Re: Word v.X freezes up when handling bullet points

From: Gareth (gareth_at_garethjordan.com)
Date: 11/26/04 

Date: 26 Nov 2004 05:16:05 -0800

Many thanks for that John, all seemed fixed by using step 1 - the Web Page scenario.

Regards
Gareth

John McGhie <john@mcghie.name> wrote in message news:<BDCC9E2A.D572%john@mcghie.name>...
> Hi Gareth/Nathan:
>
> Nope, it's not a font problem, and there's nothing wrong with Word.
>
> Welcome to the world-wide federation of Corrupt Document Owners. Your local
> chapter meets every Tuesday in your city's largest football stadium.
>
> First, I will explain how to fix it, then I will tell you what's wrong.
>
> There are two ways to fix documents like this:
>
> 1) In Word 2004, save the document as a Web Page. Close it and re-open it,
> and save it back as a document.
>
> 2) In Any version of Word, create a new blank document. CAREFULLY copy
> everything EXCEPT the last paragraph mark from the old document to the new
> document and save. (This is known in the trade as "Doing a Maggie" after a
> charming lady named Maggie who has now explained how to do this 3,428,726
> times...)
>
> Saving as a web page is simplest, but it will convert any embedded pictures
> into raster graphics (PNG...) if they were not already in that format. Most
> people won't notice, but if you are printing to a laser printer or going out
> to PDF later, your pictures will be fuzzy.
>
> Warning
>
> Your bullets and numbering (or some of them) are likely to change
> formatting. That's where the problem was, and to fix it, Word has to
> substitute default list formatting. Interestingly, the corruption usually
> occurs in a list format that is no longer in use in the document, so you
> will never be aware that it has gone.
>
> There is a very small possibility that this process may delete some text.
> You need to inspect the document afterwards to make sure that it hasn't.
> Places to look carefully include inside tables, and in notes, end-notes and
> headers and footers.
>
> The problem is that some of the internal code in the document is corrupt.
> During a save or a Maggie, Word completely rebuilds the internal code of the
> document. In doing so, it discards anything it can't understand. It's
> theoretically possible that you may have had some text in the bit it
> discarded. Very unlikely, but it can happen. If it does, for god's sake
> don't paste the missing bit in from the old document. If you do, you will
> paste the problem back into your new document. Type it...
>
> NOW FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN THIS STUFF...
>
> What's Wrong?
>
> The List Templates are stuffed!
>
> What's a List Template?
>
> It's a collection of formatting. It contains all the measurements needed to
> create a bulleted or numbered paragraph. The measurements are listed in a
> table at the end of the document. Each paragraph that has a bullet or
> number contains a pointer that indicates which list template to use to
> format the bullet or number.
>
> Why are you talking about Numbering?
>
> Because to Word, a bullet is simply a special case of Number. It *is* a
> number, but Word knows not to try to increment it.
>
> Does this happen often?
>
> Yes.
>
> What causes it?
>
> You do.
>
> How?
>
> We don't know... :-) Careless editing will cause it in minutes. Careful
> editing may not cause it for years. Leaving tracked changes turned on but
> hidden is almost guaranteed disaster. Copying text from a document with
> different list formatting can do it. Copying from documents whose list
> formatting is already bad will certainly cause it. Dragging and dropping
> list text within tables is likely to cause it. Using Format>Bullets and
> Numbering instead of Styles is likely to cause it. Customising
> Format>Bullets and Numbering bullets or numbers is even more likely to cause
> it.
>
> Why doesn't Microsoft Fix it?
>
> Because they're stubborn. Because they won't admit they were WRONG with the
> design of this mechanism. They were wrong in 1986 when they designed this.
> And they're still wrong!
>
> When they designed the output mechanism for creating web pages, they solved
> the problem by adopting a different format and a different structure.
> That's why Save As Web Page fixes it: the internal structure of the file
> automatically corrects the problem.
>
> Notice that they call it "Save as Web Page" and not "Save as HTML"? That's
> because the result is NOT HTML. HyperText Mark-up Language is great for
> making lightweight web pages suited for the Internet of yesteryear when
> Modems for real people ran at 1,200 bps and I looked enviously at people who
> could afford the 28.8 kbps speed-demons. But HTML does not contain a wide
> enough vocabulary to describe anything anywhere near as complex as a Word
> document.
>
> The output of "Save as Web Page" from Word is XML. Actually, WordML, which
> is an eXtensible Mark-up Language application. Because XML is -- well --
> "extensible", it will correctly describe anything you like. Including a
> Word document.
>
> And if you insist on opening the document in BBEdit and looking at the code,
> you deserve your grizzly fate. Word ML was designed for Word to read, not
> you! And "puhlease" spare us the whining about how Microsoft and the Forces
> of Evil have corrupted or bloated HTML. A Word web page is not HTML.
> That's not the language they're using. They don't say it is HTML. It's
> XML, which is a different language. End of story :-)
>
> If you really have an appetite for this stuff and trace the code, you will
> find that a Word HTML document is full of compiler directives that enable a
> modern web browser to deconstruct it and pull out only the HTML statements.
> Some browsers can't interpret XML, so they will ignore it. Internet
> Explorer can, and will use most of it. A modern browser on computer with
> Word installed will recognise the code for what it is, and hand it off to
> Word which will open it as a document. Very neat and convenient for users,
> but it requires a lot of ugly code to do it :-)
>
> Hope this helps
>

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