SoftMaker.com

I use Track Changes to comment on my daughter's MS Word 2010 work and have encountered two issues. It seems that Textmaker does not retain the Track Change configuration and it needs to be reset for each document. The second item relates to a DOCX document with track changes and it does not show that an item was deleted. The change indicator appears at the beginnig of the line but there is no color or strike through on the document. Any suggestions and ideas would be appreciated. Ruffus...

This is intended. The settings are file based and saved directly in the document, not in the program.

_________________
Sven Leßmann
SoftMaker Software GmbH

I could not reporduce this problem here. After saving a file with active track changes (deleted words, added characters) in .docx file format, I could open it again and all track changes was visible. Are you working with the latest revision 600 (see Help=>About).

_________________
Sven Leßmann
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Hi, Thanks for responding to my questions and sorry if I was not clear. The tack changes appear fine in Textmaker, my problem occurs when I open the Docx file in MS Word 2010. The change indicator appears at the beginning of the line, the insert information appears fine, but there is no color or strike through for the deleted text. Txs...

Quick question. I just want to play with this a bit. Can I confirm that the docx docs were originally created in Word? It seems obvious that yes they were, but I just want to confirm this. Thanks.

I opened a .doc and a .docx in TM. Both were created in MS Work 2010. I deleted a single word in both and track changes showed the deleted words. I then opened the docs again in MS Word... no problem. The track changes showed up. So... unless I missed something, I also cannot reproduce the issue.

_________________
Cheers
Jim

Hi Jim - Thanks for looking into my question. The document (i.e. Docx) was created in MS Word 2010, edited with track changes and saved with the most recent build of Textmaker. When reopening the document in MS Word the my additions to the document appear (without Color) my deletions appear (no strike through or color) and the line edit indicator appears at the beginning of the line. The changes do appear in WM Word's summary but again they are not indicated directly in the document. Thanks again... Ruffus

Would it be possible to upload the file in question? or if that is not appropriate, a "dummy" file so we can play with it and see if we can duplicate what you're seeing. As I mentioned, I can't duplicate it, but perhaps there is something that I don't have on my system that you do.

_________________
Cheers
Jim

Hi Jim, Thanks for your help and attached is one of the files that I edited in track change. I modified the file out side of track change to remove personal information, therefore, the content might not make sense and hope these change will not effect the test. Please note this file was never opened by MS Word.

I did notice that when I reopened the file it lost all the track change coloring (FYI - Blue = Insert, Red strike through - Delete, and Magenta = line change). Although I was hoping that the coloring could be configured once, it was my understanding that it should have been retained with the document. Thanks for all your help. Ronnie

Ok, I can see the problem now. The colors your can define for the track change feature in File=>Properties=>Reviewing are document based. they are only valid for the file and you have to set them again for every new file. The problem is that MS Word seems not to be able to read these color settings and use simple grey for every change. I will inform the developers to fix the problem if possible.

_________________
Sven Leßmann
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Txs...

In Word these colors are global settings. Word doesn't store them in the documents. In TextMaker they are document settings. We store them in the documents but Word doesn't know anything about this. The problem is that we can't change Word's global settings.

_________________
Sven Leßmann
SoftMaker Software GmbH

OK and thanks for the certification. I am a little disappointed because if I understand correctly although Textmaker will read and save DOCX files, the program's features are not full compatible with MS Word.

If I understand this correctly, it's a problem with the settings in the Word program you opened the file with. What could TextMaker possibly do about these?

Jossi - Thank you for your thoughts and I will respond to your question and explain my disappointment. But, first let me quote some information from Softmaker's home page.

"...To be useful in the real world, an office suite needs to be compatible with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents.

SoftMaker Office 2012 fills this requirement competently: It not only works seamlessly with the old Microsoft Office formats DOC, XLS, and PPT, but also faithfully reads and writes files in the new DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX formats that have been introduced with Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010..."


The paragraph above was one of the reasons I purchased the product and as indicated in the responses to my question Texkmaker's features, for example Track change, are not completely compatible with MS Word and again this feature does not work seamlessly with MS Word documents. Therefore, the problem is not the Word settings but that Textmaker is not completely compatible with the way MS Word handles Track changes. I understand that this is just one of those things that happens and probably there are not that many people that use this feature so the compatibility was unknown. From a practical point of view at this point little can be done other than to clarify the web description, maybe identify the items that are not compatible or seamless and make people aware of them.

The product is a good product for the price, but, people need to clearly understand that its not 100% compatible or seamless with MS Word. Take Care... Ruffus

Well, let me explain my question then. I understood that track change colours are global settings in Word and it depends on these settings how track changes in documents are displayed. So, when I make changes in a Word document with MS Word and afterwards open it with another Word installation which has different settings, track changes will be displayed in colours different from those on the computer I first worked with. If I am not mistaken and this is what happened to your document, the only way to influence this issue would be to change the Word settings on the second computer (your daughter's, I presume). Please correct me if I got something wrong here.