Word 2003: Changing the increase/decrease rate of the indent icon?

[hayakaw1]

Hi. I have just moved from Word 2000 to Word 2003.

What I am trying to do is to increase or decrease indent by 0.25 inch
everytime I click on the the "increase indent" icon or the "decrease indent"
icon. Currently, the indent increases or decreases 1/6 inch.

When I was using Word 2000, I could do it by changing default tab stop
parameter from 0.5 inch to 0.25 inch. However, I cannot use this method for
Word 2003. When I change the parameter of default tab stop, it does affect
the tab function but not indenting function. The increase and decrease of
indent seems to be following not the default tab stop parameter but the
gridline.

I would appreciate if someone can give me kind advice.

Thank you very much.

 

[Graham Mayor]

With Word 2003 (SP2) here, the indent increases by whatever you set the
default tab stop to?
When you upgraded, did you start with a clean install or did you upgrade
2000? If the latter, rename normal.dot (a hidden file) to oldnormal.dot and
delete the Word data registry key (see
http://www.gmayor.com/my_toolbars_are_missing.htm )
You can copy your macros/toolbars etc from old to new template, but you will
have to rebuild your tools > options and autoformatting settings.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[hayakaw1]

Thank you very much for your advice.

Yes, I upgraded Office 2000 to Office 2003. I tried to locate the
"normal.dot" file but I couldn't --- All I could find was "Normal" Microsoft
Word Template. I turned on the appropriate radio button so that the "find"
command would do search through hidden files. Could you tell me how to find
"normal.dot"?

I checked "www.gmayor.com" as you instructed. By using the registry editer,
I found "(default)", "FontInfoCache", and "User Data" at
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Word. File types are
respectively "REG_SZ", REG_BINARY", and "REG_DWORD". Do I need to delete
"User Data"?

I would appreciate your kind advice.

 

[Graham Mayor]

Ensure Word is not running (it may be running in the background if you use
Word as an editor for Outlook and Outlook is running - so close both Word
and Outlook).

To enable you to see exactly what you are doing open Windows Explorer then
tools > folder options > view and check 'show hidden files and > folders'
and uncheck 'hide extensions for known file types'. (You can always change
them back later, but mistakes are made by not dealing with the correct files
so I would recommend leaving it that way.) Then locate and rename normal.dot
to oldnormal.dot (It is in the folder set at tools > options > file
locations > user templates).

See if this fixes the problem before moving on to the next part.

The registry entry you listed is for Word 2000 and not 2003.
The appropriate registry entry for Word 2003 is

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Data

You can delete that key (but ONLY that key). select it in the left Window of
the registry editor, right click and delete it.

When you restart Word, it will rebuild both the normal.dot file and the
registry data key (to install defaults). You will have to reset some
preferences, but you can use the organizer in Word to copy some preferences
from the oldnormal.dot to the new normal.dot.

Have a good Christmas!

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[hayakaw1]

Thank you very much for your advice again.

I found "Normal.dot" (the first character "N" was capitalized) and changed
the file name to "oldnormal.dot" (by using a non-capitalized letter "o" for
the first character). Then I restarted the computer, but I couldn't solve
the problem.

When I attempted to resort to the secondary solution, I found three files
("(default)", "Settings", and "Toolbars" respectively), but I am not sure
which file is "that" key you mentioned in your last e-mail. Could you
specify which file I must delete?

Sorry for asking you questions over and over, but solving this problem is
very important (if I can't solve this, I may have to go back to Word 2000).
Thank you very much.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The key Graham referred to is:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Data

 

[hayakaw1]

Hi, Ms. Barnhill.

I deleted "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Data" but I
couldn't solve the problem. In addition, "Normal.dot" was revived after I
changed its file name to "oldnormal.dot" and the key I deleted was also
automatically revived when I shut down Word 2003.

I don't know what to do.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

That's the whole idea. You force Word to generate a new, factory-default
Normal.dot and Registry key. If this doesn't solve the problem, then the
problem is not with Normal.dot or the Registry. Which leaves add-ins.

 

[hayakaw1]

I want to go back to the basic: what is controling the default indent
increase/decrease level? Every time I click on "Increase Indent" icon, I get
the following results:
1st click: 0.15" from the left
2nd click: 0.29" from the left
3rd click: 0.44" from the left
4th click: 0.58" from the left
5th click: 0.73" from the left
6th click: 0.88" from the left
7th click: 1.02" from the left
What is contolling these parameters? How can I change them? Are the
solutions suggested by Mr. Mayor and you meant to affect these parameters?

Thank you very much for taking your valuable time for assisting me.

 

[Graham Mayor]

Apart from any influence by outside factors, such as add-ins, by deleting
the registry data key and renaming normal.dot (the capitalization is
irrelevant) you return Word to its install default settings, removing any
changes that may have been introduced into Word 2000 and carried over by the
upgrade.

Now select format > tabs. Click the 'Clear all' button. Now add whatever
setting you want to the default tab stops dialog.OK out of that, and the
default tabs will be set at half an inch, unless you override them by a tab
setting in the current paragraph style or for the particular paragraph by
the format > tab dialog.

Increase and decrease indent work by moving the indent in line with the
*default* tabs and not with the paragraph style tab setting.

You would find Word documents much easier to edit if you forgot about manual
formatting and used paragraph styles with the layouts you require.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[hayakaw1]

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Ms. Barnhill. I could solve the problem. I
appreciate your patience with my questions.

 

[Rose]

I am using Word 2003 and having the same problem. I have changed the default
tab in both the paragraph style and in Format>Tabs to .25", but Tab still
gives me a .50" indent.