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Pages and Word Compatability

O

orbit

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 3, 2004
39
0
Hi,
I have tried this with word 2004 and 2008, pages 08 and 09 yet the same problem always occurs.

Im writing a big scientific report (40ish pages) for uni and im doing it in pages as it is so much faster and nicer to use on my macbook. The problem is I need to submit an electronic copy as a word document. No matter what setting I use whenever I save the pages document as a word file when I open it in word it has changed the formatting slightly.

For example if I have a page with about 3/4 full of text and then a new heading on the next page and some text following that

the heading on the second page and a few lines of text will move up into the first page when opened in microsoft word.

It dosent seem like that big of a deal but when you have about 20 graphs in the report and the text moves while they dont its quite frustrating repositioning everything.

Any solutions?

Thanks,
 
Check that your page sizes are the same in both applications as this can commonly cause the problem you describe.




Ask them if you can submit it via PDF.
 
both page sizes appear to be the same (standard A4)
And also I doubt they will accept a pdf as they have to make some changes to the document and then return it to me where I have to make further changes.

Any other ideas?
 
Check how the styles copied over. Maybe the style includes a little extra space between lines.
 
How would i check how the style is copied over?
Do you mean it might be removing a few returns or something?
 
Without seeing your paper it's hard to tell what wrong. My girlfriend used to have the same problems when exporting with graphs and text. Here's what I showed her.

You probably know these features, but you may not. So just in case.

1. If you actually want the heading to start on the next page, use a page break (Insert -> Page Break). Do not just hit return until you get to the next page.

2. Know how graphic elements in the document work. If you want a graph in a specific location on the page and you want text to move around it, use floating. If you want the graph's location to always be at a certain part of the text choose inline. If your text is moving while your graphs stay in place, this may help. With the graph selected, choose your style.

floatinline.png


3. Command-Shift-i is your friend. When formatting or export to word formatting is going haywire, use Command-Shift-i to Show Invisibles or (View -> Show Invisibles). From here you can see every formatting element that exists on the page to figure out what's going wrong.

invisibles.jpg


Hope that helps...
 
thanks for the reply. I already knew about tips 2 and 3
but it appears using a page break fixes the problem.

Thanks heaps

Still curious as to why word moves some things onto the previous page even though it has been returned a few times in pages
 
Rather than me starting a new thread on this have you found Pages '09 better for Word compatibility compared to Pages '08? I need to read a lot of business documents and send them out and of course they are always in Word format so if the compatibility is better it might be a good reason for me to upgrade.
 
Ive been doing some reading about pages sections feature and page breaks and it has made everything much easier now

I havent really done any tests or anything but it appears the same as pages 08.
 
As I said above, there's no standard rule for how widow and orphan rules are applied. I actually got into quite an argument about this with someone years ago, who was convinced that only Microsoft's way of doing this was "right." All other things being the same (fonts, page setup, etc., -- and good luck with that!), then you will always be faced with the issue of where and how the word processor decides when a page should break. Yes, you can force page breaking, and this might even give you the results you need in some cases. But it's definitely a work-around, and it will not work every time. This is one reason I will never send anyone a word processing file when a PDF will do.
 
orbit said:
Hi,
I have tried this with word 2004 and 2008, pages 08 and 09 yet the same problem always occurs.

Im writing a big scientific report (40ish pages) for uni and im doing it in pages as it is so much faster and nicer to use on my macbook. The problem is I need to submit an electronic copy as a word document. No matter what setting I use whenever I save the pages document as a word file when I open it in word it has changed the formatting slightly.

...
Click to expand...
You chosen a fool's errand. Word compatibility is a goal, not a feature, of any application that advertises it. There are annoying issues between two different versions of Word for Windows. To expect absolute compatibility between Pages and Word is a pipe dream.

My guess is that your recipient expects the document in Word 2003 format. If this is the case, then your best bet is to edit the document in Word 2004 (preferred) or Word 2008. If you really prefer to work in Pages then create and visually edit the document to its final state in Pages. Export it to .doc. Then open the .doc file in your favorite version of Word to correct the formatting issues created during the conversion process.
 
As stated above pdf is not an option.
And yes I know that the only real way to have it looking perfect in word will be to fix any formating lost or changed between pages and words, but i though their may be an easy way to fix my problem and as also stated above I have found a work around
 
orbit said:
As stated above pdf is not an option.
And yes I know that the only real way to have it looking perfect in word will be to fix any formating lost or changed between pages and words, but i though their may be an easy way to fix my problem and as also stated above I have found a work around
Click to expand...

But that won't work all of the time. This is what I was trying to say.
 
orbit said:
As stated above pdf is not an option.
And yes I know that the only real way to have it looking perfect in word will be to fix any formating lost or changed between pages and words, but i though their may be an easy way to fix my problem and as also stated above I have found a work around
Click to expand...

If you are using iWork 09 why not just post your Pages doc to iWork.com? Anyone with any browser can view it. They can leave comments on what changes are necessary and you can make the changes. Once the doc is finished you can re-post it for anyone to view or to download to PDF if no changes need to be made.
 
because I doubt that my university will make a special exception just for me and allow me to post my assignments onto a beta state website to be assessed
 
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