Word XP - indenting behaviour drives me NUTS!

[Gordon Burgess-Parker]

If I have two lines of ordinary text one below the other and I wish to
indent the lower of the two, WHY THE HELL does Word indent the upper AS
WELL? Why can't word just apply the action to the line I want to indent?

Rant over!

 

[TF]

Check that you don't have Automatically Update checked for the underlying
Style. Clear the check box under AutoFormat as You Type for the 'Set left
and first indents with tabs and spaces' option. In fact, until you are
experienced enough in Word to see what is happening, most of the AutoFormat
as You Type options are best deselected until you know you need them!

--
Terry Farrell - Word MVP
http://www.mvps.org/word/


If I have two lines of ordinary text one below the other and I wish to
indent the lower of the two, WHY THE HELL does Word indent the upper AS
WELL? Why can't word just apply the action to the line I want to indent?

Rant over!

 

[Gordon Burgess-Parker]

Check that you don't have Automatically Update checked for the
underlying Style. Clear the check box under AutoFormat as You Type
for the 'Set left and first indents with tabs and spaces' option. In
fact, until you are experienced enough in Word to see what is
happening, most of the AutoFormat as You Type options are best
deselected until you know you need them!

Thankyou! My blood pressure has just dropped dramaticaly!

 

[TF]

Gordon

Great. Should get a discount on medical insurance too!

Terry

Check that you don't have Automatically Update checked for the
underlying Style. Clear the check box under AutoFormat as You Type
for the 'Set left and first indents with tabs and spaces' option. In
fact, until you are experienced enough in Word to see what is
happening, most of the AutoFormat as You Type options are best
deselected until you know you need them!

Thankyou! My blood pressure has just dropped dramaticaly!

 

[Gordon Burgess-Parker]

Gordon

Great. Should get a discount on medical insurance too!

Terry



Thankyou! My blood pressure has just dropped dramaticaly!

Thing is, why does MS turn these options ON by default? Surely the
experienced users should have to turn them on, not the inexperienced users
having to turn them off!

 

[TF]

Gordon

A very good question that has been put direct to the Developers along 'why
are there such crazy default commands on the standard and formatting
Toolbars'? Well one answer was that if the Auto features were off by
default, the majority of users would never know about them. I can understand
that reasoning, but there are also hundreds of built in commands in Word
that are hidden from site that many millions of users never find. Being able
to access these commands at a single click would be more beneficial
(productive) to the majority of users than those highly confusing
AutoFormatting actions.

Everyone has different tasks to complete in Word, they also have different
preference for the way they work (e.g. keyboard v. mouse) and have different
screen layout preferences: so there is no one solution for all. What Word is
good at is customisation for the user. But this is where Word is not so good
at explaining to users. Too many users stick to the default settings, never
finding those important commands, never finding how easy it is to create
templates, etc. resulting in millions of hours of lost productivity.

If users only want to create the occasional letter, what is wrong with
WordPad?

Terry

Gordon

Great. Should get a discount on medical insurance too!

Terry



Thankyou! My blood pressure has just dropped dramaticaly!

Thing is, why does MS turn these options ON by default? Surely the
experienced users should have to turn them on, not the inexperienced users
having to turn them off!

 

[Gordon Burgess-Parker]

Gordon


If users only want to create the occasional letter, what is wrong with
WordPad?

Terry

Very true!

 

[Larry]

That MS's approach, as annoying as it is. Their idea seems to be,
average users will have all these automatic features by default, because
otherwise they won't know about them; while only more advanced users
will turn off the automatic features. MS figures that if the automatic
features are NOT turned on by default, the vast majority of users will
never know about them. Everything is geared toward the average user who
doesn't know anything and doesn't want to know anything.

Larry