Title Case functionality doesn't adhere to commonly established st

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Guest

I am using MS Office PowerPoint 2003 SP1. When I apply Title Case to a
selected set of text (in the title area of a slide), the first letter of
every word in the selection is capitalized, including articles ("a", "an",
"the" etc.) as well as prepositions, short conjunctions etc.

This functionality doesn't conform to the Chicago Manual of Style, and IIRC
the MicroSoft Manual of Style (which points one to the Chicago Manual of
Style).

I was told in a Usenet forum that previous versions of PowerPoint used more
generally accepted capitalization rules when applying Title Case.

Here are my questions:

1. Why has MicroSoft seen fit to modify the way Title Case works (if,
indeed, it has - I can't restify to that)?
2. Is there a fix (either an update to PowerPoint, or perhaps a macro) that
will provide the functionality I need?
3. If not, will there be one, and if so, how soon?
4. Are there any other suggestions the community can offer that will allow
me to get the functinality I need from within PowerPoint?

Thanks!
 
Hello Dave,

I agree and since it's consistent through out MS Office, why don't you enter
it as a suggestion (instead of question) under the main MS Office News Group?

Thanks,
Glenna
 
PPTMagician said:
Hello Dave,

I agree and since it's consistent through out MS Office, why don't you enter
it as a suggestion (instead of question) under the main MS Office News Group?

Thanks,
Glenna
Click to expand...

[snip]

Done. And thanks for the suggestion. Except what I found was Microsoft
Office General Questions group - is there ane for suggestions only? I didn't
see it...
 
Here are my questions:
1. Why has MicroSoft seen fit to modify the way Title Case works (if,
indeed, it has - I can't restify to that)?
2. Is there a fix (either an update to PowerPoint, or perhaps a macro) that
will provide the functionality I need?
Click to expand...

No fix that I'm aware of. Why MS changed it and whether they'll make any
further adjustments is something only MS knows. We're all just other PPT
users, not MS employees.
3. If not, will there be one, and if so, how soon?
Click to expand...

I don't know of any macro that'd solve the problem, though it'd be possible for
someone to write one, assuming the rules can be thoroughly codified or that
"mostly right most of the time" would be good enough. English. The only rules
that don't have exceptions are the exceptions themselves, and they're working
on that.
4. Are there any other suggestions the community can offer that will allow
me to get the functinality I need from within PowerPoint?
Click to expand...

Does Word do a better job of titlecasing? If so you could enter your titles
and text in Word, do the fixup, then convert to PPT.

Or get the wetware to fix the titlecasing while sending the text to the fingers
module. ;-)
 
Steve Rindsberg said:
No fix that I'm aware of. Why MS changed it and whether they'll make any
further adjustments is something only MS knows. We're all just other PPT
users, not MS employees.


I don't know of any macro that'd solve the problem, though it'd be possible for
someone to write one, assuming the rules can be thoroughly codified or that
"mostly right most of the time" would be good enough. English. The only rules
that don't have exceptions are the exceptions themselves, and they're working
on that.


Does Word do a better job of titlecasing? If so you could enter your titles
and text in Word, do the fixup, then convert to PPT.

Or get the wetware to fix the titlecasing while sending the text to the fingers
module. ;-)

-----------------------------------------
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
===============================================
Click to expand...

Thanks, Steve.

First of all, "mostly right, most of the time" would be (for me) far, far
better than, "100% wrong, all of the time"!

Good suggestion about using Word, but it appears to me (I certainly haven't
done an exhaustive search) that all Office applications are using the same
function|subroutine|method to do the casing. Word and PowerPoint treatments
are identical, and I suspect that Excel is, too (I tried the =PROPER(...)
function, and it was incorrect, also). One Note seems to have its own ideas
about case, and doesn't provide the flexibility of Word, etc. I haven't
checked much else.

I wonder: could someone with an earlier version of Word or PowerPoint check
to see how Title Case behaves there, and either confirm or deny that the
functionality was changed in Offcie 2003?
 
Dave Jenkins said:
I wonder: could someone with an earlier version of Word or PowerPoint check
to see how Title Case behaves there, and either confirm or deny that the
functionality was changed in Offcie 2003?
Click to expand...

I confirmed the behavior when I responded to your original post.
 
I wonder: could someone with an earlier version of Word or PowerPoint check
to see how Title Case behaves there, and either confirm or deny that the
functionality was changed in Offcie 2003?
Click to expand...

I typed this into PPT2000:

"go to the head of the class, mr. jenkins"

It auto-capitalized the initial "G".
Then I changed the text to Title Case and got this:

"Go to the Head of the Class, Mr. Jenkins"

PPT2003 capitalizes everything. Wrong-headedly, as you've found.
 
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