> Again the output topic: If you export the output (text output - I did not
> ever try it with graphs) to any other program (such as MS Word or Excel -
> hope I do not get off topic mentioning that :-), the umlauts appear in the
> right way.
>
I am not the all-powerful indicator of on/off-topic-ness. But, to
clarify, I would regard it as off-topic if then someone writes, "Hey, it
doesn't seem to work for me. Can you tell me how I can edit the file in
MS-Excel and make an unlaut?"
All along my point was that the original query, by Renzo Comolli, was
predicated Renzo's unwillingness to read the stata manual. Dr. Comolli
wrote:
>I know that most (possibly all and more) of the editing that I am thinking
>of could be done in Stata itself before exporting, but so far editing the
>graphs in Stata has not been time-efective for me in terms of the time spent
>to learn the commands.
In other words, his time is too valuable to figure out how to do it in
stata, he would prefer to use the time of everyone on the list to inform
him of how to do it in WORD. That, to me, seems inconsiderate. And,
Michael Blasnick followed the common U.S. politician trick of, when faced
with a question whose answer is clear but argues against your point, just
ignore the question. Several times in the sequence I complimented Michael
on his position, thanked him for his contribution, and more. I wasn't
being polite, just honest--I did value his contribution, and I thought he
did say things that were useful. Sadly, he cannot admit that Dr.
Comolli's original post was inappropriate. I guess it isn't macho to
admit someone else might have a point, and it isn't polite to tell
someone who was inconsiderate that they were inconsiderate.
After Dr. Blasnick tries to help, Dr. Comolli responds basically asking
for more help in MSWord, laying the groundwork for additional assistance
by writing:
>I should have specified that I tried what you said and it did not work.
>I have MSWord 2002 (part of Office XP) fully patched. And Windows XP Pro
>fully patched.
>What does move one step forwards (and two backwards) is to import the
>picture. Cut the picture. Paste Special the picture selecting Microsoft
>Drawing Object.
>Unfortunately, as you said, that destroys the picture more often than not.
This series of WORD "commands" suggests he is writing to the statalist
with WORD help. Everyone on statalist uses stata. Any stata commands are
of help. WORD commands, that's another story. Then, he writes a message
to the list suggesting my parody is not accurate. He writes:
>1. -graph export- is a Stata command. It is meant by its own nature to
>work with other programs. -graph save- exists to save graphs within Stata,
>but -graph export- has no purpose unless you plan to open the graph in a
>program different from Stata.
forgetting that outside the graphics module there are other commands, such
as log and save, that produce output that may be readable, with the right
string of procedures, by other programs. It is that reality that makes my
parody accurate.
If you move something--anything--to some other package, and it doesn't
work, you need to figure out why. The files moved could be a data files
transfered to other formats, output logs, matrices, graphs, and more. Do
we *really* want to say it is useful for statalist to be the discussion
forum for any package to which one might move a stata product?
In Dr. Comolli's case, wouldn't it make more sense to presume the problem
is with the reading of the file, as opposed to the source that wrote the
file? All the editing problems are occurring in WORD. The graph looks
correct in stata. All this indicates that the first order of business is
to ask WORD questions on WORD lists, not on statalist.
Dr. Comolli is also wrong about why an organization might make two
different filetypes even if their contents do not differ at a particular
point in time. I do not know this for a fact, but one reason could be
that one file type, wmf, may be proprietary. The other, emf, may not be.
Hence, the proprietary one may not be fully documented, may be changed at
the whim of the owner, and for these reasons may have little utility to
anyone not using the products of the owner. The ability to use freeware
conversion packages to convert graphics files, something I routinely do,
depends on the existence of filetypes that are stable and fully and
publicly documented. Hence, if in 2004 emf and wmf are actually the same,
there could still be reason to allow users to save files both ways.
Anyway, I hope Dr. Comolli has received the help he needed with his
WORD question. However, if he still finds difficulty with this issue, I
suggest he check:
http://support.microsoft.com/
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;wrd
I cannot guarantee he will find his answers there, as I do not know the
quality of MS documentation for users. But, I still believe it is a
better option for his question than statalist.
Respectfully,
Sam
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