[sproutsie]

I just installed Office X, which seems to work fine, except that when I tried to install the file converters, which come in the Office value pack thingy, I couldn't figure out how to do it in OSX. The reason this is important is that my dissertation advisor is on leave somewhere else and when I send her chunks of my chapters, I need to email them as Word 95 attachments (she has a PC in her office). I struggled around on the Mactopia website trying to figure this out, but no go. I guess I am wondering if I should just keep writing my diss on Word 2001 (which is unpleasant to look at while in OSX), or if there is some way I can get Office X to save my documents so my advisor can read them!

thanks for any help....
Susan

[-Q-]

One of the default options for saving in Office X is 'Rich Text Format'. Windows 95 should be able to open that format fine. This format won't work, however, if you have other objects like charts or pictures embedded in your document.

[a-poria]

sproutsie, I have had much the same experience. I too have a thesis director working with a pc and thus need more conversion options. I have installed all options available on the CD but it is not enough. What I have done for sending is to save my files as PDF's, a format available for everyone. Hopefully someone will have some suggestions as to where there might be more available. On a side note, I found the file conversion options no different in 9 or x.

[sproutsie]

well, without much hope i put in a support request to microsoft and actually got a prompt, reasonable answer- like Q said, save it as RTF. i feel dumb for not thinking of this beforehand. according to the microsoft guy, saving it as RTF is about the only way to do this (which annoys me because i was happy with the word 95 option). a-poria, how do you save as a pdf? it isn't in my word "save as" list- am i being obtuse (a sad state for a ph.d. student) again?

thanks for the input!

[ 02-06-2002: Message edited by: sproutsie ]

[-Q-]

To create a PDF in OS X is easy as the operating system has this ability built-in. To do so from Word, select 'Print' from the File menu. When the dialogue box appears, choose the 'Preview' button. This will launch your Preview application and the resulting file will be a PDF of your word document. Save the document in Preview and you now have a PDF! E-mail that to your advisor and she should be able to view it. It might involve her downloading the free Acrobat Reader for the Adobe web site. You can find it here: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Susan,

The value pack is easy to install -- simply double click on the "value pack" and then (I think) choose install. It's quite simple. I did it on my girlfriend's machine without a problem. Try again.

Bryan

QUOTE]Originally posted by sproutsie:
<STRONG>I just installed Office X, which seems to work fine, except that when I tried to install the file converters, which come in the Office value pack thingy, I couldn't figure out how to do it in OSX. The reason this is important is that my dissertation advisor is on leave somewhere else and when I send her chunks of my chapters, I need to email them as Word 95 attachments (she has a PC in her office). I struggled around on the Mactopia website trying to figure this out, but no go. I guess I am wondering if I should just keep writing my diss on Word 2001 (which is unpleasant to look at while in OSX), or if there is some way I can get Office X to save my documents so my advisor can read them!

thanks for any help....
Susan</STRONG>[/QUOTE]

[sproutsie]

i am not having trouble installing the value pack- it's installed. i think the trouble is that some of the old crud in the value pack (such as file converters) is not osx -usable, since the converters, for example, need to be installed in the word extensions folder. i am pretty new to osx, but the architecture is (obviously) not the old drop into the system folder, it gets put in the extensions folder process. so, not surprisingly, i think microsoft just sort of threw all of its old stuff into office in the value pack without going through there and figuring out what was no longer usable in osx. and since the new office is not system 9 compatible, this seems to be a pretty lame oversight!

i may be wrong about this- my computer life for the past 12 years has been me sort of stumbling around and asking dumb questions until i figured it out/wiped my hard drive (did that last week!)/crashed my system.

i will try both the rtf and the pdf suggestions- my advisor, like many academics, is not terribly good at computer stuff, either, so i need to give her something easy!

[a-poria]

sproutsie, my advisor is horrible at computer stuff, hence the reason i work with PDF's (he is using wordperfect 3). it is pretty much guaranteed that everyone has a copy of acrobat reader, so no problem there. however, what i found is that the file size increases and thus creates a larger upload/download. as well, there can be no corrections made in the file itself. a PDF is a readable file only. this is nice for sending files for conferences, grants, publication, etc., but perhaps not su useful if your advisor wants to add comments directly in the file. good luck.