Decimal Tab Characters

[Oliver St Quintin]

Is there a way to set different characters that the decimal tab lines up on
in Word 2003?

In Wordperfect you could for example change the align character to #, and
then use a decimal tab so that all the #s on various lines (and only the #s)
lined up:

e.g. 123#45
56#89

In my specific case, I want a space to be interpreted as an alignment
character in one place but not in another:

e.g. First two numbers are aligned on space, and second two on .
234 56
111 15
1 234.56
1 111.15
In Wordperfect this would require redefining the align character from '
'(space) to . between the second and third lines - which is be fine.

In Word I don't know how to redefine the alignment character, and I get:
234 56
111 15
1 234.56
1 111.15

I can't seem to find anything in Help or the Discussion Groups that talks
about this.

Thanks

 

[JoAnn Paules [MVP]]

I know it works for colons but you need a decimal character. Please don't
ask me what characters that includes because I don't know. (Common sense
says it has to have a decimal in it somewhere.)

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

~~~~~
How to ask a question
http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

See http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/NumberAlignment.htm

 

[JoAnn Paules [MVP]]

I couldn't find anything that would tell me what a "decimal character" was.

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

~~~~~
How to ask a question
http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375

 

[Oliver St Quintin]

Thanks to both of you for your responses - I'm sure it doesn't get said often
enough, but your and other volunteer responses are fantastic - including
those from the archives where I often find answers and don't have occasion to
thank you.

However, in this instance, unless I have misunderstood something, neither
"fix" works - because Word interprets my first space as the decimal align
character - and this happens quite often for me (I'm in Canada), because in
the strict metric SI system, the thousands separator is supposed to be a
space not a comma (cheques excepted for obvious reasons). As JoAnn points
out, it is the first non-numeric that is interpreted as the align character,
so it doesn't make any difference if I use a soft or hard space. And as I
said, Wordperfect allows one to define a single character as the alignment
character, so enabling one to get around this problem.

Regards

Oliver

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You might try inserting a decimal point where you want the numbers to align
and formatting it as Font Color: White.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You're right; the article doesn't actually cover this specific situation,
and Word doesn't allow you to define an alignment character.

I couldn't find anything that would tell me what a "decimal character" was.

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

~~~~~
How to ask a question
http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375

See http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/NumberAlignment.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hi Oliver

However, in this instance, unless I have misunderstood something, neither
"fix" works - because Word interprets my first space as the decimal align
character - and this happens quite often for me (I'm in Canada), because in
the strict metric SI system, the thousands separator is supposed to be a
space not a comma (cheques excepted for obvious reasons).

Actually, it's supposed to be a "small space":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_31-0#Numbers

I'm not quite sure there is a good equivalent in Word (I'm at 2000
version right now) for a small space. The Unicode characters would be
U+2009 (Thin Space) or U+202F (Narrow No-break Space). If you don't find
a good alternative, you may format a normal non-breaking space in a
smaller font size (unless you want to stay with a non-breaking space
itself ).

2cents
Robert