Inline Image Object Problem in Word 2008

[pcharles]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Power PC

I am having problems with images that are inline with the text.

In Word 2004 when I pasted an image inline with the text, such as a chemical symbol, a chemical equation, or any other small object, I could go to the font menu and adjust its position relative to the line of text so that they would be aligned correctly. In these cases the image would be surrounded by a black boarder with black adjustment squares.

In Word 2008 when I paste an image inline with the text I cannot use the font menu, or any other adjustment, to adjust its position relative to the line of text and the image is now surrounded by little blue circles. When I use the equation editor to insert an equation object I get the black squares and can edit the objects position without problem, but not when pasting an image, or pasting an equation from Mathtype.

The problem seems to be a bug/problem related to the DocX format on the Mac because when I save the document as a Word 2004 document the pasted objects that were not editable under DocX become available. Similarly when I save a Word 2004 document as DocX they cease to be available. I could understand if DocX lacked capabilities of the old format, but when I open the DocX file on a Windows machine running VISTA and Office 2007 I can now edit the objects, so my only conclusion is that this is a bug in Mac 2008.

Apart from saving each file as Word 2004 before editing, is there any way of getting pasted images to act as objects for editing? What am I missing here? Is there a way to get Word 2008 to open as a Word 2004 format rather than DocX format?

Any help appreciated.

Thanks,

Paul

 

[CyberTaz]

Have you applied the 12.0.1 update to Office 2008? if not, try that first &
see if it makes a difference.

 

[pcharles]

Yes, I have the 12.0.1 update installed.

 

[CyberTaz]

Unfortunately I'm seeing the same sort of thing here - but I don't believe
it specifically has anything to do with the .docx format. Rather it is
caused by the new [different] graphics engine in 2008. Whether it's a bug or
intended to be that way I'm not sure, but it is definitely different
behavior than what was in 2004. In fact, if you are working with a .doc file
you retain the 2004 behavior because the program still invokes the older
graphics engine. In a .docx Word uses the newer engine which appears to
treat all In Line objects (regardless of Inserted or Pasted) stricty as
picture objects rather than as 'characters' - which is preventing the use of
character formatting features.

I don't have an option to offer at the moment [other than working strictly
in .doc format] but if I come up with anything I'll come back as soon as I
can.

 

[pcharles]

Interestingly, it does not treat in-line objects inserted via Microsoft Equation Editor as pictures. Those work fine. Very strange!

I suppose it is an assurance that the problem is not limited to my machine.

I guess I'll just keep using Word 2004 for my daily work (and save 2008 for sharing docx files) right now because it is significantly faster than Word 2008 on my G4 PB and my G5 Dual Core, particularly at startup.

Thanks for looking at this for me.

Paul