Formatting- I think

[fofficecommunityk]

After pasting text into word, the lines were only about 5 words long; auto
format and margin setting did nothing neither did clear formatting. I can go
to the end of each line, hit delete and pull up the next line. But that
would take much time. Is there a more efficient way?

Thanks-
f

 

[Jay Freedman]

After pasting text into word, the lines were only about 5 words long;
auto format and margin setting did nothing neither did clear
formatting. I can go to the end of each line, hit delete and pull up
the next line. But that would take much time. Is there a more
efficient way?

Thanks-
f

See http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/CleanWebText.htm.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[fofficecommunityk]

Thanks, Jay. I appreciate the prompt reply, and the link which was helpful.

The article did state:

Even when the amount of text is very large, there is no really good
alternative to manual editing. But if you Paste Special as Unformatted Text
and run AutoFormat, you may find that Word is almost as clever as you are at
finding where a paragraph ends.

Jay, do you think that it is possible to come up with a "universal" auto
format? Or are there just too many features in word processing for that? It
sure would be nice to just highlight and then hit a key, and all text is from
margin to margin without lines being drop or shortened.

 

[Jay Freedman]

Unfortunately, I don't think there will ever be a "universal" autoformat. We
might get close if someone evolves a true artificial intelligence that
_understands_ natural language rather than just following set rules. But,
having been a copy editor at one point in my life, I know that even
intelligent humans often disagree about how text should be written and
formatted.

If the material you want to format has a uniform and predictable layout, so
the transformation from the original format to the desired format can be
expressed in unvarying rules, then a macro can be constructed to handle it.
If you just want to dump arbitrary text into Word and have it formatted to
your liking, then manual intervention and cleanup is always going to be
required.

 

[fofficecommunityk]

I was afraid that might be the case, Jay. But having it confirmed by an
expert helps keep me focused. Thanks for all you guys do- it's great to be
able to ask specifics and get back knowledgeable input.

f