Word Formatting issues

You can't just select (highlight) the text and click the align left button to stop it from being centered?

Sorry if you've tried this and I'm telling you to do something you've already tried; I just didn't quite understand your question.

Have you checked your text format to be sure it's normal + whatever font you're using.

I'm just throwing out some things. I have no idea which, if any, will help.

Here's the brute force way to fix it if nothing else works.

Select all the text that you're having a problem with. Go to your text format dropdown menu and select Clear Formatting. This will screw everything up, of course. While you still have the text selected, go back and choose your font, line spacing, and alignment again. Unselect the text. Then go back and center the chapter titles as needed.

This is not a very elegant way to do it, but it should fix the problem and it really shouldn't take much time.

Your 'styles' are probably funked up. This happens if Word tries to "help" by setting your styles for you and you don't know what it's doing.

Alleycat gave you some good advice. It's time to strip the formatting from this doc. Select all the screwed up text and go to the drop box by the little AA icon. Select Clear Formatting. (While you're there, you can take a look at what it's doing to the styles.)

Styles are a way to set the formatting with an easy-to-apply set of commands. For example Heading. For every Heading, instead of selecting the font size, centering, face, etc, you just apply the Heading Style. (or you open the Styles command by clicking the AA symbol and modify the Style to be what you want.) if your "Normal" Style was affected, then it can affect the Chapter titles, too. I think you'd be best to Select All and Clear Formatting and try again.

Formatting marks here won't help much. Tab Stops might (look at the ruler along the top of the screen. If you have little black L's or upside down T's there, you have some tab stops set.

I don't think it should be the conversion from Word2000 to Word2003 that's a problem. I do that all the tine without issues. But I *do* get issues with Word applying styles when I don't want it to. Tries a little to hard to be helpful sometimes. ;-)

Hope that helps. If you need more help, please, take a screen shot so I can see what you're dealing with. =)

April Holland solved something like that for me. I'm sure she won't mind if I quote her.

April said:

The problem lies in the paragraph style. At the moment, your style probably says it's name, and other info (eg: "Normal+indent"). You need to reset it to just Normal (or whatever the style is you're using in the other paragraphs).

Alternatively, you can use the "Paste Formatting" tool (not the standard Paste tool). Click somewhere in a paragraph that appears the way you want it to, then double-click on the Paste Formatting tool. Click once on each of the paragraphs that's indented. This should do the trick quickly and easily.

Some useful links to posts here on AW:

• Using Styles
• Creating and editing templates
• Modifying the Normal template

All of which can be found in the

***** Index To Tips and Tricks *****

Note: If you've got a useful tip for Word or computers in general, feel free to post it and I'll index it.
.

A couple of comments

This pot has been stirred in so much already that I am going to leave it alone.

I just want to offer a couple of words of advice, from my own experiences.

I have had the same kind of crazy stuff happen when using Word, and I understand the workings of the program very well.

SOME ADVICE

Learn how to use Styles. Never use "Normal" under any circumstances. Do not base any style on Normal, either. Base every style on No Style, or whatever it is called. Create your own default style without any formatting at all. I call mine "Body" and use it when I have a need to insert a blank line. It can be used in other ways, even for certain kinds of text, but basically you want it there as an option for a blank line.

Create a style for your basic novel paragraph, which is probably double-spaced with the first line indented by 0.5". Call it something like ParInd-1st. You can set up the style so that the first line is automatically indented, and so that hitting ENTER will start another paragraph of the same style. Use Courier New, because every computer has it. You can change the font later, just by changing the style, if you want. But if you are going to be going from one computer to another, use a font that you know will be available.

Create a style for your chapter heads. You can center it or whatever as part of the style.

When you insert a page break, it will work better if you insert it on a blank line. This is where your Body style comes into play. On a blank line, change the paragraph style to the Body style. Then insert your page break. On the new page, change the paragraph style to your chapter head style. If you run into any kind of problems, make the first line on the page, after the break, a Body paragraph. I have encountered countless incomprehensible problems in formatting after a page break. I can always figure it out, now, but I have been doing this for a long time. When in trouble, convert to Body style and go from there.

Sometimes it helps to use the "Clear Format" style to clear out some of the garbage that Word has put in. If that converts the style to Normal, you should IMMEDIATELY change it to Body.

Just to share one of my experiences ... I was once working on a fairly heavily formatted article, and was going back and forth between Word 2000 (at work) and 2003 (at home). Somehow the version at work got messed up and changed the document from 12 point to 10 point. I never could figure out why.

Good luck!

Word has a feature in its Page Break function where it will center the chapter heading on the new page. For some unknown reason, Word keeps the 'Centered' format until you manually change it. It's a bug that's been in Word since way back in 98, maybe before.
That's probably how your problem started. The 'Clear Formatting' advice is probably the best way to get out of it.
The problem is, it may happen again the next time you insert a page break.

Um... what? I've never had it center after a page break. (But I've been on Word2002 since 2002.)

But, there are time when Word gets something in it's Styles sheet that you don't want there.

BTW-- you can use Styles to apply Headings and such, then View-->Document Map. Anything with the Heading Style will appear inthe Document Map and act like a Hyperlink that will take you to that spot in the Document.

I think...I could be wrong, but Word2k3 and 2k7 aren't quite as goofy when trying to helpfully apply styles for you.

Follow Roger's Link-- replace your Normal.dot. It'll help you start fresh. If something got changed in the Normal.dot, it will affect EVERY file you open new.

Go into Options (Word Options under the Office symbol in 2k7 and Tools--> Options in 2k3 and earlier). Go turn stuff off. I turn of auto-indent, half the grammar checking things, and most of the things where it does it for me. (If it changes something for you, hover your mouse around the bottom of the word changed. See the little lightning bolt-- click it and you can tell it to KNOCK IT OFF!)

If I want something, I'll go get it. =)

Another way to find your Normal.dot template, go to Tools-->Options. Click the File Locations Tab. Click the one that says Templates. Click Modify. Then click the drop box to see where it's at. Mine is Documents and Settings-->Clair--> Application Data (you must have hidden files visible, change this under Folder Options, View, View hidden files)--> Microsoft--> Templates. DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING. Write down the file path and then hit cancel.

Once there you'll find the Normal.dot Template. To create a new one with your settings, you would set up a blank Word doc and save as Normal.dot IN THE LOCATION OF THE OLD ONE. It will overwrite the old one. Or you can delete it and Word will make a new one.

The right-click Properties command is to make sure you get the right file location for when you put a new one in place. If you put it someplace else, Word won't use it (unless you Modify where it looks for it, in the Options menu.)

Like ComicBent, I have a couple of styles I've created for writing. I call mine Novel and Chapters. When I transfer a document, the styles come with it, but they don't get transfered to the Normal.dot template automatically. However you CAN transfer them manually.

Go to Tools>Templates and Addins... and in the dialog box, click the Customize... button. This will bring up another dialog box with will allow you to transfer styles from your document to your Normal.dot template (and vice versa, of course). These instructions are for 2003. I don't have 2007 here.