[WinMac] cross-platform and MS Word
KR(krushing[at]cecasun.utc.edu)
Sat, 18 Sep 1999 14:44:33 -0500
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From: Kittrell Rushing, UT Chattanooga <krushing@cecasun.utc.edu>
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I'm having a very perplexing problem -- one I have not seen before,
and, perhaps, someone on the list might be able to share with me (and
with the list) what's going on.
Here's the problem:
I teach a course entitled "Computer Skills for Communication Majors."
We use a Mac lab that contains a combination of Mac platforms and
software -- most of the computers are G-3 Macs with both Microsoft
Office 98 and Microsoft Word 5.1 loaded.
Many of my students have Windows computers at home or in their
dorms... I've always told my young people that it really makes
little difference in word processing if they have a pc or a Mac as
far as document compatibility is concerned because MSWord will open
documents created on either the Windows or the Mac platform -- and
I've told the young people that if they have a pc rather than a Mac
they can use the pc formatted disk in the Mac... and save to the pc
formatted disk from either Microsoft Word 5.1 or Microsoft Word98.
...and until this week, I experienced nothing that made me doubt what
I've been preaching.
However, this week four of my students -- one in one section and
three in another section of the course, each student working at a
different computer have experienced the same problem -- after saving
their word document to a pc disk - the document refused to open --
when we attempt to open the document in Microsoft Word 5.1, we either
get an error message that says "not enough memory"... or Word 5.1
just grinds way until we have to force quit. If we try to open the
document in Word98, the error message "this is not a word document"
appears...
I have put the document through MacLink Plus in an attempt to
translate whatever may have happened into either Mord 5.1 or
Word98.... and in one or two cases I've been able to recover the
text (but no formatting or graphics)... in one (and only one) other
case, I was able to translate a document into Word 5.1 with all the
formatting (styles, tables, and graphics) still embedded in the
document....
I thought maybe we'd been infected by some strange virus -- so I've
run the latest Norton Virus on the computers -- and received a
"clean" message... I've attempted to run "Disk Doctor" and Norton
Utilities on the student's pc disks... but, of course neither Disk
Doctor nor Norton Utilities (for Mac) will analyze a pc disk...
I have not seen this problem before... ...and what has me perplexed
is that this week I've had four cases -- different students,
different computers -- and the only shared characteristics among the
students and the computers seems to be that they were using pc
formatted disks on which to save their work... and they all started
thier projects using Word 5.1 for Macintosh.
right now, I'm sort of stumped... but, I've suggested to the
students that, in spite of what I told them earlier in the semester,
that they now format a disk for Mac, and use that disk on which to
save their work. But... I still am searching for what might be going
on....
Does anyone on this list of cross-platform experts have any answers,
suggestions, directions?
Thanks....
--kit
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Dr. Kittrell Rushing
Head, Department of Communication
311 Frist Hall
615 McCallie Avenue
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Chattanooga, TN 37403-2598
Voice: (423) 755-4400 Facsimilie: (423) 755-4695
krushing@cecasun.utc.edu *** http://www.utc.edu/commdept
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