apostrophe with space in Word

[bzes]

When using an apostrophe in Word, the program automatically inserts a
space. Thus I can't use contractions or possessives. Any
suggestions?

 

[CyberTaz]

That isn't the expected behavior. Obviously the apostrophe occupies *some*
space which separates the charactes that precede/follow it. The amount of
space may vary depending on the font & the specific characters involved (due
to proportional fonts), but there should not be an actual space added unless
some modification has been made to the program's operation. The perception
of more space than is actually there can also be deceptive based on
resolution, zoom, etc. The question is "How does it *print*?". Also, if you
turn on the non-printing characters (¶) is there a dot where this "space" is
located?

If there definitely is a space the first thing to suspect is that an
AutoCorrect entry has been created to inlcude the space when an apostrophe
is typed. I don't know of one, but if that isn't it you might also check
Word> Preferences> Compatibility to see if there is an option there that has
been turned on. Another possibility may be the Language setting for your
keyboard as well as other variables, so if these ideas don't help post back
for other responses.

 

[bzes]

That isn't the expected behavior. Obviously the apostrophe occupies *some*
space which separates the charactes that precede/follow it. The amount of
space may vary depending on the font & the specific characters involved (due
to proportional fonts), but there should not be an actual space added unless
some modification has been made to the program's operation. The perception
of more space than is actually there can also be deceptive based on
resolution, zoom, etc. The question is "How does it *print*?". Also, if you
turn on the non-printing characters (¶) is there a dot where this "space" is
located?

If there definitely is a space the first thing to suspect is that an
AutoCorrect entry has been created to inlcude the space when an apostrophe
is typed. I don't know of one, but if that isn't it you might also check
Word> Preferences> Compatibility to see if there is an option there that has
been turned on. Another possibility may be the Language setting for your
keyboard as well as other variables, so if these ideas don't help post back
for other responses.

 

[bzes]

Thanks for your input, CyberTaz.

With non-printing characters on, there is no space indicator. I
composed this reply in Word to demonstrate the large obvious space
following the apostrophe. It does print that way. However, you can
see that it does not paste here and maintain the space.

On saving the document, I got a message to check the compatibility
report
for 1 Issue

The compatibility report states: This document contains characters
that might not display correctly in earlier versions of Microsoft
Office for Mac. Explanation is that Office 2004 uses the Unicode
character encoding standard, which allows for greater language and
character coverage than in previous versions of Office for Mac.
Help reads:
Some characters might not display correctly in earlier versions of
Microsoft Office. Characters included in the Extended Latin character
set - for example 1/2 character - characters in Greek, Cyrillic, and
Central European alphabets, and East Asian characters in Simplified
Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Korean languages might appear as
underscores or as an empty square character.

It appears the culprit is an empty square character with no lines.
*: )

I asked Office Assistant for help and got to "I can't enter characters
for certain languages." I tried the suggestion for correct keyboard
layout; that did not work. I tried creating an auto correct rule;
that did not work. I tried checking the option: don't add space
after raised/lowered characters (under preferences/compatibility) on
the chance it might work. It did not.

I have found I can type dont and use the insert symbol key to place an
apostrophe either as I type the word or after it's typed. At least
there's a way around the problem.

Thanks again.

BZ

 

[John McGhie]

Lots of suggestions, but I need more information

1) Word does not insert spaces after apostrophes.

2) Some fonts make it look like there is a space there when there isn't.

3) If you use "Justified" as your paragraph alignment, Word will sneak
spaces in all over the place to make the margins line up.

4) Double-byte fonts (Japanese, etc...) will sometimes look as though a
letter is occupying double the width.

So I need to know:

* Which version of Word (of the 20-something we support, I can't see your
screen from Australia...)

* Which style are you using for the paragraphs?

* Which font is set in the style? And in the paragraph?

Cheers

When using an apostrophe in Word, the program automatically inserts a
space. Thus I can't use contractions or possessives. Any
suggestions?

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Elliott Roper]

Thanks for your input, CyberTaz.

With non-printing characters on, there is no space indicator. I
composed this reply in Word to demonstrate the large obvious space
following the apostrophe. It does print that way. However, you can
see that it does not paste here and maintain the space.

Excellent. You have eliminated one possible cause. The workaround you
found was puzzling to me though. I was going to suggest that the font
you were using might have its width table corrupt. I *think* insert
symbol would use the current font if it could. (quick test -yep) so
insert symbol would have made the same mistake so the font is OK,
unless...

Have we established whether you have Tools » Autocorrect » Autoformat
as you type » "straight quotes with smart quotes" checked?

Either way, use the OS X Character Palette to confirm what really truly
character is being used. Select the character in Word, paste it into
Character Palette's search box near the bottom right, double-click on
it where it appears in the dropdown box. Expand the character info
disclosure triangle and confirm that it shows Unicode 2019 RIGHT SINGLE
QUOTATION MARK or, if you are not using the autocorrect smart quotes:
Unicode 0027 APOSTROPHE in both direct typing and when inserting as
symbol. If they are not the same, then you may have a broken width
table in your chosen font.

I'm assuming some flavour of English is your language and that you are
using Word 2004 on Macintosh OS X.

It is still easy to test the font thing. Try your test again with
something ordinary like Times New Roman, where it also easy to spot the
difference between an apostrophe and the possibly autocorrected to
RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK.

 

[bzes]

Disclaimer: I'm a new Mac user after 11 years of pc life. Since it's
taking me awhile to find my way around searching for some of these
answers, I'm doing my homework and composing replies offline.

In answer to John:

Word 2004 for Mac version 11.3.5, just installed with this problem
occurring in the first use

Left alignment for paragraphs--I did not change the defaults.

Font is AppleGothic as my default and in the paragraph.

In answer to Elliott:

Tools » Autocorrect » Autoformat as you type » "straight quotes with
smart quotes" is checked.

When I highlight the apostrophe, it highlights it with a significant,
letter-size space to the right.

Character palette identifies the character as (no Unicode reference)
RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK.

English is my language here in southern Wisconsin.

Times New Roman yields correct apostrophe placement. I'll sample
other fonts, since it appears I will not want AppleGothic as my
default.

In the process, I'm learning about OSX and Word; and that's good.



Many thanks to you both,



BZ

 

[Elliott Roper]

Disclaimer: I'm a new Mac user after 11 years of pc life. Since it's
taking me awhile to find my way around searching for some of these
answers, I'm doing my homework and composing replies offline.

Font is AppleGothic as my default and in the paragraph.

Aha! That's all your problem is. Apple Gothic's right single quotation
mark has the wrong width, but the apostrophe is OK. That explains
everything!

You wouldn't bother with Apple Gothic unless you need access to some of
the least used glyphs on the planet. In Word you would use Arial for
best cross platform choice of a clean gothic face.
Helvetica is the Apple blessed variation. There is very little
difference. Compare the lower case a and t of each.

 

[bzes]

Thank you once again. I have always chosen fonts based on appearance
only; this teaches me to do a fuller assessment before using one as my
default.

 

[Phillip Jones]

If you want a great looking font that plays right find ITC Benguait.
when righting documents. Its the easiest print on the eyes anyone can use.

My opinion.

Thank you once again. I have always chosen fonts based on appearance
only; this teaches me to do a fuller assessment before using one as my
default.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Elliott:

Am I doing something objectionable and imaginary, or is "Arial" a slightly
lighter weight than "Helvetica"?

There's nothing much in it, but I have always felt that (at least on the
PC...) Arial is lighter. I tend to stay away from Helv because to my eyes
it's too black.

As to your original suggestion: Since our man has been away from the path
of righteousness for 11 yeas, he may be unaware that Unicode has "happened"
to us here on the Mac.

There's a learned discussion on it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode

So it may help to explain that the Unicode character set now defines about
100,000 characters. Only about 32,000 have actually been seen in the fonts
I know about.

However, this leads to some very interesting comparisons of the nature of
"mine's bigger than yours...". No, you're right, they're not "interesting",
they are mind-numbingly boring. But when choosing a font, it is now
important to know the answer to the question "How many glyphs (characters)
does it contain?"

When Microsoft first shipped Unicode support in Office Mac, it updated two
of the Microsoft fonts to contain a wider set of characters. These are
Times New Roman and Arial. Each of those contains more than 576 characters.
All of the rest contain the Mac International standard character set, which
is about 280 characters.

I know of only one font that contains all the common glyphs: Microsoft's
Arial Unicode MS. This giant 22 MB font contains all 32,000 glyphs defined
in the Unicode version 3.2 standard. Unicode is now up to version 5.

Microsoft produced Arial Unicode MS partly to find out whether it is
"possible" to get all 32,000 characters into a single font. And partly to
act as a "Lender of last resort" on Windows machines when they encounter
some weird character that is not defined in any of the normal fonts.

Well, it *is* possible to get all those characters into a font. But the
compromises required to keep the size of the font file within useable limits
lead to a fairly ugly font.

Microsoft steadfastly refuses to ship it with its Mac software, because
under certain circumstances apparently some of the characters will crash a
Mac. Well, all I can say is that it has never crashed any of the Macs I
have owned. And since it is really useful to have a "lender of last resort"
font so I never get stuck for a character; and I own a copy of Microsoft
Office for the PC, Arial Unicode MS somehow seems to make its way onto every
Mac I own. Funny that...

Once installed, the system will look everywhere else in preference to find
the characters it needs, but if none of your other fonts have it, it will
slide in the character from Arian Unicode MS.

Hope this helps

Aha! That's all your problem is. Apple Gothic's right single quotation
mark has the wrong width, but the apostrophe is OK. That explains
everything!

You wouldn't bother with Apple Gothic unless you need access to some of
the least used glyphs on the planet. In Word you would use Arial for
best cross platform choice of a clean gothic face.
Helvetica is the Apple blessed variation. There is very little
difference. Compare the lower case a and t of each.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello Elliott! -

Thanks for jumping in and contributing your expertise on this issue. I've
been having some difficulties with my internet connection at home - seems
like every time I want to use it the server is hiding. Am having a tech
check the lines today... But that's another story altogether

Back on topic - even though it's a TT font I was under the impression that
AppleGothic is fixed-width (11 cpi). Haven't been able to confirm or deny.

To the OP: Although nowhere near as technically eloquent as some of the
other replies I'll share a "basic rule-of-thumb":

If you notice, Word's list of fonts is alphabetical in all 3 locations -
Formatting Toolbar, Formatting Palette, Format> Font dialog. However, in the
first two of these (once you get beyond the "recently used") there is one
long alpha listing followed by another shorter listing at the bottom - which
is where AppleGothic is found. Avoid *any* of the fonts in that bottom
listing unless you knowingly have a specific & informed reason for using
them... They serve a purpose but can be quite problematic in 'regular' docs.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello John -

<snip>

I have always felt that (at least on the
PC...) Arial is lighter.

<snip>

FWIW, I tend to agree - even on the Mac. If I see one doc in Helv to day &
the same doc in Arial tomorrow I'll be the first to admit that I probably
wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but if the 2 docs are side-by-side
or the 2 fonts are used in the same doc the distinction is not only
discernable, it's pronounced - even to my ancient eyes

I've also come to like Gill Sans... Limited as it is, the default kerning
renders quite readable text. Another sans serif [which I got free when
upgrading to CS3] is Hypatia Sans Pro which is Unicode (3000+ glyphs) and I
believe it will soon become my sans serif of choice.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Elliott Roper]

Hi Elliott:

Am I doing something objectionable and imaginary, or is "Arial" a slightly
lighter weight than "Helvetica"?

I never notice much difference between Arial and the built in Helvetica.
How's this for sad?:-
I just made a silly test. I superimposed different colour eps's of a
14pt glyph of each, scaled up 10 times ‹ I used an 'a' so I wouldn't
forget which was which ‹ and if you forget about the longer tail on the
Helv's a, it is near enough a dead heat. If I put the Arial a in front,
the Helv a peeps out shyly on the inside of the bowl on the left and at
odd points of the top curve. With the Helv a in front, the Arial a
peeps out at the other places on the curve and bowl and also all down
the right of the vertical. So, forgetting the tail, I'd say that Arial
is slightly, ever so slightly, heavier, however the tail makes
Helvetica the winner.

Whenever it gets important enough to worry about Helvetica weights, I
swap to Helvetica Neue, which has 51 variations, including 8 varying
only by weight, from ultra light to black.

There's nothing much in it, but I have always felt that (at least on the
PC...) Arial is lighter. I tend to stay away from Helv because to my eyes
it's too black.

I'd say variations in each platform's sub-pixel aliasing would be more
significant on screen than real differences in weight.

However, this leads to some very interesting comparisons of the nature of
"mine's bigger than yours...". No, you're right, they're not "interesting",
they are mind-numbingly boring. But when choosing a font, it is now
important to know the answer to the question "How many glyphs (characters)
does it contain?"

I know of only one font that contains all the common glyphs: Microsoft's
Arial Unicode MS. This giant 22 MB font contains all 32,000 glyphs defined
in the Unicode version 3.2 standard. Unicode is now up to version 5.

Using the very unscientific method of looking at the length of the
scroll bar in font book, there are several Mac fonts with more than
20,000 glyphs. MS Mincho is one such that comes with Office.

The Arial that MS supplies with 2004 has approx 1500 glyphs

 

[Elliott Roper]

Hello John -

<snip>

<snip>

FWIW, I tend to agree - even on the Mac. If I see one doc in Helv to day &
the same doc in Arial tomorrow I'll be the first to admit that I probably
wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but if the 2 docs are side-by-side
or the 2 fonts are used in the same doc the distinction is not only
discernable, it's pronounced - even to my ancient eyes

It's funny how subtle differences combine. I use Arial as a test of
curmudgeon. If it looks like crap Helvetica, I'm in a bad mood.
Today, I can't tell the difference. There is a beautiful smell of
praline being cooked wafting up from the kitchen and all is right with
the world.

I've also come to like Gill Sans... Limited as it is, the default kerning
renders quite readable text. Another sans serif [which I got free when
upgrading to CS3] is Hypatia Sans Pro which is Unicode (3000+ glyphs) and I
believe it will soon become my sans serif of choice.

Gill Sans is a classic. I too got the Hypatia with CS3. I *think* I
like it. You have to let these things sneak up on you. It is a bit like
breaking in new boots.

 

[bzes]

Saturday addendum:

It's entertaining to realize my new-to-Mac life question--raised
because once becoming a Mac user I immediately blamed MS for the
problem--has inspired this font discussion. And to John: Yes, I've
been off the path of righteousness but as a female. New to user
groups as well, I didn't get the profile done when I registered in a
fit of exasperation. And now, I must sign off and check to see that
my latest default isn't at the dreaded end of that long list of
"normal" fonts and doesn't again become de fault of my work. Then
it's to the kitchen to start bread. Thanks, all, from BZ

 

[Phillip Jones]

John I speak a little only on the Ariel/Helvetica.

Until The Macintosh come out there was not Helvetica, nor was there Ariel.

Helvetica as known in the computing world didn't get going (become
popular) until Apple included it in the Mac Operating system.

Because it became so popular, Microsoft decide to add to their font
collection, but because it was patented (adobe) they decide to create
their own version. Ariel was born. It was Ms design creation as a copy
of Helvetica.

Funny thing is, that because Ariel caught on, Apple now includes their
version in the OS as well.

Hi Elliott:

Am I doing something objectionable and imaginary, or is "Arial" a slightly
lighter weight than "Helvetica"?

There's nothing much in it, but I have always felt that (at least on the
PC...) Arial is lighter. I tend to stay away from Helv because to my eyes
it's too black.

As to your original suggestion: Since our man has been away from the path
of righteousness for 11 yeas, he may be unaware that Unicode has "happened"
to us here on the Mac.

There's a learned discussion on it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode

So it may help to explain that the Unicode character set now defines about
100,000 characters. Only about 32,000 have actually been seen in the fonts
I know about.

However, this leads to some very interesting comparisons of the nature of
"mine's bigger than yours...". No, you're right, they're not "interesting",
they are mind-numbingly boring. But when choosing a font, it is now
important to know the answer to the question "How many glyphs (characters)
does it contain?"

When Microsoft first shipped Unicode support in Office Mac, it updated two
of the Microsoft fonts to contain a wider set of characters. These are
Times New Roman and Arial. Each of those contains more than 576 characters.
All of the rest contain the Mac International standard character set, which
is about 280 characters.

I know of only one font that contains all the common glyphs: Microsoft's
Arial Unicode MS. This giant 22 MB font contains all 32,000 glyphs defined
in the Unicode version 3.2 standard. Unicode is now up to version 5.

Microsoft produced Arial Unicode MS partly to find out whether it is
"possible" to get all 32,000 characters into a single font. And partly to
act as a "Lender of last resort" on Windows machines when they encounter
some weird character that is not defined in any of the normal fonts.

Well, it *is* possible to get all those characters into a font. But the
compromises required to keep the size of the font file within useable limits
lead to a fairly ugly font.

Microsoft steadfastly refuses to ship it with its Mac software, because
under certain circumstances apparently some of the characters will crash a
Mac. Well, all I can say is that it has never crashed any of the Macs I
have owned. And since it is really useful to have a "lender of last resort"
font so I never get stuck for a character; and I own a copy of Microsoft
Office for the PC, Arial Unicode MS somehow seems to make its way onto every
Mac I own. Funny that...

Once installed, the system will look everywhere else in preference to find
the characters it needs, but if none of your other fonts have it, it will
slide in the character from Arian Unicode MS.

Hope this helps

Aha! That's all your problem is. Apple Gothic's right single quotation
mark has the wrong width, but the apostrophe is OK. That explains
everything!

You wouldn't bother with Apple Gothic unless you need access to some of
the least used glyphs on the planet. In Word you would use Arial for
best cross platform choice of a clean gothic face.
Helvetica is the Apple blessed variation. There is very little
difference. Compare the lower case a and t of each.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[Elliott Roper]

John I speak a little only on the Ariel/Helvetica.

Until The Macintosh come out there was not Helvetica, nor was there Ariel.

Both fonts predate Macintosh.
Helvetica 1957, when it was called Neue Haas Grotesk. It changed its
name to Helvetica in 1960.
Arial 1982
Macintosh 1984
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica

 

[Elliott Roper]

Saturday addendum:

It's entertaining to realize my new-to-Mac life question--raised
because once becoming a Mac user I immediately blamed MS for the
problem-

Heh! 0 to fanboi in 6.2 seconds!

-has inspired this font discussion. And to John: Yes, I've
been off the path of righteousness but as a female. oops! fangirl
New to user
groups as well, I didn't get the profile done when I registered in a
fit of exasperation. And now, I must sign off and check to see that
my latest default isn't at the dreaded end of that long list of
"normal" fonts and doesn't again become de fault of my work. Then
it's to the kitchen to start bread. Thanks, all, from BZ

It does not take much to get us going BZ. You can get a rise out of
somebody here pretty easily. No yeast, no proofing!

 

[Phillip Jones]

I wondered why its so hard on the eyes? I guess its original name
was apt!

And yes your right come to think of it I have a an Electric typewriter
that uses the wheels and one of the typefaces I have is Helvetica, and
Pica.

Both fonts predate Macintosh.
Helvetica 1957, when it was called Neue Haas Grotesk. It changed its
name to Helvetica in 1960.
Arial 1982
Macintosh 1984
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>