Why did Microsoft break Word again

I like text files, but our manuals and such are all in Word format.

Word has got quirky about handling pictures too.

Every update, things change. So you can't google for help: you get help for some old version, get told to click places that don't exist.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

I have been using libre office for many years. It generally just works. It can even read some old Microsoft formats that Microsoft have forgotten how to read.

John

Libreoffice works well as long as you have the same fonts installed.

Otherwise it changes the pagination.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I've never run Microsoft Word on my home computer, and adopted Libre Office many years ago

Not a problem I've run into.

I thought that that was normal word processor behavior - they have fixed rules for what will fit on a page and any trivial change can trigger a page over-flow.

That's correct.

Almost 40 years ago I was working in the UK for a US company that sent out long master documents on disk with a page index (using WordPerfect under Dos, not Word under Windows). This time, though, the indexing went slightly wrong after a dozen pages or so when the document was loaded on our PCs. The usual suspect - US Letter vs A4 page size - wasn't responsible as the company had finally settled on a page size slightly smaller than the length of US Letter and the width of A4, so it would fit both when viewed or printed without wrapping issues.

It took a few hours using the "Reveal codes" function of WordPerfect to work out what was going on. I can't remember what it was exactly, but it was something to do with a new font that the US company had introduced for that document, being almost imperceptibly different from the usual one, still apparently 12pt, but enough to introduce the overflow and indexing problem when a heading ran over and appeared on the next page.

It would have been basically impossible to solve using Word; it was only WordPerfect's "Reveal codes" which allowed detailed examination or what was going on.

"Fonts" [sic] are far more complicated than just typeface, size, effects, etc. The DTP tool needs to know more than just the size of each glyph but, also, the size WHEN INFLUENCED BY ADJACENT GLYPHS.

For all but monospaced "fonts", the width of a glyph varies along with how well it fits "into" the spaces of adjacent glyphs.

AVA takes much less horizontal space than AAA -- despite the fact that A and V each APPEAR to be of approximately the same "width". Ditto for ligatures: ffi, when typeset, crams the two f's together and tucks the 'i' "under" the rightmost 'f' obliterating the dot in the process.

This varies with the physical characteristics of the actual glyphs so the typeface presents subtle differences.

Because of the impact on rendering, many document formats allow the actual typefaces used to be embedded in the documents created with them.

What version are you talking about?

I'm no fan of MS Word but it sounds like your config is corrupt.

It never does anything random for me, perverse and unhelpful yes but random no - it is deterministic under all circumstances here. (even if what you see is never quite what you get)

Certain layout depends critically on printer driver behaviour.

A great reason to adopt PDFs instead of silly MS file formats that change rendering with the phase of the moon!

We use Office at work, and it's constantly updating. So who knows?

Other people have noticed the same thing. It handles page breaks different lately, and it makes no sense.

Micosoft has an interesting business model, continuinually breaking its products. I suspect they develop under Linux.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

John Larkin typed: |------------------------------------| |"Why did Microsoft break Word again"| |------------------------------------|

because John Larkin et al. keep payings Microsoft despite Microsoft messings up so! Bad results result from a lack of an incentive to not be bad.

John Larkin wrote: |--------------------------------------------------------------------| |"Micosoft has an interesting business model, continuinually breaking| |its products. [. . .]" | |--------------------------------------------------------------------|

Microsoft enjoys that clients do not use these breakages as a reason to not pay again.

Phil Hobbs snipped-for-privacy@electrooptical.net wrote: |---------------------------------| |"[. ..] changes the pagination. "| |---------------------------------|

Martin Brown wrote: |---------------------------------------------------------------| |"(even if what you see is never quite what you get) | | | |Certain layout depends critically on printer driver behaviour."| |---------------------------------------------------------------|

We created a Word file. One of us ordered a printer to print it. He came back and said that its hardcopy version is laid out differently on pages than Word showed on a monitor.

(I had suggested LaTeX, but I am the only one in this team who had used TeX.)

Don Y wrote: |---------------------------------------------------------------| |"A great reason to adopt PDFs instead of silly MS file formats"| |---------------------------------------------------------------|

Not really. I am sorry to disagree. (S.

PDFs define what you will see on the page instead of letting the printer rearrange things because you don't havea particular typeface on THIS computer, etc.

Additionally, PDF is a container format so you can add other things to your "document" (audio, video, datasheets, source code listings, binaries, etc.) so you don't have to create an archive (in WHICH format?) to distribute things that belong together.

Most of the world uses Microsoft. My company uses Word, Excel, Outlook, and stuff, the entire Office suite. And has an official IT Support contractor.

I didn't decide that. But I am perplexed by why Microsoft, the biggest software company in the universe, writes such bad buggy code, and why they want to irritate their cusomers.

I avoid using Microsoft when I can. Crimson Editor, Irfanview, Dropbox, Firefox.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

Don Y snipped-for-privacy@foo.invalid wrote: |--------------------------------------------------------------------| |"PDFs define what you will see on the page instead of letting the | |printer rearrange things because you don't havea particular typeface| |on THIS computer, etc." | |--------------------------------------------------------------------|

Printing a PDF file via Microsoft Windows does not reproduce on a paper what Microsoft Windows shows on a monitor. I do not know who of Microsoft; Adobe; and a printer company is or are worthy of this blame.

For the previous paragraph I do not even need to count that "Markups" or "Stamps" might not be printed.

This is not a lack of intuitiveness by Adbobe or PDF but \usepackage{pdfpages} [. . .] \includepdf[height=225mm,pagecommand=]{PDF-file} does not include all a PDF file's pages whereas \includepdf[height=225mm,pages=-,pagecommand=]{PDF-file} does.

PDF files are less competent that alternative file formats. E.g. copying and pasting from a PDF file fail to copy and paste blank lines, and is also unfaithful regarding hyphens at the ends of lines.

(S.

I never have any problem seeing an exact paper copy of what appears on my screen. If I try to print on 3x5" index cards, I have to tell the printer driver to "fit to page" and expect there to be a surplus of "blank paper" around the imagery as the aspect ratio of the pages that I use is almost certainly not "3:5"

Nor will the embedded attachments. They aren't part of the "presentation" but, rather, encapsulated in the container.

That depends on how the PDF was created. I can build a PDF out of TIFFs. I wouldn't expect a paste to consist of text -- unless I ran an OCR process as part of that the operation.

Similarly, I wouldn't expect end-of-line hyphenation to appear (nor the associated line breaks) with a flow that required such hyphenation in that instance. I'd, instead, expect to see an unbroken "line" of text devoid of (added) hyphenation as I'd be trying to copy the *content*, not its *format*.

I do not say to never use a PDF. I do not say that a different format is always better. I say that PDF and different formats are better in different ways such that one format is not always better in each respect than a different format.

Don Y snipped-for-privacy@foo.invalid wrote: |------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"On 7/15/2026 9:39 AM, Cóilín Nioclásín Glostéir wrote: | |> Don Y snipped-for-privacy@foo.invalid wrote: | |> |--------------------------------------------------------------------|| |> |"PDFs define what you will see on the page instead of letting the || |> |printer rearrange things because you don't havea particular typeface|| |> |on THIS computer, etc." || |> |--------------------------------------------------------------------|| |> | |> Printing a PDF file via Microsoft Windows does not reproduce on a | |> paper what Microsoft Windows shows on a monitor. I do not know who of | |> Microsoft; Adobe; and a printer company is or are worthy of this | |> blame. | | | |I never have any problem seeing an exact paper copy of what appears | |on my screen. [. . .]" | |------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Then Don Y is lucky enough to not need to print what I needed to print, and he is lucky enough to not to have ported PDF files to as diverse a set of vendors' technologies to experience that a purportedly Portable Document Format is not portable. A couple of examples follow . . .

I wrote in Subject: Re: Microsoft Edge Is Secretly Draining Your PC's RAM (Here's How to Stop It) in news:alt.comp.os.windows-11 and news:alt.comp.os.windows-10 on Date: Fri, 01 May 2026 19:46:44 -0000 . . . |----------------------------------------------------------------------| |"Also, ordering Adobe to order Windows to order an Epson printer to | |print a 161-megabyte PDF file failed (without an error message without| |a warning) while pretending to successfully print (by printing the | |textual, non-photograph-scan parts of many a page). | |pdfinfo reports for this file: | |"Creator: TeX | |Producer: pdfTeX-1.40.24 | |CreationDate: Wed Apr 17 02:32:57 2024 CEST | |ModDate: Wed Apr 17 02:32:57 2024 CEST | |Custom Metadata: yes | |Metadata Stream: no | |Tagged: no | |UserProperties: no | |Suspects: no | |Form: none | |JavaScript: no | |Pages: 1408 | |Encrypted: no | |Page size: 595.276 x 841.89 pts (A4) | |Page rot: 0 | |File size: 168350465 bytes | |Optimized: no | |PDF version: 1.5" | | | |I show this Epson printer via | |

A different example without this printer is I printed a 2-page form via a different printer. pdfinfo showed about it: "Title: N163.p65 Author: AHOLDING Creator: PageMaker 6.5 Producer: Acrobat Distiller 4.0 for Windows CreationDate: Wed Apr 5 14:06:05 2000 CEST ModDate: Thu Sep 8 11:09:00 2016 CEST Custom Metadata: no Metadata Stream: yes Tagged: no UserProperties: no Suspects: no Form: AcroForm Syntax Warning: Direct object in rootFields JavaScript: no Pages: 2 Encrypted: no Page size: 595 x 842 pts (A4) Page rot: 0 File size: 190816 bytes Optimized: no PDF version: 1.6".

Even Adobe Reader warns about this file: "Cannot extract the embedded font 'NPBMGG+Helvetica-Bold'. Some characters may not display or print correctly."

I tried to print it again, but via yet a different printer. This yet a different printer is a good big (from-a-floor-to-above-adults'-waists) expensive (photocopy-shop) Konica printer. A female friend was impressed - ho ho! - by how good a similar printer of ours is. This yet a different printer failed to print it, so as a workaround I have used a hardcopy which had been printed by a different printer and I scanned this old hardcopy and this failed printer succeeded to print this scan.

pdfinfo showed about its printing-workaround-via-scanning version: "Creator: TOSHIBA e-STUDIO2820C Producer: MFPImgLib V4.0 CreationDate: Fri Sep 9 15:15:56 2016 CEST Custom Metadata: no Metadata Stream: no Tagged: no UserProperties: no Suspects: no Form: none JavaScript: no Pages: 2 Encrypted: no Page size: 595 x 842 pts (A4) Page rot: 0 File size: 1127905 bytes Optimized: no PDF version: 1.7".

Don Y wrote: |------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"> For the previous paragraph I do not even need to count that "Markups"| |> or "Stamps" might not be printed. | | | |Nor will the embedded attachments. They aren't part of the | |"presentation" but, rather, encapsulated in the container." | |------------------------------------------------------------------------|

If Don Y does not need to print them, then good for Don Y. A legal stipulation requires me to print forms which I originally got as blank PDF files which I wrote on via "Markups". pdfpages does not print "Markups" so to make such a written-on form compatible with pdfpages and with the way that I decide to work with such a form, I flatten it like . . .

pdftops -level3 -paper A4 written-on_form.pdf

ps2pdf written-on_form.ps written-on_form_pdftops_ps2pdf.pdf

Of course, I am not legally required to use pdfpages but I am legally required to (photocopy or) print it again years later with tens of other documents adding up to circa 1000 pages and a legal stipulation stipulates that all circa 1000 pages must be chronologically ordered and numbered (as if 1 huge document instead of many small documents with their own page numbers). This stipulation is a nuisance. pdfpages and fancyhdr and \thepage{} are a good way to number pages, despite pdfpages not printing "Markups". I deem manually adding circa 1000 page numbers to photocopies; and printed scans; and prints without "Markups" with manually transcribed answers; and prints with "Markups" to be more undesirable alternatives, but persons may choose them if they want to, or more probably if they never use TeX etc.

I produce such a big numbered coalition like so . . .

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\usepackage{pdfpages}

\usepackage{fancyhdr}

\usepackage{examplep} \usepackage{a4wide} %By default Examplep forces big margins. \setlength{\PexaWidth}{200mm} and \usepackage[usewidth=hsize]{examplep} do not shrink margins. \usepackage{a4wide} shrunk an A4 document de 213 pages to 187 pages.

\usepackage{decimal} \usepackage{yfonts}[1998/10/03] %In order for a nonterminal s to be correctly drawn by \textswab{s}. \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{017F}{\textswab{s}} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{1E61}{\.s} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{1E60}{\.S} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{1E0B}{\.d} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{1E1F}{\.f} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{1E57}{\.p} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{1E56}{\.P} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{1E41}{\.m} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{1E6B}{\.t} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{202F}{ } \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{200B}{ } \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{2265}{$\geq$} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{25CF}{$.$} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{30FB}{$.$} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{25AA}{$.$} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{2248}{$\approx$} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{25BA}{$\triangleright$}

\usepackage[font=times]{uni8} %To prevent TeX de distorting an opening double quotation mark as \ and < as ¡ and > as ¿ and en dash as {. Cf. a message by Donald Arseneau in comp.text.tex in 2000: "In the odd font enoding used %by computer-modern-roman, the left double-quote is in the ascii %"\" position, the en-dash is in the ascii "{" position,".

%\usepackage{lastpage}

\begin{document}

\pagestyle{fancy} \fancyfoot[L]{} \fancyfoot[R]{} \fancyhead[L,C,R]{} \fancyfoot[C]{}

% for file in * ; do new_name_sans_escaping=`echo $file | sed -e 's/\..*//'` ; new_name_with_escaping=`echo $new_name_sans_escaping | sed -e 's/_/\\\_/g'` ; echo -e \\\\fancyhead[C]{$new_name_with_escaping}\\n\\\\includepdf[height=225mm,pages=-,pagecommand=]{$file}\\n\\\\clearpage\\n\\\\fancyhead[C]{} ; done >> printer_2026-03-03__2026A.tex

% I ran: shell_script/rename_txt_files_to_tex_files.sh

% With Emacs I did: % Replace regexp \(includepdf\[height=225mm,pages=-,pagecommand=\]{\)\(.+\).tex} with: PexaInputSource{\2}{}

\fancyhead[C]{Name of 1st document} \PexaInputSource{Name of 1st document's file without its filename extension}{} \clearpage \fancyhead[C]{} \fancyhead[C]{Name of 2nd document} \includepdf[height=225mm,pages=-,pagecommand=]{Name of 2nd document's file with its filename extension.pdf} \clearpage blah blah blah \end{document}

Don Y wrote: |------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"[. . .] I'd be trying to copy the *content*, not its *format*. | | | |[Do you expect enboldened glyphs to be rendered as such?" | |------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Plainly textual formats and word-processor formats are easier for copying contents (and formatting). An Adobe-PDF reader does preserve formatting when copying and pasting (from a file to the same file) under circumstances which I often do so in.

I do not like the reformatting that happens when I copy and paste from

And why does Analog Devices keep breaking LT Spice?

What is wrong with those people?

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

You should still be able to make it tell you its version and patch level. They hide it in different places on older versions.

This is more likely to be a print metrics thing depending on which printer the computer running Word is connected too. My main annoyance there is that circles that are round on the screen are *not* round when printed in Excel unless you use fixed width fonts.

Their development tools and many developers are quite good. It is the ship it and be damned management culture that is the problem. After all with fast internet a few GB of "Updates" is barely noticeable.

MS Office products are deterministic in their misbehaviour. Perhaps wrong but deterministically wrong in the same environment.

I won't touch Office 365 with a barge pole - like building on shifting sands with its infernal daily updates. YMMV

I prefer fixed dated versions and controlling when it updates them.

Any difference between saving as .doc or .docx ?

I use LibreOffice, but still have Word 2010 and Word 2K.

I distribute as .pdf.

RL

"Many documents are in less accessible formats, for example PDF." said

(S.