word troubles (tif or jpg?)

[ivy13]

I am trying to work with a document in word that has several graphics
brought into it. I'm not sure, but I believe that the Graphics are
giving the application a hard time. I have finally gotten to the point
where I can make a decent print out of the document, but this is not
the case when I try to make it into a PDF. The only way I can make a
"good" pdf is by emailing it to myself and opening it in a prior MS
version. The graphic on the first page is much smaller than it
actually is on the PDF. Also, when I try to update the table of
contents field the appliction stalls indefinitely. I tried copying and
pasting the entire document, up to but not including the final carriage
return, into a blank document but this didn't fix the issue. I'm also
having problems with Entourage stalling (which I put into
microsoft.public.mac.office.entourage) and I am thinking these problems
could be related since this is all happening withint MS Office 2004. I
don't seem to be having trouble with PPT or Excel but, then again, I
don't use them as much.

 

[ivy13]

Hello again. Once thing I forgot to mention earlier - many of the
graphics that were brought into this document were saved in TIF format.
I was told by a colleague of mine that Microsoft "prefers" JPG. Does
anyone know if this is true? I'm hoping it isn't but have a feeling it
is.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello ivy13-

One answer I can give you is that tif (tiff) files are preferable for
print because they contain more info for the output device to take
advantage of. Therefore they will be considerably larger files than the
same images stored in jpg (jpeg) format. The jpg format is most
appropriate for display purposes (web photos, on-screen presentations,
etc.). It does print well for the average user, but typically does not
provide the quality required for professional output. It's not so much
that Word prefers jpg, it simply handles them more readily because they
are less complex files. Keep in mind that even with the features it
has, Word isn't designed to do what a professional layout program
(QuarkXpress, InDesign, PageMaker{R.I.P.}) can re handling print
quality images.

How many images are in the document, and how long is the document
itself? You don't say anything about the system involved, but if there
are many tifs and other constructs about the document (other graphics,
toc fields, x-refs, ftnotes, etc.) it may simply be running to the
limits of RAM and processor speed. It's very difficult to tell because
there seem to be a number of issues currently affecting performance of
Macs.

Could you separate it into Master/Subdocuments in order to handle it
more efficiently?

 

[Elliott Roper]

Hello again. Once thing I forgot to mention earlier - many of the
graphics that were brought into this document were saved in TIF format.
I was told by a colleague of mine that Microsoft "prefers" JPG. Does
anyone know if this is true? I'm hoping it isn't but have a feeling it
is.

Word has many interesting little character flaws in the matter of
graphics, but mishandling tif is not one of them.
Make sure the colour space of the tif is RGB though. Word has not a
clue about CMYK colours. Use Photoshop or GraphicConverter to turn any
CMYK files back into RGB before importing into Word. If you don't, your
picture will be an empty white rectangle. Might be OK if you name is
Rothko, otherwise your readers will be unimpressed.

How MS could let a product out the door that wants to print RGB and not
print CMYK is one of life's great mysteries.

Hint: RGB is for additive colour, as in a projected image or computer
screen where everything is black until the image arrives. CMYK is for
subtractive colours, namely printing, where everything is white until
the ink arrives. The more dark ink, the more reflected light is
'subtracted' from the page.

 

[ivy13]

thanks for the feedback. The image on the first page that is causing
the trouble used to be TIF but I was told (by an IT specialist) that I
would be better off if it were JPG. It is grayscale (not CMYK or RGB)
but I can switch it to RGB if that would help. This is a fairly large
document, however. It is 46 pages long and contains many images
throughout (but they are all low res - 150dpi being the highest if I am
not mistaken). I don't know if it is running the limits of the
processor speed (in RAM) but I could definitely check on it. Please
keep in mind that this document is ONLY problematic in MS Office 2004
but was just fine in previous versions of Office.

 

[Elliott Roper]

thanks for the feedback. The image on the first page that is causing
the trouble used to be TIF but I was told (by an IT specialist) that I
would be better off if it were JPG. It is grayscale (not CMYK or RGB)
but I can switch it to RGB if that would help. This is a fairly large
document, however. It is 46 pages long and contains many images
throughout (but they are all low res - 150dpi being the highest if I am
not mistaken). I don't know if it is running the limits of the
processor speed (in RAM) but I could definitely check on it. Please
keep in mind that this document is ONLY problematic in MS Office 2004
but was just fine in previous versions of Office.

Sorry Ivy, I missed the bit about it only hurting in 2004 when I read
you first post. My experience is with v.X.

Greyscale tif and jpg have worked equally well for me in v.X. Depending
on how much Word tried to enlarge the placed images and the intended
printing method, 150 may or may not be too coarse. I still recommend
adjusting the size and dpi of the images outside Word to give it less
chance to muck things up.

Coming back to your 'PDFs look worse'; that points to Word picking up a
low-resolution preview of the image you meant to place. If you have OS
X 10.3.something, you might try making your PDFs in two stages. First
print to file (output options in the print dialog) save as postscript.
Then open the result (the .ps file) in the preview program and save
that as PDF. I use that trick all the time to stop v.X printing manky
previews of eps files to PDF. I understand that misfeature has lived on
into 2004. It is one of the reasons I'm delaying 'upgrading'.

Finally, on top of all that, Word spins its wheels doing the table of
contents? I can't believe it could be related to the graphics, but
fiddle the preferences-> view (show) to check 'image placeholders' and
try again.

 

[ivy13]

I finally found out what the problem was with the file. Apparently,
using comments in Word 2004 on a Mac is NOT a good idea. I deleted all
of the comments from the file and now it works with no trouble.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Thanks for reporting back. Were you using only comments or both comments and
track changes?

DM

 

[ivy13]

Just comments. No prob on the "reporting back". I figured that, once
I knew why I was having these troubles, I should share what I found.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Mac]]

Good idea.

Comments are actually a bit temperamental in any version of Word. If you
are careful when you edit, Comments are a great idea: a very useful tool.
But if you hack and chop them, they are inclined to blow up

Cheers

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410