AutoFormat Fractions

[Dale]

I am using MS Office 2000, and I have the AutoFormat fractions option ticked,
however, this function will not work when I type in any fraction. I have
tryed unticking the box and ticking it again, but nothing seems to work.
Please help.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/CreateFraction.htm

 

[Dale]

Thanks for the link. The "work around" is find, but is not very efficient to
insert a symbol (as it takes awhile to bring up the symbols), and the link
doesn't tell me why this function won't work on my computer.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Are you not getting fractions for 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4? Those are the only ones
produced by AutoFormat. The rest you have have to set up as AutoCorrect
entries.

 

[Dale]

That's right...I can't even get 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 to work.

Dale.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

And you have the appropriate option checked on the AutoFormat As You Type
tab of Tools | AutoCorrect Options? And the font you're using contains these
characters?

 

[Dale]

Yes, I had the option checked on the AutoFormat. It turns out it was the
font I was using...I tried a different font & it worked. I had no idea that
this wouldn't work on some fonts.

Thanks for your help...you solved a big mystery for me.

Dale.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Virtually every decent font you buy nowadays has a nice large character set,
certainly at least all the characters from 32 to 255, but some early
TrueType fonts (especially the cheap ones you got in assortments of 1,000
fonts on a CD--and yes, I have at least one of those!) not only were poorly
designed but also included only the characters that could be typed from the
keyboard. Nine times out of ten, most users would be satisfied with this,
but as soon as you needed an accented letter or some other special symbol,
you would go to Insert | Symbol and find the holes in your cheap font.

That can be very frustrating at times. Shortly after I bought my first real
(Windows) computer and upgraded to Windows 3.1 (which permitted the use of
TrueType fonts), I bought a package of 100 Key Fonts from Softkey (now
absorbed by Broderbund, I think). One of those, Garnet, is still my favorite
Garamond-type font, even though it has a very incomplete character set.