Find fails in Word 2007

J

JGT

Find is failing in Word 2007 on my Vista Buxiness x64
system. Just to make sure I was not nuts I tried searching for "to" without
the quotes and in my 148 page document I have the word "to" a bunch of times.

As an additional test I tried using the same document on my WinXP system
which also has Office 2007 installed and it works.

I also tried searching a DOCX file that I just created a couple of days ago
and again the find fails.

I ran a Google search and found a few reportings of the issue but none of
the reportings included a solution.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated!
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Have you checked to make sure you don't have any formatting or other
conditions applied to your search term? Click More, if necessary, to display
the entire dialog and make sure you don't have, for example, "Match case"
checked.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org
 
G

Graham Mayor

The heat here is addling the brain :)

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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J

JGT

We have success. When I first expaned the find window none of the boxes were
checked and my first thought was that I still had a problem. Then I noticed
the three buttons at the bottom of the window "Format", "Special" and "No
Formatting". I had seen these before but never used them and just for the
heck of it I thought I'd look. Clicking on the "Format" and "Special" just
presented dropdowns and did not give me a warm feeling. When I clicked on the
"No Formatting" button I noticed that the screen refreshed and the button
then appeared grayed out. I then tried the search and IT WORKED!!!!

I have no idea what I did to set the formatting but I'm now a happy camper.
Thanks for your help.
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

I'm glad that worked for you. Although it's not that easy to apply
formatting inadvertently, you should be able to detect any that is applied
because there will be a Format: line beneath the "Find what" box that will
say, for example, "Format: Font: Italic" (which could happen if you
inadvertently pressed Ctrl+I while the insertion point was in the "Find
what" box.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org
 
J

JGT

I agree 100% that it is not easy to apply formatting inadvertently but
something on my system is doing it. The find has been working great for
several days and just now it failed and when I looked the "No Formatting"
button was not grayed out. I clicked on it and like magic the find now works.
Hopefully I can narrow it down and determine what is setting the formatting
and fix it. But at least I know a quick work around to get find working again.
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

I have been reminded by a thread elsewhere that the Adobe Acrobat add-in is
notorious for adding formatting to the Find dialog. In my case I think it is
Underline; someone else was seeing some other font property.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org
 

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