auto formatting unreliable

[UT-HH 74]

Word 2003
I use some of the auto formatting options (replace straight quotes with
smart quotes, replace hyphen with dash). Word 2003 (in contrast to Word 2000)
is very unreliable with this. It often happens that one set of quotes
(beginning or end) remains straight quotes while the other changes to smart
quotes, or one hypen will turn into a dash while the next one does not. Does
anyone know why this is happening?
Thank you

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Assuming that the situations are exactly identical, it's hard to come up
with an explanation, but I find that occasionally when I am typing very
fast, Word will leave a straight quote, insert a "curly" one after it, and
leave out the letter that was typed following the quote. I think sometimes
AutoFormat just can't keep up with users' typing speed. Note, however, that
I have seen this in every version, not just Word 2003.