This is not a bug, and it’s not new in Word 2004. It’s a problem that has plagued all recent versions of Word for Mac OS X and is a profound design flaw. If you are in Word X or Word 2004, and have no document window open, then the “Preferences…” command in the application […]
For months now I have been struggling with the FTP service in Mac OS X Server 10.3 on my Xserve. I have turned the FTP service on using Server Admin, disabled anonymous FTP, and tried to connect to the Xserve via FTP from my home office. Invariably, I am able to initiate a connection, but […]
Word 2004 introduces a new bug that can cause an incompatibility with Spell Catcher X, TypeItForMe, and other tools used to automate text entry in documents. This bug is described by Evan Gross, developer of Spell Catcher X, in a comment on one of Rick Schaut’s recent blog entries. It’s a nasty one, but you […]
Yesterday, I reported on a problem I was experiencing with erroneous alert messages appearing each time I tried to open existing Word documents (i.e. documents created with Word X) in Word 2004. Further investigation with Microsoft reveals what the source of the problem is and how to solve it. When you open an existing document […]
In Word, as in most other Mac OS X, you can select a word by double-clicking on it: (Let’s ignore, for now, the fact that Word considers “d’être” to be a single word, when it’s actually two words that ought to be treated as such.) If you keep the mouse button pressed down after that, […]
In Word 2004, Microsoft has introduced a change in the behaviour for the cmd-Left and cmd-Right keyboard shortcuts, which brings the software in line with other Mac OS X software. In other Mac OS X applications, such as Mail or Bare Bones Software’s BBEdit, cmd-Left makes the cursor jump to the beginning of the current […]
One of the drawbacks of rebuilding your Word customizations from scratch (which I have chosen to do after installing Word 2004) is that you have to deal with Microsoft’s totally inconsistent way of naming its commands internally all over again. For example, I am used to the cmd-F keyboard shortcut for the Find command and […]
A while ago, I reported that Word X suffered from an annoying bug where page breaks, column breaks and section breaks would not be highlighted even when they were selected (in “Normal” view, obviously; in “Page Layout” view, these breaks are not visible). I am relieved to be able to report that the problem is […]
Here we go again… A new version of Word, and a new round of problems with existing files that are supposed to be in the same format and to be 100% compatible. I’ve been working on a translation for a couple of weeks. In other words, the file is a Word document that was created […]
It’s going to be a bit tiresome to report on all the bugs in previous versions of Word for the Mac that still aren’t fixed in Word 2004, but… somebody’s got to do it! :-) For the record, then… The macro editor in Word 2004 (which still is this hybrid “application within the application” that’s […]
I read about the release of the 7v2 updater for FileMaker Pro 7 and FileMaker Developer 7 yesterday morning. I was particularly encouraged by the short blurb next to the link that said “Includes changes to font smoothing, field validation, merge fields, import and more.” You might remember that I reported on a pretty significant […]
Word 2004 has a new area in the Formatting Palette that’s supposed to make styles easier to manage and use. Of course, Microsoft had to come up with a new, non-standard design for the controls in that area. And of course, there are all kinds of problems with it that are immediately obvious: First of […]
I just got my copy of Office 2004, and of course installed it as soon as I got the chance. First of all, I have to say something about the packaging. I really don’t see the point of using all this environmentally hostile plastic. The CD is in a DVD-style plastic case, which is wrapped […]
I suppose I have too much music. I keep adding stuff to my iTunes music library, mostly from my own CD collection, just so that I have a central repository of all my music accessible with a click of the mouse button. But that means that my Music folder is getting bigger and bigger. Right […]
There seems to be a problem that is quite common with people running Mac OS X 10.3.3 or 4 and trying to install the most recent version of Java (1.4.2) on their machines. Typically, the symptoms will be that the Java 1.4.2 shows up in Software Update when checking with the Apple web site, but […]