Re: Word refuses to display readability level

[N...@officeformac.com]

I'm having the same problem, but with all Word documents. I've tried it with documents creating on other comps using different versions of office, as well as my own documents created with my current version. I'm using OSX 10.5.7 (Intel), Office 2008, Word 2008 for Mac version 12.2.1.

[John McGhie]

Sorry, on the server where the helpers are, we can't see the "other"
problem, so you need to tell us the whole story.

If your problem is that Word never displays readability statistics, go into
the Word preferences and type "readability" in the search window.

Cheers

On 14/08/09 6:16 AM, in article 59b6b...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"N...@officeformac.com" <N...@officeformac.com> wrote:

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:jo...@mcghie.name

[CyberTaz]

Hi John;

Just out of curiosity I did look at the Help but that doesn't address what
most likely is the issue. I have the Readability box checked -- even made
sure that the entire document is in the same language -- but the stats don't
appear after the spell check is finished. I don't know if SP2 broke it or
whether it was broken previously -- I honestly can't recall the last time I
used it -- but it doesn't work now.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

On 8/14/09 7:46 AM, in article C6AB8B9E.20F0%jo...@mcghie.name, "John McGhie"

[John McGhie]

Hmmm....

I've NEVER used it, because it's nonsense :-)

However, it works for me in 2008 with .docx and .doc files. (The scores are
different for the same document in each file format, which underlines what
nonsense the idea is...)

Go to Tools>Spelling and Grammar and conduct a spell-check. When that
completes, you will get passive sentences %, Flesch Reading Ease and
Flesch-Kincaid Reading Grade score.

Cheers

On 15/08/09 7:43 AM, in article C6AB52CF.51D5B%onlygen...@com.cast.net,

[N...@officeformac.com]

Hi John,

The original problem was the same as CyberTaz listed. I have all of the appropriate preference boxes checked, followed all of the instructions in the Help, and it's still not working. I agree the stats are largely nonsense, but it's somewhat useful at gauging if the writing is a little too dense for some purposes.

Just out of curiosity: I've noticed on several of the forum questions that MVPs can't see the first entry. Is this due to it being an older posting, or some other reason?

[John McGhie]

Thanks for the question!

On your Readability level, make sure you do not have the text tagged with
"No Proofing" or a language you don't have installed. If you have, you will
disable all the proofing tools including the readability count.

Send me a copy of that document if you like, and I will see if I can find
the problem for you.

Some MVPs (me, for example...) refer to the "Forum" as "The Electronic
Headless Chicken" because its behaviour is at times indistinguishable from a
chicken whose head has just been cut off.

Those who did not grow up on a farm may not realise that your average
serving of KFC began as a hen, and that if you cut the head off a live
chicken, the body will often run around in a random pattern for several
seconds. Eeeewww....

The forum is supposed to replicate posts out to the NNTP server where most
of the helpers are working. If you add to an existing thread, the forum
should replicate the whole thread out so we can get the context. It doesn't
usually work.

We recommend alternatives here:
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/AccessNewsgroups.html

Hope this helps

On 16/08/09 9:45 AM, in article 59b6b...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"N...@officeformac.com" <N...@officeformac.com> wrote:

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum

[CyberTaz]

Interesting update � but one which I can't fully explain :-}

Readability stats are now working. The only changes I've made anywhere since
reporting the failure yesterday are:

I did repair disk permissions for some other unrelated reason, and

This morning I wanted to explore this issue a little more deeply. I typed a
few errors into a new doc & noticed that the automatic spellcheck didn't
pick them up until I did a Cmd+A [intending to verify the Language]. Form
that point on the stats work as expected... Even in documents where they
weren't working yesterday & having made no change to those documents or to
any of my Language settings or Spelling & Grammar prefs.

NGM: Try repairing disk permissions. Then in the doc you're having trouble
with go into Spelling & Grammar prefs, click the Recheck Document button &
try running the checker again.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

On 8/15/09 7:45 PM, in article 59b6b...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,

[N...@officeformac.com]

I think I may have stumbled across a clue, though I'm not sure how to interpret it.

I'm in the midst of revising a proposal, and I've been cut-pasting text into a new .doc in case I want it later. While in the new document, I inadvertently ran the spell-check, and the stats appeared!

I tried it again in both, but stats only worked in the new one. The only difference between the two is that the proposal has a header with page numbers. I displayed field codes for each, and the all that appeared were the auto page numbers.

Then, I went through my documents (reading stats have never worked for any of them on this computer) and looked at field codes. Every one has some combination of inserted references, hyperlinks, and auto-numbered pages.

The odd part is, I've found that reading stats will work in the unformatted proposal if I run the check on not more than 3 consecutive lines. I don't see any field codes in longer selections, and I've made sure to choose text not near an indent, paragraph break, or page break, but it's restricted to the 3 lines.

Finally, I searched the Word Helpfile for any info about on field codes and page numering, but I can't find anything suggesting that it may interfere with the reading stats.

Not sure if that helps at all, but hopefully.

Neil

> Interesting update &#65533; but one which I can't fully explain :-}

>
> Readability stats are now working. The only changes I've made anywhere since
> reporting the failure yesterday are:
>
> I did repair disk permissions for some other unrelated reason, and
>
> This morning I wanted to explore this issue a little more deeply. I typed a
> few errors into a new doc & noticed that the automatic spellcheck didn't
> pick them up until I did a Cmd+A [intending to verify the Language]. Form
> that point on the stats work as expected... Even in documents where they
> weren't working yesterday & having made no change to those documents or to
> any of my Language settings or Spelling & Grammar prefs.
>
> NGM: Try repairing disk permissions. Then in the doc you're having trouble
> with go into Spelling & Grammar prefs, click the Recheck Document button &
> try running the checker again.
>
> Regards |:>)
> Bob Jones
> [MVP] Office:Mac
>
>
>
> On 8/15/09 7:45 PM, in article 59b6b...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,

[John McGhie]

Hi Neil:

The first place I would look is the Language, not the field codes.

If the Language is set to "No Proofing" the spelling checker will be
disabled, and so will the word-count.

Select the whole document and use Format>Language>Set Language to set the
language of your choice.

Then go into Tools>Spelling and Grammar and check "Recheck Document".

See if that brings it right before we go looking further.

It won't be field codes, but it MAY be a corrupt document, and that will be
a bit more of a challenge to fix. The best cure is the Maggie, but Save As
Web Page sometimes fixes these, and it's easier:

The Maggie:

1. Create a new blank document
2. Carefully select all of the text in the bad document EXCEPT the last
paragraph mark
3. Copy it.
4. Paste in the new document.
5. Save under a new file name and close all, then re-open.

This technique for de-corrupting is known as "Doing a 'Maggie'", after
Margaret Secara from the TECHWR-L mailing list, who first publicised the
technique.

Save as Web Page

1. Open the document
2. File>Save As... And choose Web Page
3. In the bottom of the dialog, make CERTAIN �Save entire file� is checked.
4. Save the file and close the document
5. Quit Word and re-start it
6. Open the Web Page version of the file
7. File>Save as and this time choose �Document�
8. Give the file a different name, so you have the old one to go back to.
9. Check the file for missing bits.

If you choose �Save Display information only� you strip out the code in the
file that enables Word to re-create a document from it later. By forcing
Word to re-express the file in a different format, you cause it to discard
any code it cannot understand. That fixes the problem, but it can lead to
missing text.

Hope this helps

On 18/08/09 10:43 AM, in article 59b6b...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"N...@officeformac.com" <N...@officeformac.com> wrote:

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum

[N...@officeformac.com]

Hi John,

Sorry about the delay, I had to submit that proposal.

I checked language first (after noticing the problem) because that was the only thing the Helpfile had suggested that I hadn't tried, and made sure to reset English as default for the entire document. To clarify, the Spell-check works, it's just the stats that don't come up.

I tried the Maggie earlier (came across it on a Google forum), and that didn't help. I tried the save-as-web-page approach after I read your post, and didn't see anything by eye that had changed. I also used the "Compare Documents" tool against the original, and it came up with some Style changes. All of them said Style Definition:[x]:Space after: 0 pt., where [x] = normal, comment text, header, footer, document map, comment subject, balloon text, or list paragraph. I ran spell-check before I did the document compare, and it still didn't show the stats.

Another thing: I had to format the document (.doc) for EndNote, but I couldn't insert figures (as JPEG) with the document formatted because it would move the JPEGs to random places on the page, or freeze the document in that endless repagination step. So, I removed field codes using the EndNote toolbar. That created a copy of the document without field codes, and cut out the Header. When I ran the Spell-check after inserting the figures into that copy, the stats popped up. Once I re-inserted the Header (including auto-page numbering), the stats stopped coming up after the check.

Hopefully that sheds some light on things.

Neil

> Hi Neil:
>
> The first place I would look is the Language, not the field codes.
>
> If the Language is set to "No Proofing" the spelling checker will be
> disabled, and so will the word-count.
>
> Select the whole document and use Format>Language>Set Language to set the
> language of your choice.
>
> Then go into Tools>Spelling and Grammar and check "Recheck Document".
>
> See if that brings it right before we go looking further.
>
> It won't be field codes, but it MAY be a corrupt document, and that will be
> a bit more of a challenge to fix. The best cure is the Maggie, but Save As
> Web Page sometimes fixes these, and it's easier:
>
> The Maggie:
>
> 1. Create a new blank document
> 2. Carefully select all of the text in the bad document EXCEPT the last
> paragraph mark
> 3. Copy it.
> 4. Paste in the new document.
> 5. Save under a new file name and close all, then re-open.
>
> This technique for de-corrupting is known as "Doing a 'Maggie'", after
> Margaret Secara from the TECHWR-L mailing list, who first publicised the
> technique.
>
> Save as Web Page
>
> 1. Open the document
> 2. File>Save As... And choose Web Page

> 3. In the bottom of the dialog, make CERTAIN &#65533;Save entire file&#65533; is checked.

> 4. Save the file and close the document
> 5. Quit Word and re-start it
> 6. Open the Web Page version of the file

> 7. File>Save as and this time choose &#65533;Document&#65533;

> 8. Give the file a different name, so you have the old one to go back to.
> 9. Check the file for missing bits.
>

> If you choose &#65533;Save Display information only&#65533; you strip out the code in the

> file that enables Word to re-create a document from it later. By forcing
> Word to re-express the file in a different format, you cause it to discard
> any code it cannot understand. That fixes the problem, but it can lead to
> missing text.
>
> Hope this helps
>
> On 18/08/09 10:43 AM, in article 59b6b...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,

[John McGhie]

Hi Neil:

OK, we're getting warmer...

EndNote "overloads" Word fields that were designed to hold only 255
characters with anything up to several thousand characters. It does stretch
the friendship a bit.

However, I would be very interested to know what ELSE is in that header?
Page Number fields don't normally cause problems. But tables in headers
do...

You can't "Remove" the header from a document once it has had one: it
remains a permanent part of the document structure once created. But you
can remove the content from the header.

I would also be interested in how you did that Maggie: If you are not very
careful what you copy, you can end up copying the problem.

I would also be interested to see a sample of the document, if you care to
email it to me.

Cheers

On 25/08/09 11:04 AM, in article 59b6b...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"N...@officeformac.com" <N...@officeformac.com> wrote:

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum