Copy and Paste changes text

[Rob800]

Hello,
I did a quick search of the forum and didn't see this issue, but my apologies if this has already been brought up. We're having some issues with Word 2008. One of the problems is when the text of an entire document is copied and then pasted into a new document, things change. What I mean by this is that words that were separate will become joined (like "I was" for example, becoming "Iwas"), the formatting changes, and other small details that are hard to notice at first glance. This seems to happen whether the document that's being copied from was created in Word 2008 or 2004. Does anyone have an idea about what we could be doing wrong, or what we could change to keep the documents consistent between the copy and paste?

Thanks,
Rob

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Rob:

Sounds like you are bringing in the last paragraph mark in the source
document.

If you are, you are also bringing in all the Style Sheets and Property
Sheets in the source document, which can often have a "startling" effect on
the target document. Copy all EXCEPT the last paragraph mark to avoid this.

The other thing that may be happening is that the source document contains
hidden tracked changes.

Try as we might, we cannot persuade end users NOT to hide tracked changes.
Either leave them visible, or resolve them, but never hide them. Otherwise,
this is what happens...

When you paste text that contains hidden tracked changes, the changes will
"partially resolve" during the paste. "Deletions" are not copied, only
"insertions". The text is pasted as "Unchanged" plus "Insertions".

That would indeed account for the spacing issues you are seeing. Especially
if the previous user had inadvertently left change tracking turned on during
a spell check.

The other thing that could be happening is that Word 2008 is capable of
typesetting ligatures. Most fonts don't have any, and in most documents the
facility needs to be selectively enabled. In OS 10.5, ligatures turned out
to be ON always, for the entire document. This can produce some very
strange results.

That's a bug that should be fixed eventually.

Hope this helps

Hello,
I did a quick search of the forum and didn't see this issue, but my apologies
if this has already been brought up. We're having some issues with Word 2008.
One of the problems is when the text of an entire document is copied and then
pasted into a new document, things change. What I mean by this is that words
that were separate will become joined (like "I was" for example, becoming
"Iwas"), the formatting changes, and other small details that are hard to
notice at first glance. This seems to happen whether the document that's being
copied from was created in Word 2008 or 2004. Does anyone have an idea about
what we could be doing wrong, or what we could change to keep the documents
consistent between the copy and paste?

Thanks,
Rob

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

 

[Rob800]

Hi John,

Thanks a lot for your detailed reply. I'm admittedly very unfamiliar with Word, but I'm seen as the "go to guy" for computer problems at our office, as little as I deserve that reputation, so I'm learning about it as fast as I can. I've been reading up on how word works, the "normal" template, styles, etc., and I realize that this is a far more sophisticated program than I've ever given it credit.

Having said all that, this issue, for the time being, was somehow resolved by running repair permissions through disk utility. I don't believe this is really getting to the root of the problem, which I think is very likely along the lines of what you mentioned (the tracked changes makes sense for other problems we're having, and really, no one at our office has a solid grasp on how the program operates), but it's working for now.

Seriously, thank you very much for your help. I've been reading a lot of your posts, as well as some of the other regulars here and from the MVPs website, and I feel like I'm learning a lot. You all are amazing resources for this.

Thanks again,
Rob

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Rob:

I agree with you, you may not have found it yet. Everybody tells me that
"Repair Permissions" has no effect at all on Microsoft Office.

However, the need to do a cold boot after a repair permissions could indeed
solve a LOT of issues. When you cold boot, Unix runs a number of clean-up
tasks, which often make things go better

We all learned through pain and frustration. We all came here first to
learn, and stayed around to help where we could. Most of us are still
learning. I hope you will too

Microsoft was probably the first software company to actively encourage its
users to gather in a huddle and talk together. Many others try to keep
their difficulties hidden: I think Microsoft is the only company where the
user-to-user support groups are linked from the company home page

Cheers

Hi John,

Thanks a lot for your detailed reply. I'm admittedly very unfamiliar with
Word, but I'm seen as the "go to guy" for computer problems at our office, as
little as I deserve that reputation, so I'm learning about it as fast as I
can. I've been reading up on how word works, the "normal" template, styles,
etc., and I realize that this is a far more sophisticated program than I've
ever given it credit.

Having said all that, this issue, for the time being, was somehow resolved by
running repair permissions through disk utility. I don't believe this is
really getting to the root of the problem, which I think is very likely along
the lines of what you mentioned (the tracked changes makes sense for other
problems we're having, and really, no one at our office has a solid grasp on
how the program operates), but it's working for now.

Seriously, thank you very much for your help. I've been reading a lot of your
posts, as well as some of the other regulars here and from the MVPs website,
and I feel like I'm learning a lot. You all are amazing resources for this.

Thanks again,
Rob

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

 

[MC]

However, the need to do a cold boot after a repair permissions could indeed
solve a LOT of issues. When you cold boot, Unix runs a number of clean-up
tasks, which often make things go better

Sorry if this is very common knowledge but I'm not familiar with the
term... what is a cold boot?

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Sorry if this is very common knowledge but I'm not familiar with the
term... what is a cold boot?

Shut down your machine with Apple Menu/Shut Down... then hit the power
key.

 

[MC]

Shut down your machine with Apple Menu/Shut Down... then hit the power
key.

As opposed to Restart -- thanks.

 

[Ritika Pathak [MSFT]]

Hi Rob,

One possibility is that your source and destination documents have different
styles/themes set, which is resulting in different formatting applied to
pasted text in the new location.

After pasting document content, click on the Smart Tag (at bottom-right
corner of pasted text) and choose one of the paste options from the menu (in
your case choose "Keep Source Formatting"). This should fix the formatting
problem you are seeing. To avoid doing this everytime, you can set theme
(Formatting Palette -> Document Theme) and styles in the new document to be
same as the source document.

However, none of this explains the joined words you mentioned below. It
would be great if you could send me your document and I'll try to narrow
down this issue.

Thanks,
Ritika Pathak

Software Development Engineer in Test
Microsoft MacBU - Word
(e-mail address removed) (remove "ONLINE" for all replies)
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.