Compatibility

[seejanedream]

Help! I have been trying for forever to find a way to make my Resume
in Microsoft Office for Macs look the same when it's opened on a PC.
I have tried using different extensions - .doc, .rtf, and nothing
seems to work!

I tried running a compatibility report, and it keeps telling me that
there is Czech text in my document, and there isn't!

Is there something else I am supposed to be doing to make this
compatible???

Thanks ahead of time for anyone who can help...

 

[Elliott Roper]

Help! I have been trying for forever to find a way to make my Resume
in Microsoft Office for Macs look the same when it's opened on a PC.
I have tried using different extensions - .doc, .rtf, and nothing
seems to work!

In what way does it differ on the two machines? If it is just line and
page breaks, that is just Word being a word processor and not a proper
page layout program. The result will vary from PC to PC. It will depend
on what flavour of printer each has and what fonts are installed on
each. You will get the same thing from one Mac to another.

If that is all it is, you can minimise it by using generously wide
print margins and a common font like Arial or Times New Roman.

I tried running a compatibility report, and it keeps telling me that
there is Czech text in my document, and there isn't!

That probably won't matter. If you want to get rid of it, check the
language of each style you use in format » style, then set each
paragraph to be normal for style.

Is there something else I am supposed to be doing to make this
compatible???

Resumés are slippery beasts. There are stupid job agencies out there
who insist on Word docs and then won't consider your application
because it looks funny on their machine which is set up wrongly.
Sending a .doc from Word 2004 is better than sending an rtf, since rtf
will freak those muppets anyway, and give exactly the same result.

Some will want Word so they can cut and paste it onto their own
documents in their own styles before sending it on to a prospective
employer, and that is fair enough. To help them do that, make your
resumé as close to plain vanilla text as you can. Avoid text boxes like
the plague and don't be mucking about with clever tricks like placing
images not in line with text and so on.

Now if it totally screws up and these tricks don't help, ask again.

I often send a PDF as well as a Word doc to people that need to see it
the way I do, and yet edit it. That probably won't be acceptable to an
employment agency, and you would have to guess the effect it would have
on a private employer.

 

[John McGhie]

A few tips that will help:

1) Select all and set the Language to the language you are using. That
should get rid of the Czech nagging.

2) Use only the fonts provided with Microsoft Office (e.g. Times New Roman
and Arial, not Times and Helvetica). The Microsoft fonts for the Mac are
specially tweaked to match the fonts of the same name supplied with the PC.
In other words, they are not the same fonts, they are coded so that what you
see on the Mac will look as close as possible to what you will see on the
PC.

3) Remove all blank lines, blank paragraphs, multiple spaces, and page
breaks from your text. Learn to paginate your document with combinations of
Paragraph properties: these will move smoothly between platforms without
changing their position or effect. "Keep With Next" instead of page breaks,
"Space Before" instead of blank lines, "Keep Lines Together" instead of hard
page breaks.

If you do only those three simple things, most of your problems should be
solved.

Whenever you open a Word document, Word re-lays it for the printer that is
connected and the fonts that are available. It is designed to do this, and
you can't prevent it.

However, you can USE this feature to your advantage. If you construct your
document to layout correctly automatically, it will layout correctly
regardless of which platform or printer it appears on.

Rather than try to take control and override all of Word's features to force
the appearance you want, learn to let go control and allow Word to take over
the job for you. Then you use those properties I mentioned to "influence"
Word's choices so that it gets it the way you want it, automatically.

For good results, I recommend that you use only styles for your formatting.
Don't use directly-applied formatting at all if you can help it.

Set your styles to have space "after" rather than space "before". This will
give you a nice even top page margin. The exception is Headings: use 2-1/2
times the font height of space before on Headings.

Use tabs sparingly: use borderless tables to lay out tabular material.

Hope this helps

Help! I have been trying for forever to find a way to make my Resume
in Microsoft Office for Macs look the same when it's opened on a PC.
I have tried using different extensions - .doc, .rtf, and nothing
seems to work!

I tried running a compatibility report, and it keeps telling me that
there is Czech text in my document, and there isn't!

Is there something else I am supposed to be doing to make this
compatible???

Thanks ahead of time for anyone who can help...

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/
Age
Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[little_creature]

John McGhie said the following on 21.7.2007 11:28:

A few tips that will help:

1) Select all and set the Language to the language you are using. That
should get rid of the Czech nagging.

EXCUSE ME!? I beg your pardon. I do not understand these people driving
on the wrong side of the road.
See, I'm better today...

2) Use only the fonts provided with Microsoft Office (e.g. Times New Roman
and Arial, not Times and Helvetica). The Microsoft fonts for the Mac are
specially tweaked to match the fonts of the same name supplied with the PC.
In other words, they are not the same fonts, they are coded so that what you
see on the Mac will look as close as possible to what you will see on the
PC.

3) Remove all blank lines, blank paragraphs, multiple spaces, and page
breaks from your text. Learn to paginate your document with combinations of
Paragraph properties: these will move smoothly between platforms without
changing their position or effect. "Keep With Next" instead of page breaks,
"Space Before" instead of blank lines, "Keep Lines Together" instead of hard
page breaks.

If you do only those three simple things, most of your problems should be
solved.

Whenever you open a Word document, Word re-lays it for the printer that is
connected and the fonts that are available. It is designed to do this, and
you can't prevent it.

However, you can USE this feature to your advantage. If you construct your
document to layout correctly automatically, it will layout correctly
regardless of which platform or printer it appears on.

Rather than try to take control and override all of Word's features to force
the appearance you want, learn to let go control and allow Word to take over
the job for you. Then you use those properties I mentioned to "influence"
Word's choices so that it gets it the way you want it, automatically.

For good results, I recommend that you use only styles for your formatting.
Don't use directly-applied formatting at all if you can help it.

Set your styles to have space "after" rather than space "before". This will
give you a nice even top page margin. The exception is Headings: use 2-1/2
times the font height of space before on Headings.

Use tabs sparingly: use borderless tables to lay out tabular material.

Hope this helps

And you forget about pictures... You'd better to save all your pictures
on your HDD in some reasonable file format, such as gif, tiff, png, jpg.
And then insert them into Word As insert>picture>from file. Try to avoid
copy and paste them. Also I wold avoid using drawing tools to make
complex images on PC and then opening that file on Mac. They will not
look very nice.


I would also recommend you to make a template according to all rules
John has pointed above and copy that template on your Mac as well as PC.
Then base your document on this template and make sure, word can see it.

If you just need to make a file, send it to someone on PC who is not
supposed to make any changes, you can print your Word document to PDF
and send them PDF. This will looks all the time same.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi LC:

That does not mean you must immediately resume nagging

I find "Little Creature" a strange nom-de-plume, considering that I know you
to be a two-metre-high fire-breathing monster who drives on the wrong side
of the road and terrifies Elliot with a single crack of the whip...

I am going away now... Quite quickly... Running like hell, in fact ....

John McGhie said the following on 21.7.2007 11:28:

EXCUSE ME!? I beg your pardon. I do not understand these people driving
on the wrong side of the road.
See, I'm better today...
....

And you forget about pictures... You'd better to save all your pictures
on your HDD in some reasonable file format, such as gif, tiff, png, jpg.
And then insert them into Word As insert>picture>from file. Try to avoid
copy and paste them. Also I wold avoid using drawing tools to make
complex images on PC and then opening that file on Mac. They will not
look very nice.

Um... Yeah, I *did* forget about pictures. It is REALLY difficult to get
Microsoft Office Drawing Objects to cross the platform boundary cleanly.
You can get them "close enough" by sticking to Arial text and taking care
how you build them.

But saving them out of PowerPoint as .GIF or .PNG is really the safest.

..GIF will be the smallest, but it supports a maximum of 256 colours. .PNG
will keep all of the resolution in the original and allows 24-bit colour.

Use JPEG for photos and continuous-tone illustrations: you will lose
resolution, but it's very compact.

Use TIFF only if you are sending to a commercial printer, and use them as
Linked pictures, do NOT embed TIFF in the document: it's too big!

I would also recommend you to make a template according to all rules
John has pointed above and copy that template on your Mac as well as PC.
Then base your document on this template and make sure, word can see it.

If you just need to make a file, send it to someone on PC who is not
supposed to make any changes, you can print your Word document to PDF
and send them PDF. This will looks all the time same.

Cheers

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Clive Huggan]

On 21/7/07 8:28 PM, in article C2C815F3.585F%[email protected], "John McGhie"

3) Remove all blank lines, blank paragraphs, multiple spaces, and page
breaks from your text. Learn to paginate your document with combinations of
Paragraph properties: these will move smoothly between platforms without
changing their position or effect. "Keep With Next" instead of page breaks,
"Space Before" instead of blank lines, "Keep Lines Together" instead of hard
page breaks.

If you do only those three simple things, most of your problems should be
solved.

<snip>

Further to what John has said -- and in accord with the principles he
mentions -- if you would like more information on these "minimum
maintenance" formatting tricks, have a look at some notes in "Bend Word to
Your Will", which are available as a free download from the Word MVPs'
website (http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html).
Specifically, Appendix A on page 167. "Bend Word" also has coverage of
styles, starting on page 88.

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from North America and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
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