Being new to this forum, I do not wish to sound big-headed, but as an advanced user of Microsoft Word, I am happy to help if I can.

Cheers

Welcome ProofReader and thanks for your offer of help. I'm sure your experience with Word will benefit many of us.

I use Word 2000 and the only point that I'd like to change would be to stop bullets and numbering kicking in every time I go to write a list. Sometimes I don't want that to happen. I just want to type the numbers and not have them indent or number automatically.

Can that be stopped or do I just type away and sort it out after I've finished writing?

Ooooh wonderful, I LOATH Word (love one of the older versions of WordPerfect ) but have to use it at times.

Is there a quick and simple way of indenting - I have to type a number then type a paragraph, I want the whole paragraph to indent.... in WP I just have to F7 instead of using the TAB. I don't seem to have any control over the Word indenting, it has a mind of its own, I end up tabbing the 2nd and subsequent lines then having to go back and backspace the first line..... a real mess.

While we are at it, I have some templates prepared for me by someone and I would like to prepare some for myself and others to use, these have blank fields to which I have to use F11 to skip to the next..... how do I set one of these up?

There will be more questions, just give me time to think of them.

Grateful thanks.

I'm someone who has to change software like shirts...I was originally Word Perfect then switched according to my jobs.
Here in Europe it's MS Word.
Is there any way to change a font on a document that is practical?

Hey ProofReader,, Welcome aboard. You may find more business than you expected in WORD.
I love it, and hate it when it throws me a curve ever now and then. I will wait for your response to tellywellie and sue. It seem when you number paragraphs, etc it just sort of takes over.

Another thing that drives me crazy is when I am trying to put a sinlge lowercase letter in brackets, I don't want upper case and when it is a (c) I do not want a copyright symbol.

Sue - with respect to your problem, it happens because of autocorrect feature in word.
To remove it , go to Tools -> autocorrect options-> you will see various options.
At the lower end , there is a small table - go through that delete any entries you don't want or just uncheck the "replace text as you go" option.

TW - that applies to your problem too but after opening autocorrect -> open 'autoformat as you type' (It's called like that in office XP, I am not sure of the others but I guess something similiar - you see various options checked - just uncheck (1) Automatic bulleted lists (2)automatic numbered lists.

G'day Telly!

Ace_sodium is quite correct in his/her answer to your (and many others') queries. The autocorrect feature is responsible for a lot (but not all!!) of these annoyances!

I would recommend that most people take five minutes to edit their preferences in this feature. Go to the 'Tools' drop-down menu, choose 'Autocorrect' and examine the contents of each tab (there are four in Word 2000). Make the changes which you feel will suit your needs.

I do think that this will fix a number of the problems which many folks have mentioned above.

In your case, Telly, under the 'AutoFormat As You Type' tab, untick (uncheck) the 'Automatic bulleted lists' and Automatic numbered lists' options. Also go to the fourth tab, 'Autoformat', and untick the 'Automatic bulleted lists' and 'Lists' boxes.

If you do want to use numbered or bulleted lists, it is best to set them up as 'styles'. I will post an article about styles in the near future, but you could have a look at the help menu in the meantime if you're interested!

Cheers

Hi Sue,

The shortcut to indent a whole paragraph in Word is Control-M. This, however, will indent the entire paragraph, including a 'list' number if you have typed one. It sounds to me like you need a 'hanging indent'. The shortcut for this is Control-T.

As for setting up "templates" as forms (which is what you have referred to in your third paragraph), you will need to turn on the Forms toolbar. To do this, go to the 'View' drop-down menu, choose 'Toolbars' and select 'Forms'. The first button (showing as 'ab|') on this toolbar is the text form field which, when clicked, will insert the field to which I believe you refer!

Have a 'play' with these things and see how you go! Good luck!!

G'day Bruyere,

When you say "to change a font on a document", I presume you mean to change the font in the entire document? There are a number of ways to do this, the quickest probably being: Control-A (to select the whole document) then choose the new font from the font 'drop-down' box on the formatting toolbar at the top of your screen.

If this is not what you meant, please let me know!

Cheers

G'day Zebra,

Thanks for the welcome.

Yes, I get the odd 'curve' thrown at me too! There are a number of resources available to solve problems/queries in Word; a good starting point is always the 'Help' menu - an under-utilised problem solving source in my experience!!

Sue, once again Ace_sodium has provided the answer to this ... go to 'Tools', 'Autocorrect' (first tab), select (click on) the (c) in the list then click on the 'Delete' button. This should eliminate those nasty, rotten, little copyright symbols!!!

To get rid of the problem of the 'c' becoming an uppercase 'C', you will need to untick (uncheck) the 'Capitalize first letter of sentences' box (second option on the same tab). However this may prove annoying if you rely on the programme to capitalise your sentences in normal usage!

G'day Ace_sodium,

Thanks for your help here ... another perspective is often useful!

Cheers

Thnks to both of you! I am printing this thread as we speak! Numbers and bullets have alwyas irritated me when I don't want them. I absolutely could not live without Tables! Tables save me a whole lot of problems.

Now, here's my question: How do I place one item at the left margin, and another item at the right margin on the same line?

Thanks!

Now, can you answer questions for Access too?

To quickly place items on each (left AND right) margins on the same line, you will need to set a right tab at the right margin. To do this, go to the 'Format' drop-down menu, then 'Tabs', this will open a 'dialogue' (options) box. In the 'Tab stop position' type the figure for your right-hand margin (you can see this on your ruler at the top of the page), then in the section for 'Alignment', click on the 'right' option and then click on 'OK'. The 'dialogue' box will then close.

Type your left item at the left margin as normal, then add a tab to type the right item. It will type 'backwards' from the right margin! Try it out!!

PS Pick another victim for MS Access questions! Not my forte, I'm afraid!!

Well I did! And it does! Thanks very much PR. Now is there any way you would fit inside my computer for 24-7 questions on a need to know basis?

I do try to work my way through any obstacles, but sometimes I just don't have the time to spend 15 or 20 minutes trying to figure out the problem. Now we have you!

Thanks much.

June

I have been using Access for some time, so I could try BUT since this is a MICROSOFT product, I offer no guarantees!

Heh..heh.. no guarantees, huh? I use Access primarily for household use. Inventories of wine, books, etc.

I bought a learning software application, but it does not seem real user friendly. However, when I run into a problem, I'll be sure to ask for your help.

Thanks,
June

I just thought of a question. We're talking medals in wine competitions here. Gold, silver, and bronze. I can make a query to show gold only, silver only, or bronze only. However, I am at a loss to figure out how to get silver and bronze together. I would like to make a report that excludes the gold medal winners. It would be silver, bronze, and those with no medals. Is that possible?

Glad it was what you wanted, June! As for living in your computer ... I'd rather live in your wine rack (the red section) please?!!!

Here's a link to an MS Access tutorial you could try if you like? http://mis.bus.sfu.ca/tutorials/MSAccess/tutorials.html

Cheers

That sounds great, I will try it when I get to the office.

What would be REALLY helpful, and the reason I use WordPerfect 6 so much at work, is to be able to open a file which has .htm as the suffix, but as a text file, edit it then re-save it using the .htm suffix but again as a text file. When I attempt to open one in Word it automatically opens it as a webpage, that is no good as I want to see my code. I won't use Word to create my pages as I want to get in there and edit without swimming in excess code. Note pad really doesn't do what I need.

What I actually need to do is type up a hard copy page which people can use, I then convert the page to html so they can also view it using a browser, I have to pop in a logo, links etc. A 'page' can be a few lines of text or could be a table which takes up more than ten pages of A4 paper when printed - if I have to slip in there and change a word or two it has to be easy to find in the code.

We are supposed to use Word so to find an easy way of doing what I do, but in Word would be great.

Well Proofreader thanks a million, it works!

The reason I asked is that I was a pretty decent WP user, and the universities I taught in mainly used it, therefore professional copies were available. I did major work, translating, editing and proofreading in WP.
Then a few places were using MS Word.
As my old files were all in WP and I converted them...I got some weird stuff too.
But in WP, in the old days, you'd just go to the beginning of the document and change the font, and the whole thing would change.

Now, here's a loop for you. And I'll have more as I use several languages.
I converted a lengthy manuscript to MS Word from Word Perfect. However, some of the punctuation marks were converted to a WP editing symbol. Unfortunately the apostrophes, the quotation marks and the like were amongst those. And the spellcheck does not pick them up, can't seem to manage a search replace either.
Any suggestions?
I have to add that as I'm writing about France, I have passages in French and English of course. Sometimes the quotation marks are different as they were done in French.
I need to know how to get the search replace thing to pick up on those.

Sue, regarding your web page query, thanks for the examples.

Firstly though, I'd strongly recommend that you now edit that message and disable the links to protect your privacy! (I've got a copy of one of the pages to 'work on' with you.)

Your question throws a number of issues up and various 'quick solutions' come to mind, but I'd prefer to mull this one over a bit and get back to you when I'm not so tired. It's 10:40pm here! I'll look at this again tomorrow and get back to you if I may?

Cheers

Bruyere, regarding your language conversion query (I'm having to put this here for my benefit - to keep up with what I'm talking about!), there are two easy ways to tackle the problem.

Firstly, do you know of the advanced search/replace section of the 'dialogue' box in Word? If you press Control-H for the search and replace screen, then click on 'More', then 'Special', you will see that there are a number of formatting marks, etc, which you can search for. This may sort the problem out for you.

If not (and I would suggest that the following may be the simplest method of conversion), do a search and replace in WordPerfect BEFORE you convert to Word. Search for the quotations marks, etc, and 'replace all' with something not used elsewhere in your document, eg a hash mark (#) or 'at' sign (@), etc. Do this for each punctuation mark which is not converting correctly, then 're-convert' them (by reversing the search and replace procedure) AFTER you have converted the whole document to Word.

If you have a lot of documents with this problem to convert, I would recommend writing a macro in each programme to search and replace all of the symbols/punctuation marks simultaneously. This would speed the job up immensely!

Have I got the problem right in my mind? Does this answer your question??

That sounds reasonable, I'll give it a try when I get home, I mean the advanced search function for a diacritical mark.
I don't have WordPerfect installed on any of my computers that still work unfortunately..I think I converted everything successfully except for the manuscript.
Now the spellchecker does get it when it's an apostrophe in a possessive...but not a quotation mark. I know that I've located a WP incompatibility problem which might explain it and sure enough, when you put your cursor on it...it'll tell you the font is WP special font or something. But the search and replace remained a mystery...I can hardly wait to go home now and try it! Goody.

If you only knew how I coped in the early days of computing, 16 years ago, with the old WP 2 point something and how to get the diacritical marks and accents to print out on a Dot matrix printer...we'd type a curly bracket and change the DIP switch. Then when we got a better setup, we had to go and search for those and change our method!
That printer was still kicking after 8 years use! Epsom made good machines.

I did create a macro for one of the problems...Word Perfect had an excellent help and learner's section though...and I remember doing a footnote from end of page to end of document.

Proofreader if there's ever anything you've always wanted to know about something in my area of expertise...I owe you one!

I have had a tinker today with the Word and have messed about with a template we have been given, my boss is well pleased, he just wants a few more bits altered, nothing technical. With that forms bar I was able to introduce some drop-down boxes, essential for our staff as the less you give them to type the better it will be.

Next week my hair will turn white with stress when I have to get a lot of people who can just about use a mouse, loose in Word!