This is one of the more irritating things in Word. You need to get the
same template and the same "printer" as the other guy is using.
It might also help if the fonts you use are not being substituted for
another. Don't be fooled simply because both fonts have the same name.
And when I say printer, I also mean the same printer 'driver'.
What you really need to do, after you are sure that your shared font
metrics are the same (the width and height of every letter in your
Times is the same as the other turkey's Times) is make sure that your
document margins are the same as the other guy's.
Repeat after me... "This is a royal pain in the arse". Or if you are
using US Letter - "ass".
The only rational course you can take is to insist that his is wrong
and your's is right. Good luck with the dental work.
In practical terms, make sure you have all the fonts he has and that
they come from MS. Then try everything you can to get your printer
margins the same as his/hers.
Of course, if you only care about what it looks like printed, one of
you could declare yourself to be the page break arbiter of last resort.
(liberal use of 'keep with next' and 'keep lines together' has strong
medicinal properties)
Anyhow, if your doctorate is in a vaguely numerate discipline you have
to consider the loss of street cred incurred by avoiding emacs and TeX.
(I really shouldn't post after tipping half a bottle a decent red into
me over dinner.)
Just to add to what Elliott said (also after an exquisite South Australian
red, but only 2 glasses -- I'm working on it, Elliott!):
[The next 3 paragraphs apply to OS 9 and earlier; I'm not yet in OS X so I'm
not sure about applicability to Word X; perhaps someone will clarify this.
It's from a Microsoft article that seems to have been removed from their
website.]
Despite their similar appearance, the standard Macintosh TrueType fonts
(Times, Helvetica, and Courier) are actually quite different from the
standard Windows fonts (Times New Roman, Arial, and Courier New). These
fonts come from broadly the same font families, but the font metrics of the
font sets are different. Even a very short document that uses these fonts
can exhibit noticeable change in pagination when you move it to the other
platform, and long documents can display a considerable amount of change.
Word for the Macintosh uses Microsoft's TrueType font set for the Macintosh,
including Times New Roman, Arial, Courier New, and Wingdings. These are the
same TrueType fonts that come with Microsoft Windows. This offers a
consistent base set of fonts for every Word user, minimizing font-mapping
difficulties when you cross platforms.
These are boring fonts but you can¹t go wrong with them.
On
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/wordx/using.aspx?pid=usingwordx I
saw these comments in relation to Word X:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.... if you want to make sure that your file looks the same across both
Windows and Mac platforms, choose fonts that are most likely to be installed
on a Windows-based computer.
The fonts that are installed by default with Office v. X are also installed
with Windows versions of Office. So it's a safe bet that when you choose
from these fonts, other people will see the same fonts that you see. You can
choose the following fonts with confidence: Arial, Arial Black, Century
Gothic, Comic Sans MS, Copperplate Gothic Bold, Copperplate Gothic Light,
Curlz MT, Edwardian Script ITC, Impact, Lucida Handwriting, Monotype Sorts,
Tahoma, Times New Roman, Verdana, and Wingdings.
Note: Fonts that you install from the Office v. X Value Pack are also
available to users of Office for Windows. However, because these fonts are
optional for both Mac and Windows users, you cannot be as sure that other
computers have these fonts installed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For a broader discussion of interchangeability of documents between
computers, see Appendix A of "Bend Word to your Will", downloadable free
from the MVPs' website
(
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/Bend/BendWord.htm).
Sometimes a minor adjustment to the margin settings can nudge pagination
back to something similar, but it's hit-and-miss.
Doug, Elliott and I are assuming that you only have hard page breaks at
places such as new chapter pages. If you have them elsewhere, you'll have
all sorts of problems, of course -- but see my notes on "minimum
maintenance" documents (i.e., docs with formatting that needs a minimum of
adjusting when adding new material or transferring to other computers) in
the abovementioned appendix.
And the easiest way to refer to page numbers is to insert an automated
cross-reference, as described under the heading "Bookmarks in
cross-referencing". I have a keystroke and toolbar button to do this
quickly. Updating the page numbers takes just seconds -- key Command-a to
select the whole document and hit the F9 key.
-- Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
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* Know the answer, even a partial one, to a question you see on this
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* Please post all comments or follow-on questions to the newsgroup for the
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* If anyone is still reading down this far, here's a question: is it time
for you to back up your Normal template and all your Word settings files?
(This should be on a medium other than the internal hard drive and, if you
also want to protect against theft and fire, stored in a different
building.)
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