Paragraph alignment bass-ackwards

[Karen Sigel]

A co-worker just sent me a document he's having trouble formatting. If he
sets the paragraph alignment to "left," it aligns right. If he sets it to
"right," goes left. Add to that, when I show the formatting, the paragraph
markers are all on the wrong side - i.e., the left margin.

We also can't place the insertion point (cursor) in certain places in the
document. I can use the arrow keys to get where I want to go, but parts of
some of the lines won't let me use the mouse to click in them.

My first thought was that there was something going on that makes the doc
think it's supposed to read from right to left, but I can't find any settings
to change regarding that.

Help!

Karen

 

[Karen Sigel]

Sorry, I forgot to say, I'm working in Word 2003 and he created it in Word
2002.

 

[PJY]

This might help?

The feature or some of the options described in this Help topic are only
available if support for right-to-left (right-to-left: Refers to keyboard
settings, document views, user interface objects, and the direction in which
text is displayed. Arabic and Hebrew are right-to-left languages.) languages
is enabled through Microsoft Office Language Settings.

On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Complex Scripts tab.
Next to Document view, do one of the following:
Click Right-to-left to display the document with right-to-left direction
(direction: Specifies the reading order, alignment, and/or visual appearance
of right-to-left text and documents, regardless of the keyboard language.
Direction also describes how the user interface, controls, and other screen
objects are oriented.).

Click Left-to-right to display the document with left-to-right
(left-to-right: Refers to keyboard settings, document views, user interface
objects, and the direction in which text is displayed. English and most other
European languages are left-to-right languages.) direction.

 

[Karen Sigel]

One little problem (it's never easy): I don't have a "Complex Scripts" tab
in Tools / Options. You have to have support for right-to-left languages
enabled, and neither one of us does.

He works on a laptop; I'm wondering if he could have done something wacky
while typing/mousing/accidentally coming into contact with his touchpad? He
tells me he often forgets to turn off the touchpad when he's using his mouse.

The document is fine, it's not corrupt, but we'd really like to reverse the
view direction back to left-to-right. Any way to do that other than to
install right-to-left support and go from there?

Thanks-
Karen