Word 2004: Split bar outline not visible on secondary monitor
Posted by Pierre Igot in: MacintoshSeptember 28th, 2004 • 4:35 am
Every Word document window has this small control in the top-left corner (above the vertical scroll bar) that you can drag down to create a division of the single document window into two separate panes. You can then use these two panes to view two different sections of the document at the same time.
While you are dragging the control in question up or down to place the division exactly where you want it, Word displays an “outline” of the split bar, so that you can see where the bar will be exactly before you release the mouse button. This outline is a non-standard, semi-transparent solid grey bar that creates some pretty strange colour effects in the items that it passes over. (I cannot post a picture to illustrate this, because it’s impossible to take a screen shot while dragging the split bar. Word “drops” the bar as soon as you press a key on the keyboard, even if you don’t release the mouse button.)
Beyond the purely cosmetic issues, however, there is a more serious bug affecting this behaviour. I use two monitors and sometimes have Word document windows on my secondary monitor, which is connected to the DVI port on my built-in ATI Radeon 9000 card. (The main monitor is connected to the ADC port on the same card.) If I try to drag the split bar in a document window on the secondary monitor, Word fails to display the outline entirely! The only visual indication that you get of where your split bar is going to be is the position of the cursor itself — which is not a very accurate indication.
Another one of the many “smaller” bugs to be found in Word 2004…