"Underline Style" Won't Default

[Montserrat]

Hi,

In Œformat>font>underline style¹ the Œunderline¹ default is (none) and
(none) provides the finest solid line underline. I have wanted something
which detracts less from the text, and the small dotted line might be the
right one for me. I went into Œformat>font>underline style¹ and chose the
dotted underline, clicked Œdefault¹, got the request/confirm window, and
said yes. This window also says ³This change will affect all new documents
based on the NORMAL template².

I returned to the document I was writing in and right away each word I wrote
was underlined with the fine dotted line. Then, to return to no
underlining, I pressed apple-U and but when I began writing again, the text
continued with a solid underline. Nothing I tried brought the dotted line
back other than going back to the middle of a dotted underline text, where
the dotted would carry on.

In other words, the underline default won¹t default. I even tried setting
up dotted underline, defaulting it, and restarting the computer. Nothing.

Any solutions?

Thanks, Rafael

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi Rafael,
be careful about hitting that "Default" button! This button changes the font
for the paragraph style "Normal", which you're most likely using to compose
your documents. Since you changed the default paragraph style, this explains
why your text is still underlined even after you've hit Cmd-U to revert to
what you think should be the default text. To get this back to the way it
was, go to Format>Font>Underline Style, make sure it's set to "None", then
hit "Default" again. This should solve your first problem.
Now, for that special dotted line, you should probably use a character style
to get that working. If you want to know more about styles in general, check
Shauna Kelly's website <http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/> for a start. As
always, if anything's unclear, post back here!

Hope this was helpful
Michel

 

[Montserrat]

Thanks Michel,

Yes. Something's gotten screwed up. Just now as I select copy pasted your
post below into word. All the text appeared with the dotted underline.
That's not supposed to happen. I'll read your stuff. I thought I was doing
something simple. Right.

Rafael

 

[Montserrat]

Michel

Here's something that's going on today that may be related to my fussing
around with the fonts default. I describe it in a different string I
created today, "Subject: Always create backup copy"


Here's what appeared when the grammar checker ended, after I clicked the
readability stats window off and did a save. Then a dialogue box came on
saying:

³Word cannot delete the old backup file because it is read-only or another
user has it open." and there's an OK button.

I pressed this OK and the window went away. Then a ³save as² window
appeared. But I¹ve ³saved as² this document a long time ago and I¹ve been
saving it all along as well as dragged the file icon for a back up to a zip
disk. I "Canceled". Then for security I select copy pasted the doc into
another word file and saved it to the desktop. It saved OK. I had to do
that once before today with the original document, because of the same
problem...which came back, as above, with the original.

Nine word work files and one backup file have appeared below my document
icon on the HD, I think because I checked Œalways create backup copy¹.

I'm going to go back to 'fast save', back up my desktop document to the zip,
then see if I can get a controllable document of the same file happening at
it's place on the HD.

Do you think this has anything to do with my setting a different default in
the font window? Do you think I'm resolving the problem doing what I'm
doing? I did what you said about choosing "none" in the font window.
Finally, I don't care if I have any other underline line... for now.

Best, Rafael

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi Rafael,
I don't think this problem is related to your changing the default font
formatting. The problems you have here are most likely related to the power
outage you've been experiencing and the automatic backup function. Have you
already read Daiya's reply to your other post? When you select "always
create backup copy", you will get one copy of the file you've been working
on, called "Backup of <file name>", which will be placed in the same
location as your original file. As to why there are nine work files, I don't
have a clue, but my guess is that these are auto-recovery files. You do have
the option "save Autorecover info" enabled, right? My guess is that if you
tried to open these files, you'd get a big part of the work you'd done
before the power outage happened.
As I said, if you haven't done so, you should read Daiya's reply, she has
got some additional information for you. And by the way, according to some
(if not all) MVPs, you should stay away from the FastSave option. If your
preferences keep changing, maybe the preferences file has become corrupted;
if the problems only happen in relation to that one document, it might be
that the document has also become corrupted. Have a look at the links below:

http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/TroubleshootWord2001Content.htm#Corrupt

http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/BackUpYourWork.htm

Michel

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Rafael,
I don't think this problem is related to your changing the default font
formatting.

Ditto. The underline style issue was totally normal and exactly what is
supposed to happen when you do what you reported, as Michel explained. What
you should do is create a character style (Default Paragraph Font plus your
special underline) and assign it to a keyboard shortcut. The links Michel
gave will tell you how.

The problems you have here are most likely related to the power
outage you've been experiencing and the automatic backup function. Have you
already read Daiya's reply to your other post? When you select "always
create backup copy", you will get one copy of the file you've been working
on, called "Backup of <file name>", which will be placed in the same
location as your original file. As to why there are nine work files, I don't
have a clue, but my guess is that these are auto-recovery files. You do have
the option "save Autorecover info" enabled, right? My guess is that if you
tried to open these files, you'd get a big part of the work you'd done
before the power outage happened.

Ditto. Except I'm not totally sure the Work Work files are AutoRecovery
files, the exact distinction among all the temporary files that Word creates
is not totally clear to me, but this is what I think I know--I'm
semi-guessing, semi-putting together things I vaguely remember reading:

Word creates a lot of temporary files that are linked to your document--for
AutoRecovery, to maintain the Undo list, for whatever. It's hard-coded into
the program, can't be prevented. When you close the document or quit Word,
Word releases and deletes those files. When a doc/Word is quit abruptly, as
in a crash, the whole process of creating and releasing temp files gets
screwed up. (The AR files might actually be kept in a different place, so
the Word Work files might just be maintaining the undo list, not sure). Word
is constantly writing and rewriting all these temp files to your hard drive.
(This is the part that corrupts Word documents edited from floppies, which
don't have space for all those temp files)

(Back when OS 9 was crashing regularly, I used to regularly quit Word,
search for Word Work files, and delete them. It is certainly worth looking
in them for lost information, though many of them hold nothing)

When you pressed Save, Word wanted to take the copy of your last save, move
it over to become the backup copy, and save the current state as the actual
doc. But it couldn't, because it wasn't allowed to write over the previous
backup copy, whose settings were incorrect because of the crash. Turning
off "always create backup copy" should have allowed you to save fine (though
there's never harm in creating duplicate backups with a Save As).

I don't think so, but you shouldn't worry about Word Work files. If they
don't go away on their own when you close the doc, just delete them later.
(if you have been working on a doc for a while, and then open the folder
it's stored in in the Finder, you will see in a pile of them. In fact, if
you then close the doc, you should see them vanish. It's kinda fun. It's
also why documents you have been working on for hours have a pause before
closing, Word is deleting all those files. And I'm quite sure I saw this
process without "always create backup copy" checked).
Bad Idea, and totally irrelevant to the issue of "always create backup".
Highly likely to corrupt your documents and does *nothing* useful
whatsoever. The preference is only there so that it can be turned off if it
accidentally gets turned on, and current versions of Word are coded to check
and turn it off every so often.

I do not know what you mean by this?

Daiya

 

[Beth Rosengard]

In OS X (don't know about OS 9), AutoRecover files are stored in the MUD.

Beth

 

[Beth Rosengard]

And I should have added that the MUD (Microsoft User Data folder) is the
*default* location for these AR files. You can change the location, if you
like, in Preferences> File Locations.

Beth

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Whereas temp files, and I believe the backup copy, can *only* be kept in the
same folder as the doc itself.