MS Word - Thai Text Formatted Poorly on M1 iMac but OK on M3 MBA

[Buadhai]

My wife is a Thai attorney who frequently has to prepare court documents in a particular format. Until recently she used LibreOffice to create reasonable facsimiles of the court forms on her own. However, this proved to be tedious and time consuming so she purchased a package of court document templates (.docx) from a third party and also purchased a subscription to MS Office 365 with Word version 16.86.

Some completed documents from a template look fine on her M3 MBA (Sonoma) but not fine on her M1 iMac (Sonoma). Some look fine on both machines. Both machines are using the default screen resolution.

Here are a pair of screenshots of partial documents one from the M1 iMac and one from the M3 MBA. The document was originally completed on the M3 MBA.

M1 iMac

M3 MBA

As you can see, on the M1 iMac some text is missing, some text is formatted incorrectly and some filled-in text is in the wrong position.

Neither one of us has used Office in the last 20 years so we're clueless as to what has gone wrong here.

I checked the Word preferences on both machines and they seem to be identical (they were never touched by us). The font on both is the same (TH Sarabun New).

Note that the court form templates seem to only work with Word. I tried them with both LibreOffice and Pages and it was a mess.

Any ideas?

 

[bzgnyc2]

My wife is a Thai attorney who frequently has to prepare court documents in a particular format. Until recently she used LibreOffice to create reasonable facsimiles of the court forms on her own. However, this proved to be tedious and time consuming so she purchased a package of court document templates (.docx) from a third party and also purchased a subscription to MS Office 365 with Word version 16.86.

Some completed documents from a template look fine on her M3 MBA (Sonoma) but not fine on her M1 iMac (Sonoma). Some look fine on both machines. Both machines are using the default screen resolution.

Here are a pair of screenshots of partial documents one from the M1 iMac and one from the M3 MBA. The document was originally completed on the M3 MBA.

View attachment 2391226
M1 iMac


View attachment 2391227

M3 MBA

As you can see, on the M1 iMac some text is missing, some text is formatted incorrectly and some filled-in text is in the wrong position.

Neither one of us has used Office in the last 20 years so we're clueless as to what has gone wrong here.

I checked the Word preferences on both machines and they seem to be identical (they were never touched by us). The font on both is the same (TH Sarabun New).

Note that the court form templates seem to only work with Word. I tried them with both LibreOffice and Pages and it was a mess.

Any ideas?

Interesting I've never seen Word's formatting vary by CPU. I have seen some whacky Word documents that are ultra sensitive to nuances of the host computer which is why I always share my resume as PDF for example. Even if you think you did everything right in Word you don't really know how someone else's Word will handle it. I realize that's not the question nor solution here but just to highlight that Word's output can be unstable.

I assume that both computeres are running identical versions of Sonoma with an identical set of non-Apple fonts (if any). Also both computers have identical versions of Word since it installed at the same time on both computers from the same subscription. When you say they are set to the same resolution, that includes scaling (all Default for Display). Then you are looking at both documents at the same Zoom in word. Finally, since you said you already ensured all the settings/preferences are identical, I won't ask about those either.

Do you have the same printer selected on both? Word will tweak a document's formatting to the selected printer which can throw things off. I assume the Print -> Save as PDF/Open in Preview results from each match to what's on their respective screens (i.e. they match themselves but not each other)?

Can you share more information about these templates themselves? Are there macros involved? Is the form text some sort of background image while the user's text is regular text on top? Or does the user enter their text into special text boxes or fields? Can you edit the form's text (not that you would want to but just trying to understand how the vendor designed them and what features they used)?

Last for this round, if you open the original template on the M1 mac and edit there, do they look normal? What happens when you transfer those over to the M3? Does the mismatched formatting go both ways or just M3 -> M1?

 

[Buadhai]

Wow. That’s a hefty assignment. Your second paragraph assumptions are all correct. It’s the beginning of a busy workweek for my wife so getting both her attention is and my hands on her two machines will be a challenge.

The templates seem to be ordinary Word documents with text boxes. I’ll check to see if the supplied text can be edited and try printing as PDFs.

Thank you for taking the time to prepare such a thorough reply.

 

[Buadhai]

I managed to grab a bit of time on my wife's machines while she was out running.

• Same printer is selected on both machines.
• "PDF/Open in Preview" results in the identical malformed text.
• The templates have no macros as far as I can tell.
• The template text cannot be edited.
• The user enters text into the template's text boxes

When the template is opened on the M1 iMac and filled in there, saved and then viewed on the M3 MBA, the text is OK.
So, M1>M3 works, but M3>M1 does not.

I've also now been informed that this malformed text doesn't happen with all templates. So, perhaps the problem lies with just a few of the many templates that my wife has tried so far. But, that still seems baffling because it's the same template on both machines. The templates and completed documents are all saved in iCloud.

 

[chabig]

All I can think of is that the fonts aren't the same, or Word isn't calculating the font spacing correctly. Since the code in Word is fixed, I'd favor the fonts as your problem. I bet the two machines have different versions of that font.

 

[Buadhai]

All I can think of is that the fonts aren't the same, or Word isn't calculating the font spacing correctly. Since the code in Word is fixed, I'd favor the fonts as your problem. I bet the two machines have different versions of that font.

I don't think that can be the problem as the author of the templates supplied the font file along with the template files. That one file was used to install the font on both machines.

I think the only solution now is for my wife to contact the author of the templates to ask if he has a clue.

 

[chabig]

So you’re using third-party fonts. What happens if she changes the font to a system supplied font?

 

[bzgnyc2]

I don't think that can be the problem as the author of the templates supplied the font file along with the template files. That one file was used to install the font on both machines.

I think the only solution now is for my wife to contact the author of the templates to ask if he has a clue.

I think that is the best bet at this point. Very weird and I am very curious about the cause/solution. If you can report back here that would be great.

Just one more idea assuming the template is using standard Word Text Boxes (or similar), check the settings of the same text box (Right click -> More Layout Options) of a misformatting document on each system. I'd be curious if Word is showing identical information for Position, Text Wrapping, and Size. If it is but the results on screen are different, at least one of them is wrong. In which case that would be a Word problem you could report to Microsoft. Not that such an undertaking sounds any more pleasent...

 

[Buadhai]

I think that is the best bet at this point. Very weird and I am very curious about the cause/solution. If you can report back here that would be great.

Just one more idea assuming the template is using standard Word Text Boxes (or similar), check the settings of the same text box (Right click -> More Layout Options) of a misformatting document on each system. I'd be curious if Word is showing identical information for Position, Text Wrapping, and Size. If it is but the results on screen are different, at least one of them is wrong. In which case that would be a Word problem you could report to Microsoft. Not that such an undertaking sounds any more pleasent...

Now that I've had more time to look at a filled template, I see that it is actually set up as a table rather than fillable text boxes. If I do Select Table it looks like this:

Since I haven't actually used Word since the last century I have no idea how this works or why someone would choose to do a fillable form this way, but This is Thailand.

 

[bzgnyc2]

Now that I've had more time to look at a filled template, I see that it is actually set up as a table rather than fillable text boxes. If I do Select Table it looks like this:

View attachment 2391795

Since I haven't actually used Word since the last century I have no idea how this works or why someone would choose to do a fillable form this way, but This is Thailand.

An irregularly shapped table is not the solution I would have expected but can't say it's wrong...

How do the Table Properties compare when brought up on each machine? If it is just one irregular table, does it at least start anchored in the same place on the screen? If so, are the cell margins and wrapping settings showing the same?

 

[Buadhai]

An irregularly shapped table is not the solution I would have expected but can't say it's wrong...

How do the Table Properties compare when brought up on each machine? If it is just one irregular table, does it at least start anchored in the same place on the screen? If so, are the cell margins and wrapping settings showing the same?

I don’t know how to check all that. This is the first I’ve heard that irregular tables are even possible. Right clicking on the "table" doesn’t seem to produce a menu of properties.

 

[bzgnyc2]

I don’t know how to check all that. This is the first I’ve heard that irregular tables are even possible. Right clicking on the "table" doesn’t seem to produce a menu of properties.

Sorry if that was sounding like a lot -- you can play with creating your own irregular-sized tables if you start a new document and then go to Table->Draw Table (in the Apple Menu Bar -- not MS's ribbon interface). I've never used irregular tables before since my theory of tables is their regularity was the invention...

In any case, you should be able to right click on the table to get a menu where there will be a Table Properties option that will bring up a properties panel with all the knobs and levers you can imagine to control a table's layout. Alternatively you can also get to that panel if you click on the table and then go into same Table pulldown on the regular Apple menubar as above and click on Table Properties at the bottom of the menu.

 

[Buadhai]

I've never used irregular tables before since my theory of tables is their regularity was the invention...

My feelings exactly.

In any case, you should be able to right click on the table to get a menu where there will be a Table Properties option that will bring up a properties panel with all the knobs and levers you can imagine to control a table's layout. Alternatively you can also get to that panel if you click on the table and then go into same Table pulldown on the regular Apple menubar as above and click on Table Properties at the bottom of the menu.

Got it. It turns out you have to have the table selected to view the properties. You can't just click on where you know one of the cells is.

In any event, the tables are aligned exactly the same on both machines and the properties are all identical. I looked at every option and can find no differences.

I think it's time to call it quits here and hope that my wife can straighten it out with the developer.

Thanks for devoting so much time to this. In any even, I learned a lot which is always a good thing. I'm grateful for that.