Graphics and tables that don't behave

[Guest]

I am working as a professional desktop publisher these days, usually using
Word 2003 for major project proposals, documents of hundred of pages
involving 100 or more graphics.
Some of us in the biz swear we will write a book on fixing things
that go wrong in Word. One annoying problem I have been unable to solve so
far, is having graphics stubbornly sit slightly outside the page margin. I
can't replicate this problem at home, but I have had it happen on three
separate jobs for major corporations, where someone else set up the template.
My hypothesis is that somehow the headers and footers get set wider
than the page margins, and that these somehow override the margins for the
graphics, though the text seems to stay within them. I can't discover how. In
any case, despite checking page margins and playing with every conceivable
feature of picture layout and paragraph settings, I have found jpegs
consistently placing themselves so that the right edge extends about 1/8"
into the right margin -- yes, despite making sure indents are set to 0, etc.
etc.
My supervisors and co-workers seem content to leave things this way,
but I'd love to know what causes this.
Similarly, imported tables, when using "autofit to window", would also
extend beyond margins. So, on one job for instance, in which the margins were
1 inch on each side (8.5x11paper), tables would sometimes autofit themselves
to 6.65†wide this way, instead of 6.5â€, although manually adjusting them to
6.5 did not cause any problem within the table.

 

[POP]

Food for thought if nothing else:

If you're working in Print Layout (View menu), that can be caused
by different printer drivers and especially with different brands
of printers. In a past life I was a tech writer and came across
that early on. No, I am not talking about the Preview window.
One solution I used was to find out what printers my clients
were using and install those same printers (software drivers, NOT
the actual hardware printers), and when I worked for client X,
I'd set his printer as my printer. That way I was pretty sure
I'd be seeing what he was seeing and receiving from me.
Over time I was able to tweak my own settings to match
something that nearly all other printer drivers would display
reasonably well for the clients. Some were a lot more particular
than others, but fiddling with remembering to assign printer
drivers gets to be a pain, and also easily forgotten.
Once I got my generic settings put together only one client
ever had anymore problems, and I never did get that one
completely right. It turned out he was using "whatever" for
printers and display options, and so I left it to him to struggle
with out of necessity.
Another difference to watch out for is paper sizes. Even if
they're standard, to some people that means A4 (overseas) and to
NA it means 8.5 x 11.

You can also:
Embed fonts in your documents.
Use the Adjust Page Size in the Printer settings.
Provide the template YOU use along with the document.
and several other things.

One trick that used to work fairly well for me was to either
center any graphic, or at least have it as the beginning of a
paragraph so that it was inset from the rest of the paragraph
beside it, just as the text would be. And of course set the
graphic properties so text flows around it.

The bottom line is: Does it PRINT and/or DISPLAY well for them?
Sometimes it's irrelevant to the clients as long as it prints or
displays in a usable way.

On the other hand, it is also possible to place things outside
the printable area on purpose.

Luck,
Pop`



In

 

[Og]

I am working as a professional desktop publisher these days, usually using
Word 2003 for major project proposals, documents of hundred of pages
involving 100 or more graphics.
Some of us in the biz swear we will write a book on fixing things
that go wrong in Word. One annoying problem I have been unable to solve so
far, is having graphics stubbornly sit slightly outside the page margin. I
can't replicate this problem at home, but I have had it happen on three
separate jobs for major corporations, where someone else set up the
template.
My hypothesis is that somehow the headers and footers get set wider
than the page margins, and that these somehow override the margins for the
graphics, though the text seems to stay within them. I can't discover how.
In
any case, despite checking page margins and playing with every conceivable
feature of picture layout and paragraph settings, I have found jpegs
consistently placing themselves so that the right edge extends about 1/8"
into the right margin -- yes, despite making sure indents are set to 0,
etc.
etc.
My supervisors and co-workers seem content to leave things this way,
but I'd love to know what causes this.
Similarly, imported tables, when using "autofit to window", would also
extend beyond margins. So, on one job for instance, in which the margins
were
1 inch on each side (8.5x11paper), tables would sometimes autofit
themselves
to 6.65" wide this way, instead of 6.5", although manually adjusting them
to > 6.5 did not cause any problem within the table.

You may also wish to post this where the MS Word graphics gurus hang out:
microsoft.public.word.drawing.graphics
Steve