frustrations

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tony Talmage
  • Start date Start date
T

Tony Talmage

I've used Word for years now, and I'm finally to the point at which I have
given up on it entirely. There is *no* reason for Word to do many of the
things it does except to anger the user. For example, I want to copy a
sentence, minus period, to the clipboard. I start at the beginning, move
toward the end, but I am forced to either select the period at the end or
lose the last letter in the sentence, as the cursor snaps to one position or
the other at this point. Some spaces don't delete, bulleted/numerical lists
are created when they shouldn't be, grammar checking is bogus, kilobytes
upon kilobytes of style text is added to documents, etc.

I do a lot of html/asp work, and I also need to view/modify design
documents. Normally I use a non-Rich Text editor, but sometimes I need the
richness. Is OpenOffice.org/StarOffice better when it comes to not messing
with the user's text? All I want is something that supports rich text but
doesn't do a darn thing with the text. Suggestions?

--
Tony Talmage
Web Developer
Graphic Education Corporation
URL: http://www.graphiced.com
Phone: (888) 354-6600
 
Hi Tony,

Most of your frustration can be relieved by following the suggestions at
http://www.word.mvps.org/faqs/formatting/TameAutoFormat.htm.

To cure the selection problem, go to Tools > Options > Edit and turn off
every option that contains the word 'smart' -- a horrible misnomer for 'try
to guess what I want'.

The grammar checker is configurable to some extent -- in Tools > Options >
Spelling & Grammar, click the Settings button and select only the rules you
want to check.

Depending on which version of Word you're using, you may be able to set the
'Save as type' box in the File > Save As dialog to 'Web Page, Filtered' to
reduce the amount of Word-specific coding. This isn't a cure-all, but it's
better than the plain 'Web Page' choice that tries to ensure that everything
is retained when round-tripping through HTML and back to .doc format.
 
I'll agree with most of what Jay said, but I'm not sure about the Smart Cut
and Paste settings; I find most of them pretty intelligent. I think your
problem may be coming from "When selecting, automatically select entire
word."

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
I found another, similar thing today: Tools>Options>Compatibility "select entire field with first or last character". Now I don't have to go crazy trying to change or delete the last character in a field...
 
I will check these settings and see if this helps when editing/creating
documents - thanks for the response. =)

--
Tony Talmage
Web Developer
Graphic Education Corporation
URL: http://www.graphiced.com
Phone: (888) 354-6600
 
Ah.... apparently my eyes skipped over this line when in the Options menu...
this is a big frustration that will most likely be corrected now. Thanks =)

--
Tony Talmage
Web Developer
Graphic Education Corporation
URL: http://www.graphiced.com
Phone: (888) 354-6600
 
I have Word2k, and I'm not seeing this particular option - is that maybe in
2003?

--
Tony Talmage
Web Developer
Graphic Education Corporation
URL: http://www.graphiced.com
Phone: (888) 354-6600


BrianL said:
I found another, similar thing today: Tools>Options>Compatibility "select
Click to expand...
entire field with first or last character". Now I don't have to go crazy
trying to change or delete the last character in a field...
 
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