I just tried using 2008 for my first presentation since the update. It was a
disaster (although the talk went fine).
Problems
1. Cropping pictures was VERY difficult. It just didnt crop very well at
all, the cursor got stuck on the wrong thing, you couldnt see where it was
cropping to.
2. I found the tables impossible to edit. You couldnt really do your own
table format. HAd to choose one of theirs which I hated. I wanted a 4x 8
table. I couldnt colour the backgound of cells so they remained clear-YOUR
RIGHT ABOUT THE FONT CHANGE that it did instead of changing the cell colour.
I also wanted to get rid of the top left hand cell-normally I use the erasor
to do this by toucing on the left and upper lines of the cell and the whole
cell is then deleted. With the new table thingy, there is a funny picture
frame around the periphery of the table so it wouldnt erase those outer
lines. Similarly, I wanted to delineate the top row and left column-normally
I do this by redrawing the line separating these from the other cells with a
bolder line with the pen on the table toolbar. When I tried to do this it
gave me a funny sort of miniframe like it gives you around the table-i assume
this frame contained the line but I couldnt replace the old thin line with a
new thick line-it kept giving me double lines no matter how I tried to
position it yet.
I ended up just doing a plain 4 x 8 table, putting a white rectagle in the
background of the table (to counter act the see through thing and dilineated
the top row and left column by emboldening the font in these columns
3. The templates for the title page, page with title and text, page with
title etc- were very difficult to customise. I started with the blank black
and white template; the on the MASTER I wanted to make the title text box of
a title + text page to have a background by filling the text box with a
colour (ps fill effects I found impossible to use:previously you could choose
an Icon which showed you how it was going to change the fill eg colour going
from darker at the top to lighter at the bottom-now you have to play with
percentages and guess how its going to look)-some how I accidentally deleted
the text from the text box- and could NOT get it the text back on the MASTER
by any means I could think of-so I had to start a whole new file and restart
playing with the master on that, then cut and paste everything from the file
I had started with.
4. transitions-The transition I love is for pictures to dissolve in on
click. When you click on entry transitions in PP2008, you get a sublist of
someone elses favourite 5 entry, but not my dissolve in, so I have to do
additional key strokes about 50% of the time to get dissolve in (sometimes it
seems to remember that I like dissolve in, but not others)
Ps WHY do we not have motion paths like PCs do-I have to go onto a PC to add
the motion path if I ever want to do this-I WAS ASSUMING 2008 would have
caught up here
5. When I changed the file name of the final draft (by clicking on the icon
of the file and renaming that way)-from then on I could not change the
document ie I noticed a couple of spelling errors that needed correction. It
kept saying it couldnt change the file because it had been deleted or
moved-my only remedy of this was to save the file that I still had open by
"saving as" a different name. I kept getting the same message when I tried to
open up the new copy file. The remedy to this was to completely shut PP and
reopen PP-it seemed happy then-ie opened the original and the copy-then I
could save changes to the document.
6. the final insult was that when I went to check how it would look on an
earlier version of office (in case the auditorium only had PC or a
macoffice2004-it of course wouldnt open because the new files are not back
compatible (saving the files as .pptx). So I saved it as a 97-2004 ppt file-
AND with 30 minutes to go found that saving it in this way, none of the
transitions worked properly (ie each bullet point coming up on a new click).
In the end, I just took my laptop and connected it up to the projector when
it was my turn to talk and used the original .pptx file.
Conclusion
Office PP 2008 should not have been released until these things were
tested-really, making a table (at the very least) should have been on any
testing schedule. I assume these things are fixable, until they are fixed, I
will be continuing to use PP2004. Unfortunately, I have to swap b/w 2004 and
2008 cause the 2008 Word is an improvement-although it keeps resetting my
custom nonfloating tool bar back to the standard tool bar and bringing back
my old floating custom toolbar that it remember from Word 2004-CAN ANY ONE
HELP ME FIX THAT?
"kronk@officeformac.com" wrote:
> In Powerpoint 2008 I have a table that is formatted using one of the table templates.
>
> When I try to shade a cell using Borders and Shading instead it just changes the font color.
>
> Am I missing something? Is this a bug?
>
> John
> >> Stay informed about: Table Shading bug? 
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