Doc to pdf - No bullets?
Tracy and Brian Haberman
bullets in the word doc were not saving. The text was indented, but the
bullets would not appear.
Does anybody have any ideas about this?
Thanks,
Brian
Clive Huggan
converting (to non-Microdoft software) Word files
formatted with "Apply automatic bulleted lists as you
types", though I haven't done any PDF conversions
recently and can't be certain that you don't have an
additional problem. But I do have a solution -- of sorts.
"Apply automatic bulleted lists as you types" is one of
the default options from Word 98 (or 6?) onwards. It's
actually touted as a good feature in most books on
Word. And I suppose it is if you never have to leave the
Microsoft womb, er, world. In the other world, the
bullets disappear when imported from Word because
they aren't really there -- i.e., keyed in bullet (Option-8)
characters. So when I edit a document that has to go
back and forth to the authors before we (urgently)
import it to Quark XPress, and ask the authors not to
use this feature, they can't understand why I would
ever want it turned off. On the other hand, people who
operate in a non-Microsoft environment (e.g. Quark
XPress) can't believe that a product would exist that
had "make-believe" bullets.
The solution I use is to go to AutoCorrect menu >>
[tab] AutoFormat as You Type >> de-select (so the
check mark disappears) Automatic bulleted lists. This
stops the "imaginary" bullets being produced. After
that, it's necessary to type in bullets when they are
needed. However, I wanted to key in [bullet followed by
tab] quickly, without having to hit a modifier key. So I
went to the AutoCorrect tab and in the fields under
"Replace text as you type" I typed "bb" in the left
("Replace") field and a bullet (Option-8) in the right
field, then >> Add >> OK. Now I can insert a bullet + tab
by typing "bb" and [tab], all with my left hand. (The
AutoCorrect feature doesn't allow you to include the
tab.)
The above work-around isn't all that good, but it gets
us a little ahead of the days of Word 1 and 3, about a
decade ago. I can still remember the delight we felt
when seeing the bulleting button in Word 5.1 for the
first time -- and how you could just drag anywhere
through one or more paragraphs of text, click on the
"bullets" icon and [genuine, keyed-in] bullets would
appear. Is it *true* that Microsoft shot all the people on
the Word for Mac development team before bringing
out Word 6? Several other simple but highly efficient,
easily learnable features were abandoned with Word 6
and have not been restored since.
Ah, I feel better now after a bit of ranting -- hope all this
actually solves the problem too, Brian!
Clive Huggan
+61 419 417 867
Delete the obvious for personal e-mails to me; but
keep the thread going by posting, please.
Tracy and Brian Haberman
have such a bizarre implementation of bullets and formatting.
Thanks again for the info. (And the rant I now understand and agree with.)
Brian
in article 8dfc01c19b39$46127360$35ef2ecf@TKMSFTNGXA11, Clive Huggan at
cl...@ono.sparmo.strategists.com.au wrote on 1/12/02 2:18 AM:
WJ Shack
hab...@optonline.net wrote on 1/12/02 2:50 PM:
>I was trying to save a word doc as a pdf (via preview then save), and
>the bullets in the word doc were not saving. The text was indented,
>but the bullets would not appear.
>
>Does anybody have any ideas about this?
Actually with Word 98 and OS 9.1 using Acrobat 4.0 and the "Save File as
PDF" option in the LW driver, auto bullets and auto numbering come through
just fine. There are lots of nasty things that can be said about Word list
bullet and list numbering, but at least with Acrobat they do convert just
fine to pdf. Using PDFWriter?
Clive Huggan
Thanks for your kind acknowledgement! I'm delighted
that it worked.
I prepared the following additonal notes overnight
because I thought you may receive text from other
people containing the "imaginary" bullets, which adds
to the problem. Sounds like that's not the case, but
seeing I have prepared my addendum I'll drop it in
anyway, in case there is anyone else to whom it may
apply (great mystery -- how many people actually read
this stuff!). So here it is.
After removing the automated bullet process from
future typing via the AutoCorrect menu (as per my first
posting), you need to remove the bullets previously
typed in by the person who sent the document.
Because these are a built-in feature of the default style
"ListBullet", it's necessary to delete that style (on a
"Save As" copy, just in case) -- but not directly. First I
create an automatic style that is going to be temporary.
It doesn't matter what the specifications are, so long
as the text is coloured (so I can recognise it easily)
and has a first line indent (say about 1cm / half inch).
Then I do a Find > Find what: > style > List Bullet >>>
Replace with: > Style > [the temporary style].
When I have converted all instances to the new style, I
go to the first instance of that style, type Option-8 [tab],
select and copy it -- and wherever I see the coloured
text in the rest of the document I go to the start of the
sub-paragraphs then Command-v to paste it. Often the
arrow keys are quicker than by mouse. If the
sub-paragraphs are widely disperesed, of course
"Find" can be used.
(If the document has a large number of bulleted
sub-paragraphs, and there isn't much potential for
corruption (e.g. it is ready for importing into Quark
XPress and won't go back to the authors / no complex
tables / not many tables) I will often run a copy through
Word 5.1 because inserting the bullets is so much
easier).
Then I create a style which I call "s" (for
"sub-paragraph" -- and it's easy to key in because
Command-Shift-s is the keystroke for "apply style").
The specifications for my style "s" are: body text +
indent: left 0.18cm Hanging 0.46cm, Space before 6pt.
I change all instances of the temporary style to style "s"
using Find and Replace, then delete the temporary
style (Format menu > Style... > scroll to the temporary
style > Delete).
Finally I go to the organizer (Format menu > Style ... >
Organizer button), and remove the ListBullet style from
the Normal template. But remember that the style will
always be present in documents that you receive from
others when this problem is present.
For future instances of replacing the styles, it's much
quicker -- you don't have to create either style "s" or the
coloured temporary style from scratch: you can transfer
style "s" via the organizer if you have put it either in the
Normal styles template (recommended) or another
template. And you can do the same for the temporary
style (not recommended for the Normal style template
-- best to put it on a sample document, go to that
document, copy the paragraph with that style in it and
paste it into the document you want to change, then do
the Find and Replace procedure. Then the whole
process of making the 2 styles available in the new
document takes no more than a minute.
Like a lot of these processes in Word, the execution is
a lot simpler than you might think just by reading
through. But it would be much better to have the Word
5.1 feature that installed simple, keyable bullets at the
click of a button, without changing your style. If only
those folks at Microsoft would keep things simple
(because my experience is that most average Word
users can't bear to find their way out of the convoluted
settings that are defaulted out of the box, and sit like
rabbits caught in the glare of oncoming headlights!).
Clive Huggan
+61 419 417 867
If e-mailing me personally, delete the anti-spam words
before "strategists"; but keep the thread going by
posting, please.
John McGhie [MVP]
On 12/1/02 6:18 PM, in article 8dfc01c19b39$46127360$35ef2ecf@TKMSFTNGXA11,
"Clive Huggan" <cl...@ono.sparmo.strategists.com.au> wrote:
> "Apply automatic bulleted lists as you types" is one of
> the default options from Word 98 (or 6?) onwards. It's
> actually touted as a good feature in most books on
> Word. And I suppose it is if you never have to leave the
> Microsoft womb, er, world.
Naaahhhh.... The feature is totally bad in all versions of Word and in all
wombs :-) I strongly recommend that all users turn it off and leave it off
:-)
> The solution I use is to go to AutoCorrect menu >>
> [tab] AutoFormat as You Type >> de-select (so the
> check mark disappears) Automatic bulleted lists. This
> stops the "imaginary" bullets being produced. After
> that, it's necessary to type in bullets when they are
> needed. However, I wanted to key in [bullet followed by
> tab] quickly, without having to hit a modifier key. So I
> went to the AutoCorrect tab and in the fields under
> "Replace text as you type" I typed "bb" in the left
> ("Replace") field and a bullet (Option-8) in the right
> field, then >> Add >> OK. Now I can insert a bullet + tab
> by typing "bb" and [tab], all with my left hand. (The
> AutoCorrect feature doesn't allow you to include the
> tab.)
Actually, that's not quite correct: It stops the imaginary bullets being
produced "unintentionally". All of Word's bullets and numbering are
"imaginary". By which we mean they are produced by List Templates:
placeholders and references in the text which are given values only at
output time (to the printer). Have a look at
<http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Numbering.htm>
The real bug here is Quark's unwillingness to make a proper Word 8/9/10
format import filter. Getting the "text" in is easy: they have to do a
little extra work to resolve the generated text, and they're too lazy.
Strangely enough, last time I looked, FrameMaker could happily import
correctly from Word, so Adobe has the code if they are willing to use it!
So any bulleted or numbering sequence you see in Word since Word 97 will be
this format. The bullets and Numbering buttons on the toolbar will do it,
as will the Format>Bullets and Numbering command, as will styles to which
you add bullets or numbering.
There is a much simpler solution: Use the VBA "convert numbers to text"
function in a macro before you send the document anywhere.
This enables you to keep your automatically-updating numbers and bullets
while you are working on the document. The downside is that once you have
converted the numbers and bullets to text, they are, well, "text" and they
will no longer automatically update :-)
Give me a shout back if you want a macro to do this.
There's also another solution that might work: do a Save As to Compact HTML.
This renders everything in text. You then bring the document back to Word
and save as a document.
It can break your tabs and indents and tables, but if you don't have any of
those, it works fine. Or if you are going into Quark and you don't care
about them!
Hope this helps
--
Please post replies to the newsgroup to maintain the thread.
John McGhie, Microsoft MVP: Word for Macintosh and Word for Windows
Consultant Technical Writer
<jo...@mcghie-information.com.au>
+61 4 1209 1410; Sydney, Australia: GMT + 10 hrs