Auto stuff gone crazy

C

Cheri

I use Word 2002, I use the autotext feature, I use a program called
ShortHand, and I cut and paste from other documents, all day long.

I have turned off all the Autoformat options, and Autoformat As You Type
options.

I have checked the style and formatting in all the documents that I cut and
paste from. I created my own autotext and ShortHand entries.

I have never added a "hanging indent" to anything in my life, and none of my
tools contain any "hanging indents".

About half the time when I cut and past, or insert from AutoText or
ShortHand, the paragraphs will automatically obtain a "hanging indent" upon
insertion. I have to select everything added and turn off the "hanging
indent". ALL DAY LONG.

I have searched high and low, and can't figure out what is causing it, much
less how to stop it. I wish there were a button that said NEVER APPLY A
HANGING INDENT, but I haven't found it yet.

Any idea why this is happening, and how to put a stop to it?

I also ocasionally get bolded text where it wasn't bolded in the originating
text, or on the page inserted to, or unbolded text when it was bold before.
The same happens with underlines. I can see how this might accidently
happen, since I do often use these options, although they shouldn't be
happening like they do. But the hanging indent is a total mystery, since I
don't ever use it.
 
C

Cheri

But the thing is, both documents are in Normal style, Times New Roman 12pt
left alligned. So where the heck are the hanging indents coming from?

And ShortHand is TOTALLY not another style. You put "Ctrl+B" in front of
the word, and that causes it to be bold. "Ctrl+E" causes it to be center
aligned, etc. So I REALLY don't get how I end up with a hanging indent in a
paragraph that has "Ctrl+L" in front of it! It says in that linked document
that copied text will retain any direct formatting, which is what "Ctrl+L"
is, direct formatting.

Hmmm, maybe I need to place "Ctrl+L" in front of each line...

That still doesn't explain copying from Normal to Normal, and having
everything go screwy.

I DO NOT want to abandon all formatting. The documents have direct
formatting that I need. It would double my production time to have to
reformat separate lines after pasting.

My documents vary, but usually have the title of the exam (Radiology
transcription) bolded, centered and underlined. Then everything is left
aligned in the body. Then bolded and all caps in the impression at the
bottom.

IS there any way to prevent hanging indent from EVER happening? Or is that
just a pipe dream?

This job is all about production speed. Anything that takes extra time is
basically a cut in pay.

Perhaps a macro? I have never used one...
 
J

JulieD

Hi Cheri

can't think why its happening, but the keyboard shortcut for removing
hanging indents is CTRL & SHIFT & T maybe this will speed up things.

(You might like to try CTRL & A to select the whole document and then CTRL &
SHIFT & T to remove any hanging indents - it should do all the document at
once and hopefully not mess anything else up)


Cheers
JulieD
 
J

JulieD

Hi Cheri

CTRL & SHIFT & T should only remove the hanging indent (unless someone's
played with your settings)
choose tools / customize and click on the keyboard button
choose FORMAT in the categories
and UNHANG in the commands and see what key is assigned to it.

Hope this helps
Cheers
JulieD
 
C

Cheri

Yeah, that's what I meant Ctrl+Shift+T. It says that is the keyboard
shortcut for unhang, but I selected my entire document, some 50 pages, and
did that. ALL the formatting disappeared. I then selected Undo, and saved
it and went back to work. A little while later I looked up into the
document further, and found LOTS of things that were still out of whack,
even though I clicked on undo. Things were bolded that hadn't been, things
were unbolded that had been, left aligned that had been centered, grrrr.

Another problem I have is, when my page runs over to a second page, and I
add a page break, and then put in my header for PAGE 2 stuff, with all the
patient info, since the paragraph that I am in the middle of was all caps,
the all caps won't go off, even when I turn it off on the keyboard. I have
to go to Format, Font, and turn off all caps from there. It is SO
frustrating.

I give up! It is evidently my lot in life to fight with Word, lol.
 
J

JulieD

Hi Cheri

this is definitely not word's normal behaviour .... it sounds to me like
either Word's kicking in with its autoformat options (but you said these are
off), or the document's corrupt, or you've got a virus.

one option, with your document open, open a new blank document.
click at the start of yours
do CTRL & SHIFT & END
hold down the shift key and arrow left once
now copy this & paste into a new document
save this copy and see if it behaves any better.

(oh, and do a virus scan at some point)

Hope this helps
Cheers
julieD
 
C

Cheri

I have already unchecked the automatically update.

Ctrl+T is not something I have ever done, even on accident. If it were near
the V on the keyboard, I might suspect that, but it isn't anywhere near
that. This happend on paste. It also happens on insertion from ShortHand,
and that is simply by my pressing the spacebar after typing a shortcut.
None of the shortcuts contain Ctrl+T.

It was happening on my previous PC in Word 2000. I thought it might be a
memory issue. It isn't just the indent, but also bold and underline
sometimes. I DO use those options in each document, so I can see how they
might carry over to another paragraph, although pressing "clear style" has
no effect on it happening again later. But I NEVER use the indent. Anyway,
I bought a brand new PC, and have Word 2002 now. No way there is a virus.
And the exact same thing is happening.

I am sure it is something that I am doing, or should be doing, since it
happened in 2 different versions. I am the common denominator. But I just
KNOW I haven't accidently pushed Ctrl+T at any time in my entire life. It
is an awkward key combination, lol.

When I have the styles list up beside my work, there are no instances of
"hanging indent" listed during my work. Not until I paste or insert from
ShortHand. Then BOOM, there it is in the list, out of nowhere. I change
the indents back to normal, then delete it from the styles list. But, it
shows up again later, no matter what.

I unchecked the Smart Paste option yesterday thinking (hoping) that might be
something involved. But it changed nothing.

Like I said before, I wish there were a way to totally disable the indent
feature. I have always either left aligned or centered all of my work. I
never use any type of indent, don't want it, don't need it, HATE it, lol.

I totally understand how to get rid of it after it happens, just can't
figure out how to stop it from happening to begin with.
 
B

Beth Melton

I'm guessing the underlying problem is a lot of direct formatting and
style conflicts.

Based on the description of how Word is being used, such as keyboard
shortcuts to apply direct formatting, it sounds like it's being
treated as a glorified typewriter. Word doesn't like to be treated
like a typewriter and it will fight you every step of the way! Fonts
change, bold appears, and formatting seems to have a mind of it's own.
(Sound familiar Cheri? ;-) )

Welcome to the world of Styles. :)

Styles are an essential part of Microsoft Word. In fact, everything
you type into a document has a style attached to it, whether you
design the style or not.

Without knowing more about Styles formatting can be a chore - not to
mention you may think Word was poorly designed as a result. :)

Here is some background on how Styles work:

When you start Microsoft Word, the new blank document is based on the
Normal template, and text that you type uses the Normal style. This
means that when you start typing, Word uses the font name, font size,
line spacing, indentation, text alignment, and other formats currently
defined for the Normal style. The Normal style is the base style for
the Normal template, meaning that it's a building block for other
styles in the template. Whenever you start typing in a new document,
unless you specify otherwise, you are typing in the Normal style.

You can change the format of the text by applying direct formatting
but as you found, if Word ever questions which formats to keep it will
revert to the formats defined in the Style and discard direct
formatting.

When you copy text from one document to another Word you aren't
necessarily copying the formats - you are copying the Style. There is
a little more to it than this but in a nutshell, when the text is
pasted into another document it will be formatted to according to the
Style definition in that document. So if the destination Style, not
the direct formatting applied to the paragraph, is defined as Times
New Roman 10 points your text will format accordingly.

If you want to keep the formats of the pasted text it's best to
associate the text with a user-defined Style. That way the correct
Style definition will follow your text.

To regain control over your formatting you need to learn more about
Styles. Here is a tutorial that should help you come to grips with
Styles: http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/legal/Styles.asp

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

If you ask me, the common denominator is ShortHand. I have no familiarity
with that application, but I would suggest you explore support possibilities
for it.
 
C

Cheri

Ok, this jives with things I have read online. When I click on the link you
gave me, it reverts to this site:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx :(

I have been reaing a bit about this. So, when I want to put the title of
the exam in Bold-Underline-Center, I should change Heading I to these
preferences, and click on that before I type the title? Makes the whole
cut&paste thing sound like it won't work well, and much of my speed would be
lost if that is so...

I hope you can get me to that web site...
 
D

Daiya Mitchell

Hi Cheri,

Re styles, I think this page has alternate links to the same info:
Www.shaunakelly.com/word/styles/TipsOnStyles.html

Some side notes regarding this thread: You can use keyboard shortcuts for
styles just as well, if that's where your speed is centered (explore the
Tools | Customize dialog--in general, speed lays in heavily customizing
Word). I forgot what it was you were cutting and pasting, but it seemed that
the functions you mentioned for the ShortHand program were nothing that
couldn't be done by Word, so you may want to investigate that--minimizing
dependence on third-party programs is likely to end up faster and safer. You
also said something about entering header information--I suspect setting up
templates may also gain you some speed there.
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart1.htm

Based on my vague sense of what you do, I suspect you should be able to set
up a template that starts with the first line formatted as your title, and
automatically switches to left-aligned text when you hit enter, and have the
header information preformatted (a StyleRef field in the header can be set
to automatically pick up the text of the title, for example). That should
get you some speed.
 

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