Word 2008 irregular character spacing

[jason.miranda]

I am working with a group of other folks on typesetting a series of
articles for an online journal using a MSWord template I created in
Word 2004. Once I started typesetting the articles, Word 2004 crashes
when I go to page layout view with any footnote-heavy articles, which
forced me to start using Word 2008. Everything has been fine up until
now.

Now, some users are reporting that in Word 2008 they are seeing very
irregularly spaced characters throughout the article. I thought it
might have something to do with kerning -- I found some slight
irregularities with some kerning pairs, especially characters with
lowercase "n", and "To". The template uses the base set of Arno Pro
Opentype fonts from Adobe (doesn't use the optical fonts). The basal
type is Arno Pro 11/13.5 pt. The fonts are managed using Extensis
Suitcase Fusion 2 (v13.0.2).

But, after testing on several versions of Word and on several
different machine, it seems much more than a kerning problem. I've
posted screenshots of a sample paragraph from different machines/
MSWord versions here: http://gallery.me.com/jmiranda1#100016. The
filenames tell which version of word and which computer was used (mbp
= macbook pro, imac = imac, winxp = Windows XP SP 3 running in VMWare
Fusion on the iMac).

I was able to reproduce the irregular character spacing problem on
Word 2008 running on the iMac (screenshot "msword_2008_imac") but on
the macbook pro, the same article opened in Word 2008 did not display
the problem, all characters displayed fine (screenshot
"msword_2008_mbp"). The irregular character spacing is most pronounced
in the word "identify" in the 2nd line.

Further testing in Windows XP, Word 2002 (XP) and Word 2007 did not
reproduce the problem.

So, I went back to Word 2008 on the iMac to do some more testing. I
cleared all the paragraph and character formatting and then
reformatted a paragraph with the Arno Pro font. Turns out that fixes
the problem, the character spacing is regular again, for that
paragraph. However, after typing a carriage return and beginning to
typing again, the new paragraph has the irregular spacing.

I'm not sure if there's some corruption in the document, in the
paragraph mark, or what, but it's a reproducible problem on multiple
machines. I thought it might just be a problem of onscreen rendering,
It's also a problem that persists when one creates a PDF and also when
you print from MSWord or from the PDF -- the irregular character
spacing is still present.

Would anyone know why this is happening? It doesn't appear to be an
OpenType/Word 2008 problem, because I don't have the problem in Word
2008 on my MacBook Pro.

I'd greatly appreciate any advice on how I might go about fixing the
problem, isolating what is causing it, or steps for further testing.

Best,
Jason

 

[Phillip Jones, C.E.T.]

If this created on Word 2004 Try the following.

create a new blank document.

Turn on hidden Characters mark click ¶ on menu bar to show hidden
characters.

click on beginning of article (file) hold shift key down and go to end
of file.while still holding shift key down click just before the second
to last ¶ Mark. do not select the last one. now copy then switch to new
document. and paste.

Now save the new Document to anew name. check to see if formatted
correctly if not reformat document and save again using the new name

See if this correct problem. If not report back with findings.

 

[jason.miranda]

Philip,

Thanks for your reply. I tried your suggestion two ways because I am
not sure which version of Word was used to author the original file.
But, we are using Word 2008 to apply the DOT template, clean up the
formatting, and typeset the articles. So the article exists as a DOTX
file. (1) The first method I tried was in Word 2008. I opened the file
in Word 2008, copied it as you directed, created a new 2008 file,
pasted the text in. Saved. (2) The second method was to open the file
in Word 2008, backsave as a Word 97–2004 DOC file. Then opened in Word
2004 and followed your instructions from there.

Both methods did not correct the problem. The characters are still
irregularly spaced.

Just a bit of background: The original author manuscript file is
opened in Word 2008 and then the DOT template is applied with the
"automatically update document styles" checked. The DOT is a Word 2004
document template file. After that is done, I go back and uncheck
"automatically update doc styles".

The problem is not reproducible across all installs of Word 2008, but
seems to be limited only to Word 2008. If I open up a backsaved file
in Word 2004, it does not appear when the file is opened in Word 2004.
But if that same file is opened in Word 2008, the problem does appear.

I need to go back to the original author manuscript file and retrace
the workflow of typsetting the document to find the origins of the
problem, but it appears to be either a problem with attaching a MSWord
2004 DOT template to a file opened in Word 2008, or it's a problem
shared among the different installs of Word 2008 where the problem is
reproducible.

Any thoughts?

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Jason:

The update version of Word is critical to this issue. There was a known bug
in early versions of Word 2004 and 2008.

Also: To get professional, consistent results, it is important to clear all
of the direct formatting from the document and rely entirely on styles to
achieve consistent formatting.

There are a variety of "tools" in Word that will apply direct formatting of
one sort or another: in a professional setting you need to ensure that these
are all disabled.

It's too much to expect ordinary users to know about or turn off these
settings: so you need to get used to clearing user's formatting from
contributed text and re-formatting it yourself using only styles

I note that in two of your samples, you have enabled display of space
characters, and in two, you did not. If non-printing characters are
displayed, that will switch off any attempt by Word to get the display
accurate: it will do the best it can after fitting in the non-printing
characters.

The printer driver of the printer set as the default for the document will
have a large effect here: Word draws the printer metrics from the printer
driver and uses those to make up the display.

The only way to really prove this would be to print to a network print
server where the printer and the print driver are both running on the same
machine: running a Mac versions and a Windows version of the driver for the
same printer is not close enough.

However, it's probably important to say that Word is a word-processor:
high-quality typesetting is out of scope for this product. The internal
measurement engine in Word works to the closest twentieth of a point (a
"twip") on paper, and to the closest pixel on screen and on paper. You will
get some artefacts at the boundaries of each twip and each pixel.

Looking at your samples, I would say that you're abut as close as you're
going to get in Word. If you need it closer than that, then Word is the
wrong tool for the job. I couldn't in all conscience recommend that you
spend any more time on this: move the job to InDesign, which is designed to
do this kind of thing

Cheers

I am working with a group of other folks on typesetting a series of
articles for an online journal using a MSWord template I created in
Word 2004. Once I started typesetting the articles, Word 2004 crashes
when I go to page layout view with any footnote-heavy articles, which
forced me to start using Word 2008. Everything has been fine up until
now.

Now, some users are reporting that in Word 2008 they are seeing very
irregularly spaced characters throughout the article. I thought it
might have something to do with kerning -- I found some slight
irregularities with some kerning pairs, especially characters with
lowercase "n", and "To". The template uses the base set of Arno Pro
Opentype fonts from Adobe (doesn't use the optical fonts). The basal
type is Arno Pro 11/13.5 pt. The fonts are managed using Extensis
Suitcase Fusion 2 (v13.0.2).

But, after testing on several versions of Word and on several
different machine, it seems much more than a kerning problem. I've
posted screenshots of a sample paragraph from different machines/
MSWord versions here: http://gallery.me.com/jmiranda1#100016. The
filenames tell which version of word and which computer was used (mbp
= macbook pro, imac = imac, winxp = Windows XP SP 3 running in VMWare
Fusion on the iMac).

I was able to reproduce the irregular character spacing problem on
Word 2008 running on the iMac (screenshot "msword_2008_imac") but on
the macbook pro, the same article opened in Word 2008 did not display
the problem, all characters displayed fine (screenshot
"msword_2008_mbp"). The irregular character spacing is most pronounced
in the word "identify" in the 2nd line.

Further testing in Windows XP, Word 2002 (XP) and Word 2007 did not
reproduce the problem.

So, I went back to Word 2008 on the iMac to do some more testing. I
cleared all the paragraph and character formatting and then
reformatted a paragraph with the Arno Pro font. Turns out that fixes
the problem, the character spacing is regular again, for that
paragraph. However, after typing a carriage return and beginning to
typing again, the new paragraph has the irregular spacing.

I'm not sure if there's some corruption in the document, in the
paragraph mark, or what, but it's a reproducible problem on multiple
machines. I thought it might just be a problem of onscreen rendering,
It's also a problem that persists when one creates a PDF and also when
you print from MSWord or from the PDF -- the irregular character
spacing is still present.

Would anyone know why this is happening? It doesn't appear to be an
OpenType/Word 2008 problem, because I don't have the problem in Word
2008 on my MacBook Pro.

I'd greatly appreciate any advice on how I might go about fixing the
problem, isolating what is causing it, or steps for further testing.

Best,
Jason

--
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, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[jason.miranda]

Hi John,

Thanks so much for the reply. I'm running Word 2004 and 2008 with all
the latest updates on all machines, but still getting this irregular
character spacing.

Also, all the formatting is controlled by stylesheets. I've used a mix
of Word's built-in styles and custom stylesheets. I've used Word for
over a decade, and while working on this project referred to the MVP
Word groups and Clive Huggans Bend Word to Your Will document. I've
had to refine my skills a bit in creating this template, but it
conforms to all the best practices you and other MVPs have shared.
Also, I've shared those best practices with the team of folks using
the template to format articles. The template also disables the "bad"
formatting methods supplied by Word and replaces them with custom
toolbars that present only the "good" methods.

As for the high-quality typesetting, I understand completely and am
sympathetic to your view. I'm a professional typesetter. I would never
use Word to typeset anything destined for print. And use InDesign for
most jobs. But the use of Microsoft Word is one of the client's
requirements for this project. I've been up front about the
limitations of Word and its flakiness, but they do need to use because
of the distributed, collaborative nature of the workflow. It's the
best, cheapest option they have. The articles are ultimately going to
be PDF'd and converted to HTML for an online journal.

That said, Word's limitations have nothing to do with the irregular
character spacing. It seems to be a bug in Word 2008 and how an
attached template from an earlier version of Word behaves.

I had a DOCX file which I styled in 2008 using the Arno Pro font, then
I attached the DOT template (created in Word 2004) in Word 2008 with
automatically update styles checked. As soon as I hit the button I saw
the character spacing go from regular to irregular in Word 2008. But
if I backsave this file to the DOC format and open in Word 2004, Word
2007, or Word 2002 the spacing is fine.

I'd be happy to post a screencast of this. The only option I can see
avaialble at this point, if I want to continue to use Word 2008, is to
build from scratch a new DOTM template in 2008 rather than use the
Word 2004 DOT template. I've also tried building a new template in
2008 by copying over all the styles using the organizer. No luck with
that. Still irregular character spacing.

Any other practical suggestions for trying to track down the source of
this bug and how I might fix it?

Thanks again for all the advice so far.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Jason:

As I said: I wouldn't waste much more time on it Word's not going to
do this across differing versions and file formats.

I suspect you have a conflict between the Document Defaults in Word 2008 and
the default settings in the styles in 2004. A .dot and a .docx are not 100
per cent compatible: the .docx contains more properties.

When you used "Automatically update styles" you sucked all of the settings
for all of the styles into the Word 2008 document.

However: The document defaults are not accessible in Word 2008. You can
set them in Word 2007, but I wouldn't, because you have no way of knowing
what the appropriate settings are. The behaviour of the Normal style is
quite different in a .docx ‹ Normal style should be blank (completely empty)
in a .docx because it inherits its values from the Document Defaults. If
you set values in the Normal style, you can get undocumented cascading
inheritance effects. None of this is documented, we have no information on
how this works.

Sorry: Short of manually reconstructing the template, I can't think of a
way to solve the problem.

Cheers

Hi John,

Thanks so much for the reply. I'm running Word 2004 and 2008 with all
the latest updates on all machines, but still getting this irregular
character spacing.

Also, all the formatting is controlled by stylesheets. I've used a mix
of Word's built-in styles and custom stylesheets. I've used Word for
over a decade, and while working on this project referred to the MVP
Word groups and Clive Huggans Bend Word to Your Will document. I've
had to refine my skills a bit in creating this template, but it
conforms to all the best practices you and other MVPs have shared.
Also, I've shared those best practices with the team of folks using
the template to format articles. The template also disables the "bad"
formatting methods supplied by Word and replaces them with custom
toolbars that present only the "good" methods.

As for the high-quality typesetting, I understand completely and am
sympathetic to your view. I'm a professional typesetter. I would never
use Word to typeset anything destined for print. And use InDesign for
most jobs. But the use of Microsoft Word is one of the client's
requirements for this project. I've been up front about the
limitations of Word and its flakiness, but they do need to use because
of the distributed, collaborative nature of the workflow. It's the
best, cheapest option they have. The articles are ultimately going to
be PDF'd and converted to HTML for an online journal.

That said, Word's limitations have nothing to do with the irregular
character spacing. It seems to be a bug in Word 2008 and how an
attached template from an earlier version of Word behaves.

I had a DOCX file which I styled in 2008 using the Arno Pro font, then
I attached the DOT template (created in Word 2004) in Word 2008 with
automatically update styles checked. As soon as I hit the button I saw
the character spacing go from regular to irregular in Word 2008. But
if I backsave this file to the DOC format and open in Word 2004, Word
2007, or Word 2002 the spacing is fine.

I'd be happy to post a screencast of this. The only option I can see
avaialble at this point, if I want to continue to use Word 2008, is to
build from scratch a new DOTM template in 2008 rather than use the
Word 2004 DOT template. I've also tried building a new template in
2008 by copying over all the styles using the organizer. No luck with
that. Still irregular character spacing.

Any other practical suggestions for trying to track down the source of
this bug and how I might fix it?

Thanks again for all the advice so far.

--
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, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]