the decisions he needs to make.
If this is simply a sole-trader wanting a letter-head, send him a .dotx
file.
Instruct him NOT to attempt to open it within his email: if he does that,
his security system will take over and cause the problem he is complaining
about. Once that happens, there's no way out of it.
Tell him to save the file to his hard disk (anywhere, doesn't matter...)
Then tell him to open it in Word using File>Open... (In Word 2007 that's
"Office Button>Open"). If he double-clicks the file to open it, again, his
security system will take over and nothing will work from there.
When the file opens, tell him to use "Save As" from within Word BEFORE he
does anything else. This time, we WANT Word to take over, and put the file
in the correct location for him
Otherwise you have to send instructions
on how to find the Template directories, which one to use, and how to get a
file in there. Not easy if you don't know how to do it either
THEN he will be able to see it in what he refers to as "The Gallery", and
you will be able to deal with the compatibility problems that will result
Hints: In your designs, DON'T use any non-Microsoft fonts. Use the fonts
that Microsoft supplied with Office 2008, and ONLY those fonts. The ones
Microsoft provides are carefully engineered to render almost exactly the
same on the PC as they do on the Mac, and Windows versions of Word all have
the exact-same-named fonts supplied, so you know the customer has the fonts
concerned.
When specifying colours, use RGB colours, at no greater than 24-bit. Forget
"Adobe RGB" most Windows devices don't have sufficient gamut for it.
Windows can't do CMYK (not in Office applications) and Pantone does not
exist outside specialist graphics applications.
Word is a "Flowed Text" application. The text will always flow, you cannot
stop it. Word cannot do absolute positioning (although it can waste a large
part of your day pretending to try...). So design your document so that the
text flows in the correct places, and that the design looks great regardless
of how the text flows.
Word has paragraph and section break properties that can control how text
flows: keep coming back here and we'll teach you how to use them (they are
quite complex, but they are the way graphics professionals control Word).
Best of luck
Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
I am a graphic designer who primarily uses Adobe products. I have a client who
wants me to create/design in Word so they can use as templates. I purchased
Word for Mac 2008 and made a couple of documents for my client, one of which I
customized from a Word 2008 Gallery template. The client has Word 2007 and was
not able to save the .docx (Gallery) file I sent. After several attempts, he
had to back save to .doc and wants to know why. Can anyone help me with the
answer so I don't have to sound like the Word ignoramus that I am? Also, in
general, is it foolish to even approach a design job in this way? ...designing
a Word doc on my Mac and expecting a PC user to be able to fully use it? What
are best practices?
Pleadingly,
Susan
This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!
--
John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:
[email protected]