TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Tools: Weird Word spacing problem solved From:Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 12 Oct 2004 22:26:49 -0400
A while back, I reported a problem editing occasional documents created
using the Japanese version of Word using Word X (under OS X) on my Mac:
the onscreen display of the type didn't match the actual position of
the cursor, and there were weird gaps occuring within and between
words. Needless to say, this made editing using revision tracking a
nightmare--finding the actual cursor position required typing something
to see where the new text would actually appear.
Thanks to Marj Tiefert, I found the solution. The problem was that
although I had installed the necessary Japanese fonts, I'd neglected to
configure Word to use them properly. On the Mac, doing so is, shall we
charitably say, "inobvious"--simple when you know what you're looking
for, but you have to know what to look for. (Ain't that always the
case!) Here's how:
- Close all open applications.
- Copy the Utilities folder from your Office installation disk into
your Microsoft Office folder.
- Open the Utilities folder, then open the Microsoft Language Register
folder.
- Open a new window and navigate to the folder containing the Word icon.
- Drag the Word icon from the new window onto the Microsoft Language
Register icon.
- A configuration utility launches: select Japanese language support.
(The window then closes and provides no further feedback about what is
happening. D'oh!)
- Launch Word. Under the Format menu, select Document. In that dialog
box, you'll discover a whole new Tab called "Grid" that never existed
before.
- Turn off the document grid and close the dialog box. (There are
various other options you can play with, but this is the biggie.)
Voila! Problem solved. Now wasn't that obvious? Boy do I feel dim for
not instantly seeing that this was the solution to my problems. <g>
In any event, this solution needs a bit of testing before I'll be
confident using it, since a cursory inspection has already revealed
some oddnesses that made me glad I'd created a new test account on
which to test this process rather than using the account I use to earn
a living--such as the fact that a few dialog box entries appear to be
in Japanese, which I can't read. Oh well--at least I can now edit the
problem documents!
--Geoff Hart ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)
ROBOHELP X5: Featuring Word 2003 support, Content Management, Multi-Author
support, PDF and XML support and much more!
TRY IT TODAY at http://www.macromedia.com/go/techwrl
WEBWORKS FINALDRAFT: New! Document review system for Word and FrameMaker
authors. Automatic browser-based drafts with unlimited reviewers. Full
online discussions -- no Web server needed! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Send administrative questions to lisa -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.