At the end of June I posted a message to the list about a problem I was
having with  Excel 2007 crashing and, more importantly, with creating graphs
in the Office 2007 suite.  Specifically, the lines and symbols in Excel
graphs became annuli and thin rectangles when I pasted the graphs into
Powerpoint and took them apart to clean them up for publication or made them
into slides for presentation.  I have now resolved if not solved this
problem.  But first, thanks to the people who responded.  Here is a brief
summary of your responses, followed by my solution.

Ryan Hodgson wondered if the crashing was a problem with the Vista operating
system. No, I am still on XP and have no intention of upgrading to Vista
anytime soon.  He also noted that "I never quite understand (as an IT guy)
why people upgrade their software versions when the old version works." 
Yeah, well, Ryan, in general software gets better, but I do wonder whether
it is reaching a level of dysfunctional decadence simlar to what art and
music reached in the 20th Century.  And "If your problem persists, start
using 2003 again: it is easier to use then the fiddliness of 2007."  True.

Conrad Earnest told me about problems he was having with error bars with the
new Mac version of Excel and suggested that "going back to the old version
is a good solution b/c it will save you a lot of time."  Yes, indeed.

Felipe Carpes suggested running Windows ServicePack 3 (if using the Windows
XP).  I tried that, but no joy.

Jim Martin suggested Open Office, but so far I haven't tried that option. 
At the moment I want to persevere with Microsoft Office, which, for all its
problems, is very powerful.  If the next version is any worse, I might have
to try Open Office or other software.

And now my solution:  I am running Excel and Powerpoint in 2003 and 2007
versions.   It wasn't difficult for an IT technician to set up, and so far
there are no problems.  I will do most work with the 2003 versions, as
described below.  I finish this message with a fix for those who can't or
won't go back to the 2003 versions.

I will use Excel 2007 to plot curves on a graph.  I find the curves are
smoother and keep their shape better than with Excel 2003. 
You have to create the curves in Excel 2007, but save the file as a 2003
version (.xls, not .xlsx), close the file, then re-open it with Excel 2003. 
Now you can copy the graph and paste special/enhanced metafile into
Powerpoint 2003.  Ungroup twice and you get the usual fine modifiable lines
and symbols.  If you take it into Powerpoint 2007 you will get the corrupted
fat lines and symbols.  So it's a bit of a fiddle, but worth it.

I will use Powerpoint 2007 when I want to build complex slides with grouped
elements.  The advantage of 2007 Powerpoint here is that you can tweak
elements of a grouped object without having to ungroup it, which results in
loss of all the animation information in the 2003 version.  In 2007 you
simply click on the grouped object, then click again on the element you want
to tweak.  Now do what you like with it. When you click off the object it
becomes part of the group again.  Wonderful! I would use Powerpoint 2007
more often, but there are too many bugs with the way the Ctrl, Shift and Alt
keys are supposed to work when you manipulate objects.  Sometimes you can't
even draw a vertical or horizontal line or stretch an object symmetrically.
Editing points on a curve is also a nightmare: it just doesn't work right. 
And I dislike the new menus.

I have also given up on Word 2007.  I had been working with Word, Excel and
Powerpoint 2007 for about four months.  I customized them as far as it was
possible to do so, and eventually I could find most things reasonably
quickly.  But I couldn't customize them to the same extent as the 2003
versions.  As far as Word is concerned, I can't think of any advantages of
2007 over 2003. It's 24 hours since I returned to Word 2003.  I had to
recustomize it, but fortunately I had taken a screen shot for just such an
eventuality, so it took only an hour or two.  It's great to be back! 

I'm continuing to run Outlook 2007 and will keep my fingers crossed that
they fix the bugs with this otherwise powerful mailer.  (The worst one is
the failure to autocomplete some addresses, even when they are in the
Contacts list!)

If you have to work entirely in Office 2007, make your graphs at ~2.5x the
size you want them in the final publication.  In general this will be the
roight size for use on a slide.  Choose ~26-pt Arial Narrow for fonts and
~14 pt for the symbols (depending on the shape and density of the
symbols). Paste-special the graph into Powerpoint 2007 as an enhanced
metafile and ungroup it, move axes and add colors and lettering or whatever
for your slideshow.  Unfortunately each symbol ends up as two objects–an
annulus and a fill–so you may have trouble coloring or moving them.  To
downsize the figure for publication, get it exactly they way you want it to
look in the publication, then select all the elements, cut to the clipboard,
paste it back in as an enhanced metafile, then drag one corner to make it
the appropriate smaller size.  DO NOT UNGROUP:  if you do, all the lines and
symbols will develop a thickness you can't get rid of.  For those journals
that want something other than Powerpoint, save as a PDF then convert the
PDF to a TIFF or EPS file, as explained in my item on preparing graphics for
publication at Sportscience.  I'll add an edited version of this message to
the site as an update shortly, when I see if anyone has anything to add.

Will
Will G Hopkins, PhD FACSM
Institute of Sport and Recreation Research
AUT University, Akoranga Drive
Private Bag 92006
Auckland 0627, New Zealand
Cell +64 21 804 736
Landline +64 9 921 9793
Fax +64 9 921 9960
Skype WillTheKiwi
will@..., will.hopkins@...
Sportscience http://sportsci.org
Statistics http://newstats.org
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