I finally took the plunge back into Spaces today. I assigned each of the Office 2008 apps to my Space 1, and double clicked on a Word document. Word opened up. . . in the space I was in (Space 2).
Undaunted, I checked my Spaces preferences again, reselected Word to make sure it was assigned to Space 1, and then "manually" moved my open Word document over to Space 1.
Good to go, I thought.
Nope. I clicked on Mail in the Dock, and sailed gracefully back into Space 2 so I could copy text from an email message. To switch back to Word, I clicked on Word in the Dock. And my Word document moved itself from Space 1 to Space 2.
I don't know if this is a Leopard thing, or an Office thing, but I'd really like to use Spaces to keep my Excel / Word / PowerPoint documents in a separate area where I might be able to concentrate free of the distractions of my email, etc.
Sigh.
It gets better. Or worse, that is. I moved Word back over to Space 1 again, so that I could concentrate on my report. I saved my document, and Word moved itself back over to Space 2 again.
Posted: February 14, 2008 12:48 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 0 comments
Tags: Apple Spaces, Mac Leopard OS, Microsoft Office 2008
Okay, I give up. I just disabled Spaces. Let me count the reasons why:
- While putting Word into Space 1 prevented Word from crashing as frequently, using PowerPoint (2004) in Space 1 still led to PowerPoint telling me that the file on the file server I had open had been locked (by me) and so I had to save the file to a new name. Repeatedly.
- Today I had PowerPoint and 1 mail message open in Space 1, Firefox and Mail open in Space 2, and iTunes open in Space 3. I started using iTunes U, which required flipping back and forth between Firefox, my Mail, and iTunes. I clicked on Mail in the dock, and the space wouldn't flip. I moved the 1 mail message back to the rest of my mail in Space 2 and clicked on Mail in the doc--still the space wouldn't flip. I clicked on Firefox, I couldn't get to Space 2. Finally, I couldn't move from any space to any other without going into Spaces itself, or the Expose shortcut.
Okay, so that's only 2 reasons, but I've really had it. Which stinks, because I love Spaces, and if it worked, it would make me more productive.
As for the Adobe products: something's still buggy between Leopard and CS3. For example, there are times when I choose the crop tool, type in measurements, and try to crop: the crop measurements don't stick. Sometimes they do stick, and then when I try to remove them from the toolbar, it looks as though I deleted the measurements, but the crop tool is still sticking to the deleted measurements. This happens at home consistently, but I'm pretty sure it happened at work too.
Then there are the CS3 updates, which take forever to load.
Leopard, oh Leopard, when will you stabilize?
Posted: January 4, 2008 12:42 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 1 comment
Tags: Adobe Photoshop, Apple Spaces, Mac Leopard OS, PowerPoint 2004
I've tried several more things to make it so that PowerPoint doesn't tell me that the file I have open on the server is in use (by me) and so I have to save with another name.
1. I tried making sure that there was no Finder window open showing the file. Then PowerPoint said the file was in use, but only once. When I saved it as another name, and kept using it for another hour, including having the computer go to sleep in the middle, it was fine.
2. I've now moved Word, PowerPoint, and Excel to Space 1. PowerPoint didn't tell me the file I had open was in use, but every time I saved the file, it switched to Space 2, where I had a Finder window open showing the file. Then, when I quit PowerPoint, it thought it had crashed and asked if I wanted to send a report to Apple.
It's possible that the Microsoft Office 2004 suite works well with Leopard if you don't use Spaces. But if you do use spaces, expect to have lots of problems with Office. Very frustrating.
Posted: December 20, 2007 10:12 am by Kimberly Brookes | 0 comments
Tags: Apple Spaces, Mac Leopard OS, Microsoft Office 2004
Here is my new theory: if you're going to use an Office product in a space other than Space 1, make sure there is a finder window in that space that includes the directory where the file is located.
Or, perhaps it's: if you're going to have a Finder window open that shows the file you're trying to use, make sure that Finder window is in the space where the Office product is.
I was just using PowerPoint in Space 2, and had a Finder window showing my file (on the file server) in Space 1. I noticed that when I saved, PowerPoint flicked briefly, as though to go to Space 1, and then back. After a while, when I tried to save, PowerPoint completely hung on me, and I had to force quit.
I'm going to try it with my new rule and see if I have happier Pages and Office 2004 experiences.
A few minutes later: except that now the file server thinks the original file is already in use and so I had to save it with another file name. And then, without leaving PowerPoint, I got the same complaint twice more. Now I'm up to version C.
A few days later: Today it happened again. I'm up to version E.
Posted: December 10, 2007 12:54 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 0 comments
Tags: Apple Spaces, Mac Leopard OS, PowerPoint 2004
Word crashed 4 times today. Each time I was trying to print to the networked Canon printer in our area. It feels as though this is somehow related to Spaces, even though I can't be sure.
I was primarily using Space 1, where my Mail, calendar, and browser are. I switched to Word, and a file on the file server, which took me to Space 2. I had been printing earlier in Space 1. I tried to print the Word document, and the document printed, but Word quit.
Then I tired to print again, same thing.
Later, with a longer document, the document didn't print and Word crashed. Finally the 3rd time I opened the document, I was able to print that file, and another, successfully. It was as though I needed to open the file in a specific manner: move to Space 2, navigate to the file using Space 2, double click on the file. Or something.
Very odd.
Posted: November 13, 2007 4:49 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 4 comments
Tags: Apple Spaces, Mac Leopard OS, Microsoft Word 2004, OS testing
I just tried to use Spaces. I have two Spaces. I switched from one to the other using F8. I'd seen in the demo that you can drag one apps into another Space before switching to that Space.
I dragged MS Word into the second space, and entered the 2nd space. But my title bar of my Word document then wouldn't let me move the Word document down below the Word toolbars. When I tried to click in the document and edit, some of the document's text spilled over the bottom of Word's document window, and I couldn't edit the document. This is behavior similar to what I experienced several years ago when opening certain documents originally created in Word for Windows.
I tried opening another application to see if Leopard would redraw the screen properly. That didn't work. I quit Word, opened it again in the 2nd space, then opened the document and everything was fine.
I don't think Spaces likes having an open Word doc dragged into a new space through its F8 feature.
Posted: November 1, 2007 12:19 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 0 comments
Tags: Apple Spaces, Mac Leopard OS, Microsoft Word 2004, OS testing
