Word 2008 Question

airwalk331 · Mar 4, 2008

fleurya said:
As for how you save your document, as Zoolook said, you can set it to always save as the previous office format and it will always save that way by default. Also, you can save a file as a PDF, just not through the "save as" option. Instead, hit "print". When the print window comes up, go down to the lower left where it says PDF. hit that and you get an option to "save as PDF". Easy!!.

I know you can save it as a pdf but it doesnt make sense to put it in the "print" menu.

Zoolook · Mar 4, 2008

airwalk331 said:
I know you can save it as a pdf but it doesnt make sense to put it in the "print" menu.

It's because outputting to PDF is an OS X feature, not a MS Word feature, so it's only when the OS gets involved that you can pull this trick. The source software has no way of knowing how to convert the file to PDF.

Incidentally, if you have Adobe Professional installed on a PC (which I do at work), when you output to PDF from Word, Excel or any application for that matter, you "print" to PDF, not "save as", so this is pretty standard.

airwalk331 · Mar 4, 2008

Zoolook said:
It's because outputting to PDF is an OS X feature, not a MS Word feature, so it's only when the OS gets involved that you can pull this trick. The source software has no way of knowing how to convert the file to PDF.

Incidentally, if you have Adobe Professional installed on a PC (which I do at work), when you output to PDF from Word, Excel or any application for that matter, you "print" to PDF, not "save as", so this is pretty standard.

Neither a PC or Mac can "save as" a pdf. However on both PC and Mac you can "print to" pdf. At the end of the operation you're still saving the document as a pdf.

Zoolook · Mar 4, 2008

airwalk331 said:
Neither a PC or Mac can "save as" a pdf. However on both PC and Mac you can "print to" pdf. At the end of the operation you're still saving the document as a pdf.

That's what I just said, and if you knew that, why did you say earlier it doesn't make sense to put it in the print menu - you seem to be arguing for the same of it? :Oops:

brady1027 · Mar 4, 2008

worth it?

i don't know that switching was worth it. i do however like the notebook features of 2008 which are nice for taking class notes and just printing. other than that i wouldnt say buying it is worth it.

technologist · Mar 4, 2008

Zoolook said:
Finally, MS is not allowed to have its applications export to PDF, as this is not an open source format. Apple apps can, because the entire OS is essentially based on the same technology behind PDF. You can just do Print, then Print to PDF to work around it.

"Not allowed?" Cattle excrement.

PDF is an open standard. Anyone can generate PDFs. Open source apps, commercial apps (like Apple's)...I even wrote an app once that wrote to PDF with the help of an open source library. Indeed, Office 07 can write to PDF with a Microsoft-provided extension, though this is not installed by default. (Guess why.)

And at least on my machine, Word '08 included PDF as a "save as:" option. I'm not quite sure what that's about.

airwalk331 · Mar 4, 2008

technologist said:
And at least on my machine, Word '08 included PDF as a "save as:" option. I'm not quite sure what that's about.

Interesting...

fleurya · Mar 5, 2008

technologist said:
And at least on my machine, Word '08 included PDF as a "save as:" option. I'm not quite sure what that's about.

Same here! I never actually looked for it as I never need to save files in PDF format, but I checked and PDF was indeed one of the formats available in "save as". Even tried it out and it worked just fine.

SJTV1 · Mar 5, 2008

Same here ...

Zoolook · Mar 5, 2008

technologist said:
"Not allowed?" Cattle excrement.

Busted, I'm thinking of editing PDFs. Oops.

And at least on my machine, Word '08 included PDF as a "save as:" option. I'm not quite sure what that's about.

I've never spotted this. What a n00b.

DVaris223 · Mar 5, 2008

I seem to be having the same problems. I didn't even realize this until I got a few papers back and my teacher went into a red ink frenzy on my margins (mind you, they were set at 1.5, how crazy is this woman). Still cant figure out how to save it to my normal template. I got the font change down, but still have no idea how to permanently change everything else, even with the directions that one of the posters gave.

Neferatowen · Mar 5, 2008

To change your margins you need to go to Format > Document
Change the margins to whatever you want them to be and click on default in the bottom left hand corner.
Hope this helps

cmac86 · Mar 6, 2008

You can also hold shift while pressing enter to not make it put the extra spacing in. Granted you'll have to do it every time you don't want the extra space, but I like the extra space.

Sorcerer8605 · May 20, 2008

Okay, I don't seem to be getting these issues. I just installed Office 2008 on my work computer, and I automatically did the updates; so maybe Microsoft fixed it? I don't seem to have any extra spaces (and I'm still not sure why they were there for some of you). It already had PDF in the Save dialogue. Finally, the font problem IS there (and it also seems to have issues with Spaces, jumping from one to the other, but that's a whole different ball of wax). But I fixed it (easy way to do it is to go to Format~Font, then change the font and click the "Default" button).

But there's something else: Word refuses to start a new blank document when I click File~New. I can't even hit Cmd+N. I have to open the Project Gallery to start a new document, and that is frustrating!