🚀 go-pugleaf

Just for the record, should anyone else ever see this, this was my initial
problem...

I seem to be having problems with a multi-file series of Word 5.1 documents
with several hundred EndNote refs inserted using the EndNote Plus plug-in
module (version 1.3). When I formatted the refs for the document series,
and then printed them, the references appear to have formatted correctly,
but from a certain point onward in the text, all occurences of certain
characters in the text print erroneously, nearly always as blank spaces on
the paper, *although they appear normally on screen*. All the non-printing
characters are "extended ASCII" characters such the superscript "o" degree
symbol, the Greek "mu" character etc. "Smart" typographers' quote marks
also misbehave: the opening quote mark prints as an exclamation mark, the
closing quote mark as a blank. For what it's worth I am using Palatino
throughout.

The "Fix Damaged Objects" utility (version 1.0) reports no problems. I
suspect I'm dealing with the old "undo-cut" bug again, and recall that
there was a manual means of searching for the damaged citation described in
the Niles Notes newsletter, but can't remember the details. Could you help,
or suggest other possible solutions of this problem?

In summary...

1) The manual method of finding damaged objects (doing a "convert to
text-only objects" (Word Tools/Commands menu)) and then searching for
graphics failed on this occasion to locate any damaged objects (under some
circumstances damaged objects don't convert and so show as graphics, so
that damaged objects can be identified)

2) Kimberley Mattingly suggested...

I suggest saving your files in RTF (Microsoft's Interchange format) by doing
a "Save As" from the File menu. Once it has converted, close the file and
reopen it in Word. This often times cleans up any damage in your file. Let
me know if this does not work.

I didn't get round to trying this as in fact I fixed things a (possibily
less efficient way) by converting to text-only objects (as above) and then
immediately converting back again (convert to plug-in module citations).
For some reason, this fixed things. In fact I had to do this three times as
three citations out of 450 or so were apparently damaged. The peculiar
exclamation marks-replacing-opening-quotes and other behaviour described
above that had begun at an early point in the thesis didn't begin until
after the next (presumably damaged) citation further downstream. After
three conversions to text format and back, the problem was solved (although
this was pretty time consuming since reformatting the thesis to check the
symptom had gone took half an hour each time).

Picking up another recent theme on this list about the merits of the
stand-alone application/DA using text-only citation markers over the
Plug-in module approach, I share the unease at having these invisible,
uncorrectable bits of code in one's thesis, causing all sorts of problems
if they get damaged. However, I was obliged to persist with the Plug-in as,
as far as I can see, there is no way to format a bibliography across a file
series of several documents (so that they all share a common bibliography)
using the stand alone application. Only the Plug-in can do it (and it is
pretty useful)

________________________________________________________________________________
Rob Forsyth     Department of Child Health, Medical School, Framlington Place,
                Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4HH, United Kingdom.

Internet Email  r.j.forsyth @ newcastle.ac.uk
Telephone:      +44 91 222 6000 ext 6936; Evenings phone +44 91 274 0362
Fax:            +44 91 222 6222
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