Word Versions Messing w/Footnotes?

[Martha Bowes]

I have formatted a dissertation in Word X. My client opened it in Word 98
for Mac. Old footnote glitches caused problems. I asked him to open it in
another version of Word. I know he has some PC versions available. He then
wrote and said that on three pages there was a missing line space between
the footnotes, but when I open the doc in Word X, there either is only one
footnote or no footnotes on those pages. Would version of Word later than 98
cause this problem in the cross-over? I am mystified. I have checked the
page numbers he gave me both in the dissertation's body-page numbering, and
in the whole document's page numbering, so it is not a matter of which page
number he gave me.

Thanks in advance, Martha

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Hi Martha-

Better ask what footnote numbers he is referring to--page numbers will
change on every computer and printer and are not a reliable way of checking.
Then check the text of that note to make sure it got formatted with Space
After (I assume you didn't put in the line space manually, but changed the
format of the footnote text style, as Suzanne Barnhill suggested re previous
post? I have found that sometimes I need to reapply style changes, for
mysterious reasons)

Dayo

 

[John McGhie [MVP]]

Hi Martha:

That's USUALLY caused by the settings you have on your Footnotes style.
Most people set the footnotes style to an ABSOLUTE line height, to prevent
Word from splitting footnotes onto the wrong page.

When the document goes to a PC, the font has a different metric, and the
absolute line height may not be appropriate.

But if you have been using EndNote in the document, expect some dramas
moving the document to a version of Word that does not have Endnote
installed.

Hope this helps

I have formatted a dissertation in Word X. My client opened it in Word 98
for Mac. Old footnote glitches caused problems. I asked him to open it in
another version of Word. I know he has some PC versions available. He then
wrote and said that on three pages there was a missing line space between
the footnotes, but when I open the doc in Word X, there either is only one
footnote or no footnotes on those pages. Would version of Word later than 98
cause this problem in the cross-over? I am mystified. I have checked the
page numbers he gave me both in the dissertation's body-page numbering, and
in the whole document's page numbering, so it is not a matter of which page
number he gave me.

Thanks in advance, Martha

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John McGhie, Microsoft MVP: Word for Macintosh and Word for Windows
Consultant Technical Writer <[email protected]>
+61 4 1209 1410; Sydney, Australia: GMT + 10 hrs

 

[Aldo Cimino]

Hi John.

You're always talking about drama using EndNote, but I've been using it for
over a year (6.0.2) with Word X, and everything seems to be fine. In my
version (and assumedly all recent versions) citation information is embedded
in the document itself--I've had no problem bringing documents over to
different Macs, PCs, and computers that don't have EndNote installed.

What, specifically, is the issue?

-Aldo

 

[John McGhie [MVP]]

Hi Aldo:

People forgetting to run the Transport command in EndNote before switching
the document to a different version of Word

EndNote creates vast Note field that Word can't handle unless EndNote is
installed

There's a big screed about it on the EndNote support site.

Cheers

Hi John.

You're always talking about drama using EndNote, but I've been using it for
over a year (6.0.2) with Word X, and everything seems to be fine. In my
version (and assumedly all recent versions) citation information is embedded
in the document itself--I've had no problem bringing documents over to
different Macs, PCs, and computers that don't have EndNote installed.

What, specifically, is the issue?

-Aldo

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All Spam and attachments blocked by Microsoft Entourage for Mac OS X. Please
post replies to the newsgroup to maintain the thread.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP: Word for Macintosh and Word for Windows
Consultant Technical Writer <[email protected]>
+61 4 1209 1410; Sydney, Australia: GMT + 10 hrs

 

[MB]

Now this amazes me. You mean after spending hours formatting a document page
numbers change depending on the computer viewing it or the printer printing
it? Why! It seems to me this shouldn't happen. Why do I format the margins
etc. so carefully if not to have the document look the same on any computer,
and print the same from any computer. Is this one reason that multiple
authors might use Adobe for coordinating editing, because it won't do such a
thing?

 

[MB]

I have found that sometimes I need to reapply style changes, for

mysterious reasons)

Hi Dayo,

I have had to do this too, but it seems to resolve if I select the problem
text, go to the style menu, and select "Clear Formatting" at the top. This
clears the text's original formatting from before the style was applied so
the text doesn't get confused as to its identity. Or so I think.

Martha

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Actual page numbers depend on the printer and printer driver--using the
sophisticated formatting helps the page numbers stay more consistent, but I
think part of the advantage of styles, headings, etc is that then the
document comes out right no matter what printer one uses. But search the
MVP site (mvps.org) for an article called Text Reflow, it explains it much
better than I can.

I'll try your other tip re clearing formatting, thanks.

Dayo

 

[John McGhie [MVP]]

Hi MB:

OK, the short answer is "because that's what Word Processors are designed to
do." Flowing text automatically is the feature that distinguishes a
word-processor from a publishing package.

If by Adobe you mean "FrameMaker", it does it too. I believe InDesign does
not, because it's a publishing package that's designed to prevent this.

In either word processor, you have to use special techniques if you want
your pagination to remain fixed. The latest PC version of Word was going to
have a new feature that enabled an author to lock the pagination of the
document. I don't think it made it into the released version (I haven't
checked the released version yet, does anyone know?) there were too many
other problems as a result.

A Word Processor starts off with an endless document, to which it adds text,
creating as many pages as it needs to accommodate the text. It flows the
text for best fit. And it reads the fonts and printer driver and graphics
driver to obtain the current accurate measurements, then tries to display
the result as close as possible to 100 per cent WYSIWYG (What you see is
what you get...).

A publishing package starts out with a fixed number of pre-defined pages,
then "fits" the text among the pages. Good ones are WYSIWYG also, but not
with the same aim as a word processor.

The designer of a publishing package starts with the assumption that you
want to exactly control what text goes where on each page, that you will be
making your pages up in facing pairs, and that you will want to spend the
time to get each one perfect (say, half an hour a page). A publishing
package's output is typically 20 to 100 pages, and each one must be perfect.

When you want to do 1,000 up to 5,000 pages in a publication, you may not
actually have the funds to be spending half an hour per page laying it out.
You will want everything as automatic as possible, and you will be prepared
to compromise with things moving around or not looking quite perfect in
order to gain that productivity. In which case, you will be looking for a
word processor. Chances are the one you will pick is Word, because it has
the greatest automation, power and highest throughput when things get really
serious. If you have more time to work and you don't care about being able
to import or export text from other applications, you would chose
FrameMaker.

Now, in your case, it sounds as though you want to achieve a desktop
publishing result. You can do it with Word, but you need to use some
advanced techniques and features. So you may want to hang around here and
ask lots of questions.

To get you started, remove all of your page breaks from your document!
Learn to paginate the document using the paragraph properties "Keep With
Next", "Keep Lines Together", "Widow/Orphan Control" and "Page Break
Before". This enables you to embed instructions in the text that assist
Word to get the result the way you want it. One of the secrets is to stop
trying to tell Word where you want each page break: that's Word's job to
figure out where the page breaks fall: let it do what it's good at.
Instead, tell Word where you definitely do NOT want a page break, then let
it go to work. The next result will be a document that will paginate
correctly regardless of the computer, operating system, paper size, printer
or font set it appears on.

Another hint: Define all your styles to have their interline leading as
space "After", not "Before" (except for your minor headings). This prevents
a ragged top margin.

Come back often: there's lots more we can tell you if you like

Cheers

Now this amazes me. You mean after spending hours formatting a document page
numbers change depending on the computer viewing it or the printer printing
it? Why! It seems to me this shouldn't happen. Why do I format the margins
etc. so carefully if not to have the document look the same on any computer,
and print the same from any computer. Is this one reason that multiple
authors might use Adobe for coordinating editing, because it won't do such a
thing?

--
All Spam and attachments blocked by Microsoft Entourage for Mac OS X. Please
post replies to the newsgroup to maintain the thread.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP: Word for Macintosh and Word for Windows
Consultant Technical Writer <[email protected]>
+61 4 1209 1410; Sydney, Australia: GMT + 10 hrs