Hi All, what happened to Randy happened to me several times in the past, with one most remarkable example being editing the 47 page long text that were mostly formulas. While most responses so far suggest using latex or flavors thereof, I for one would still be using MS Word mostly because I find it impractical to convince collaborators to use something else. The only solution that works for me so far is being disciplined about this issue by periodically checking to make sure this trouble did not occur (which is annoying to say the least!).
All the best, Pavel On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 1:10 AM, Randy Read <rj...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > Rather off-topic, but maybe someone on the list has found a way to work > around this! > > There’s a problem with the Equation Editor in Office 2011 for Mac (i.e. > the one that is based on a stripped-down version of MathType, which you get > with Insert->Object->Microsoft Equation). You can insert an equation, > re-open it and edit it several times, and then suddenly (and seemingly > randomly) the equation object will be replaced by a picture showing the > equation, which can no longer be edited. I’m writing a rather > equation-heavy paper at the moment, and this is driving me crazy. > > This seems to be a known bug, which has existed from the release of Office > 2011. Apparently it happens, unpredictably, when an AutoSave copy of the > document is saved, so you can avoid it by turning off the AutoSave > feature. The last time this drove me crazy, several years ago, I did try > turning off AutoSave. For a while, I was very good about manually saving > frequently, but I got into bad habits and eventually Word crashed after I > had worked for several hours on a grant proposal without manually saving. > So I turned AutoSave back on. > > At the moment, the least-bad solution seems to be to turn off AutoSave > while I’m working on a document with lots of equations and then (hopefully) > remember to turn it back on after that document is finished. But it would > be great if someone has come up with a better cure for this problem. > > No doubt someone will suggest switching from Word to LaTeX, but I need to > be able to collaborate on paper-writing, and even though I might be willing > to invest the effort in learning LaTeX, I can’t really expect that of my > collaborators. Most people in our field do use Microsoft Word, regardless > of its failings. I’ve also tried using the professional version of > MathType, but that requires your collaborators to install it as well — and > I don’t think that cured the equation to picture problem anyway. > > Thanks! > > ----- > Randy J. Read > Department of Haematology, University of Cambridge > Cambridge Institute for Medical Research Tel: +44 1223 336500 > Wellcome Trust/MRC Building Fax: +44 1223 336827 > Hills Road > E-mail: rj...@cam.ac.uk > Cambridge CB2 0XY, U.K. > www-structmed.cimr.cam.ac.uk >
