Re: Can't find info about 11-10-09 Word update

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To answer your question about the "address" of Word's online content. You can find this by right-clicking in any topic and choosing Properties. In Word 2003, what you get is the local file path of offline content and an URL for online content, but Word 2007 seems to offer an URL even for offline content (more helpful in some ways, such as when I want to cite a Help topic for someone else, but less useful if you're trying to find it on your own computer). You won't be able to see the entire path (the display is limited to two lines), but you can select it with the mouse by swiping until you get it all (the display will scroll).

Once you get online, there is a search capability, but it is less confined than Help's since it ranges over all of Microsoft's vast backlot, and it seems to be very difficult to focus it. This is a longstanding complaint about searching the KB: not only has it become increasingly difficult to confine search to the KB itself (which is much more loosely defined now than it once once), it seems to be impossible to confine the search to a specific application or version: searches for help on Word 2007 inexplicably bring up links to articles about Outlook 2003 or Excel 2002 or whatever.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

"Jeffrey L. Hook" <NoOne@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:eX5O9oPZKHA.5108@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Suzanne:

You showed good faith by staying with this thread even when I added a lot of
detail about the history of my use of templates and "sample" files. I don't
want to be greedy or to try anyone's patience, so I'll give you the option
of signing off if you wish at any point.

I added information about templates and sample files because I honestly
thought Word 2007's templates might be involved in the "Can't Save" problem.
I thought it was my "duty" to try to report as much information as I could
because I thought a clue to the "Can't Save" problem might be "lurking" in
those details. I now doubt that templates are involved in the problem so I
apologize for loading this thread with "verbiage" which now seems
irrelevant. My intentions were good but the template topic may have been a
"red herring"!

I thought I'd be able to clarify the template file topic in additional
optional content below my signature, but I failed, as I explain below.

I'm amused that you responded to my complaints about Word 2007's Help
directory by "venting" even more vehemently than I did! Your complaints are
more important than mine, because you have so much more standing with
Microsoft. I do think that much of the Help content is excellent so I'm not
complaining about its quality. I think much of the content has been created
with care. I think those efforts paid off because the content is extremely
effective. Much of it has helped me greatly.

I only regret that the Help content seems to be organized so poorly. Your
comments about broken links and other irregularities seem to confirm my
observations. I agree with your comment that:

++++

...The real problem, though, is not so much the quality of the Help
available as the search engine and the way results are prioritized. I
haven't even tried to use Help much (Google seems more helpful most of the
time)...

++++

This may be a chronic weakness of Microsoft. I remember reading years ago
that Bill Gates was suspected of using Google to search Microsoft's own
Knowledge Base. I find that my searches of the Help content from within
Word 2007 often seem to cite content which is irrelevant to my search terms.

I'm also surprised that the on-line content *seems* to lack a "search
interface." (I see the on-line content in my browser, IE8, at
http://office.microsoft.com/client/helphome.aspx?ns=WINWORD&lcid=1033 .) Am
I missing something or is it simply not possible to search the Web content?
If the on-line Help directory can't be searched by use of keywords, etc.
then using the Web-based Help pages might almost literally be like "looking
for a needle in a haystack." It might be a process of following entire
paths of text links from one page to another, only to conclude, "No, it
wasn't there, let's go back to the main page and head down another path."
Wow!

I'm equally surprised that the "local" display of the content seems to lack
any Address Bar. (I'm talking about the Help display which I see when I use
the "Help button" "in" Word 2007, rather than the display of the same
content which I see in my Web browser.) Am I right about that? If this
"local" display mode included an Address Bar the location of each "page" of
content could be shown in the bar. Full file paths on the user's own drive
could be displayed for "local" content as they're shown in Windows
Explorer's own Address Bar and URLs could be displayed for "remote" or Web
content as they're shown in a browser's Address Bar. This would facilitate
returning to that content in the future.

Thanks again for your interest and for your tolerance of my "prolixity"!

Optional additional content is below my quotation of your last message.

Jeff Hook, NJ, USA

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" <sbarnhill@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uMRVnOBZKHA.6100@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Reading this in tandem with your follow-up about templates:

1. It's clear you do understand the difference between a true template
(.dot, .dotx, or .dotm) and a "sample" document. (snipped)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I said this in the sixth message in this thread, yesterday:

++++

...It's impossible to delete the original files immediately after a "new
file" with a "different name" has been saved in the "Save As" dialog. I'm
told the original file's in use, etc. The "problem" files can't be deleted
until all Word 2007 files have been closed, apparently because Word's
complex archives of "unseen" XML files seem to be connected to each other or
to common file templates or whatever in some mysterious way. If I have many
files open simultaneously I won't try to delete the "problem" files due to
the inconvenience of closing and reopening so many files...

++++

I learned that the DOCX files which users see in Windows Explorer are really
compressed archives of many XML files. That suggested that Word 2007 was
much more complex than it seemed to be on its surface. I'd seen how
multiple files which had been created from the same template all shared
common formatting, and those two observations suggested that the "Can't
Save" problem could result from some complex interaction among multiple
files. The "Can't Save" error messages clearly showed that files were
connected to each other. Ditto the messages which explained that I couldn't
delete the files which I'd been unable to save because those files were
still "in use" somehow. I'd observed that I could only delete those problem
files when all other Word 2007 files were closed, and that suggested that
one or more of the Word files which had been open had been "connected" to
the problem files somehow.

I felt "guilty" about not having studied Word 2007's use of templates
thoroughly. I explained in the eighth message in this thread how I thought
I might have contributed to the "Can't Save" problem by using templates
incorrectly:

++++

...I may have done some damage by unwittingly creating file templates before
I began to study the application and those first templates may continue to
"haunt" me now...

++++

I now doubt that my use of templates is involved in the "Can't Save" problem
but I introduced the topic and I think I should try to explain why it
doesn't seem to be relevant.

Suzanne, I'll add reference numbers to this text from your last message, to
facilitate a quick response:

++++

...it does seem possible that the Works ancestry in the templates might have
something to do with the problem. Do you ever experience the "can't save"
problem in documents based on templates created new in Word 2007? (1)
Rereading your description, I'm not clear whether you've actually created
any templates in Word 2007 or are still using just sample documents. (2)
This could be an important detail...

++++

(1) Yes, the "Can't Save" problem afflicts files which were based on my
most recent Word 2007 templates.

(2) Yes, I have created a few very simple Word 2007 "true templates."

I'm forced to signal defeat! The "Can't Save" problem has bested me! I now
think I simply don't know enough about Word 2007's use of file templates to
be able to comment usefully. I tried to get off to a good start with Word
2007 when I installed the Home and Student Version of Office 2007 on
1-14-09. I may find that my contemporaneous records are pretty good, but
they've hopelessly confused me so far. I must go back and study them
carefully in order to make sense out of them. Until I've done that, I'll
need to run up the white flag before I "lose it" entirely!

Thanks again for your help, Suzanne!

JLH



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