Getting ALL of a selection reformatted

[MWE]

this is not really a VBA question, but perhaps one of the Word gurus can assist me ...

I am running Word2000 under WinXP. The problem also occurred running Word2000 on Win2000.

After selecting a block of bulleted or numbered text and reformatting it, the last bullet or number stays in the original format (not the last line, just the last bullet or number). I can force the last bullet/number to be reformatted by selecting the desired block plus the next line (which is normally blank). It is not a difficult workaround, but it is irritating.

Is this a bug?

[TonyJollans]

The only way I can get this to happen is if the block of text I select does not include the paragraph mark at the end of the last item. I suspect when you say you include the next line what you are actually doing (of significance) is selecting that final paragraph mark.

The paragraph mark (?) effectively holds the paragraph formatting. Within a paragraph, individual parts of the text can have formatting applied which overrides the paragraph format. When you apply some sort of formatting directly to text (rather than by using a style) what happens depends on whether or not the paragraph mark is included in the selection.

I don't know how to highlight text in this editor, so I'm going to make it red to mean highlighted - this means I cannot show highlighted spaces.

When you select a complete paragraph:

1. My List Item?
(if you don't have paragraph marks displayed this includes what looks like a space at the end of the line)

and apply formatting, the whole paragraph, including the number on numbered paragraphs, takes the format. For example, if you choose bold, you will get:

1. My List Item?



When you select part of a paragraph - not including the paragraph mark:

1. My List Item?

and apply formatting, only the selected text (and not the number on numbered paragraphs) takes the format. Again using bold to exemplify:

1. My List Item?



When you select part of a paragraph - this time including the paragraph mark:

1. My List Item?

and apply formatting, the paragraph is formatted (and hence the number) because the paragraph mark is selected, but only the selected text within the paragraph is formatted. Bold, again, gives:

1. My List Item?



So if you select your list like this:

1. My List Item?
2. Another Item?
3. And Another?

Then you will get this result:

1. My List Item?
2. Another Item?
3. And Another?

This is what you are, presumably, doing.

But if, instead, you select your list like this:

1. My List Item?
2. Another Item?
3. And Another?

Then you will get this result:

1. My List Item?
2. Another Item?
3. And Another?

Which is what you want and what you, sort of accidentally, get by selecting the next line

[MOS MASTER]

The only way I can get this to happen is if the block of text I select does not include the paragraph mark at the end of the last item. I suspect when you say you include the next line what you are actually doing (of significance) is selecting that final paragraph mark.

The paragraph mark (?) effectively holds the paragraph formatting. Within a paragraph, individual parts of the text can have formatting applied which overrides the paragraph format. When you apply some sort of formatting directly to text (rather than by using a style) what happens depends on whether or not the paragraph mark is included in the selection.


Great story Tony! :hi:

Mark and remember also that the type of style can be of influence too with manual reformatting.

Word can work real hard for you if you use styles to markup your text but if you use manual formatting a lot then you'll be up for a real PITA if you wanna change things later.

And don't get me started if Automaticly update is on in your Styles. (Those are only for the hardcode STRICT Formatting guys. (Who only use styles))

But like Tony says of course the sollution to your problem is in the paragraph mark of the para.

To Show/Hide hidden marks you can also use: CTRL+*

HTH, :whistle:

[MWE]

The only way I can get this to happen is if the block of text I select does not include the paragraph mark at the end of the last item. I suspect when you say you include the next line what you are actually doing (of significance) is selecting that final paragraph mark.

The paragraph mark (?) effectively holds the paragraph formatting. Within a paragraph, individual parts of the text can have formatting applied which overrides the paragraph format. When you apply some sort of formatting directly to text (rather than by using a style) what happens depends on whether or not the paragraph mark is included in the selection.

I don't know how to highlight text in this editor, so I'm going to make it red to mean highlighted - this means I cannot show highlighted spaces.

When you select a complete paragraph:

1. My List Item?
(if you don't have paragraph marks displayed this includes what looks like a space at the end of the line)

and apply formatting, the whole paragraph, including the number on numbered paragraphs, takes the format. For example, if you choose bold, you will get:

1. My List Item?



When you select part of a paragraph - not including the paragraph mark:

1. My List Item?

and apply formatting, only the selected text (and not the number on numbered paragraphs) takes the format. Again using bold to exemplify:

1. My List Item?



When you select part of a paragraph - this time including the paragraph mark:

1. My List Item?

and apply formatting, the paragraph is formatted (and hence the number) because the paragraph mark is selected, but only the selected text within the paragraph is formatted. Bold, again, gives:

1. My List Item?



So if you select your list like this:

1. My List Item?
2. Another Item?
3. And Another?

Then you will get this result:

1. My List Item?
2. Another Item?
3. And Another?

This is what you are, presumably, doing.

But if, instead, you select your list like this:

1. My List Item?
2. Another Item?
3. And Another?

Then you will get this result:

1. My List Item?
2. Another Item?
3. And Another?

Which is what you want and what you, sort of accidentally, get by selecting the next line
Sorry, still does not work. I tried your suggestion with the following 6 lines of code entrered using the "normal" style which is Arial12

Now is the
Time for all
Good men
To come to
The aid
Of their party

I turned on paragraph marks and they are after every line. I swept the 6 lines including ALL paragraph marks and numbered the lines:


1. Now is the
2. Time for all
3. Good men
4. To come to
5. The aid
6. Of their party

Although the above does not show it, the "6" was a smaller font than the rest of the text (Word had defaulted back to Times New Roman 10 -- which it does all the time). I then added another line (with its own end of paragraph mark), swept the 7 lines, toggled back and forth to Arial12 a few times, toggled numbering and things are fine.

I might add that this test demonstrated a continuing problem that I have with Word and that is my inablilty to keep the format from "defaulting" back to Times New Roman 10. My "normal"/default font is Arial12. If I start a new document all text is Arial12. However, if I sweep a section and hit numbering or bullets, two things happen:
1. the last number or bullet is Times New Roman 10
2. any line after the bullets or numbers is Times New Roman 10

The only way I have found to solve this problem is to always sweep an extra line. That solves the problem with the swept lines with text, but the last (blank) line and all lines added after it are Times New Roman 10.

This is a problem I have had with 4 or 5 different builds of Word2000 on a half dozen machines, so I am pretty sure this is not a unique bug. I never had this problem with earlier versions of Word.

[MWE]

... remember also that the type of style can be of influence too with manual reformatting... I use (or try to) Arial12 99% of the time



... Word can work real hard for you if you use styles to markup your text but if you use manual formatting a lot then you'll be up for a real PITA if you wanna change things later. ... I am not sure I know what this means. I never play around with styles. I do use paragraph controls, bullets, numbering, etc., But virtually everything is "normal" style



...And don't get me started if Automaticly update is on in your Styles. (Those are only for the hardcode STRICT Formatting guys. (Who only use styles)). ...I do not not what automatic update re styles is



... But like Tony says of course the sollution to your problem is in the paragraph mark of the para. I think not.

[TonyJollans]

I think this is a problem with not using styles 'properly'.

Word is built around styles but almost every aspect of formatting made easy for novices abuses them </pet gripe>

I can't reproduce this quickly but will have a try later. I guess it's something to do with the way Word superimposes the numbering on the normal-style selection.

[TonyJollans]

Well, I've tried on a couple of machines (including one with Word 2000 on Win XP) and I can't reproduce what you describe.

Is there any chance you could upload your normal template?

[MWE]

... Word is built around styles but almost every aspect of formatting made easy for novices abuses them </pet gripe> I will not take offense at the word novices even though I have been using word processors since 1974 (I wrote my own word processor / source code editor for Varian minicomputers) and Word since 1995. :devil:

[MWE]

Well, I've tried on a couple of machines (including one with Word 2000 on Win XP) and I can't reproduce what you describe.

Is there any chance you could upload your normal template?

here it is

[TonyJollans]

No offense intended - it just irritates me that the out-of-the-box standard formatting tools get people (me included) into bad habits from day one.

Anyway - just had a quick look at your normal - its normal style is Times New Roman 12-point so I'm not sure how you get Arial. I have to go out for about an hour and a half but will check further on my return.

[MWE]

No offense intended - it just irritates me that the out-of-the-box standard formatting tools get people (me included) into bad habits from day one. ... My problem may be that I "learned" Word many years ago and continue to use it in the ways I learned. I probably do not use more than 5 % of Word's capability and would be quite happy with a much simplier and more streamlined version for day-to-day use. By the way, I am not alone in that concern. Virtually every person I know has complained about Words many and useless features that just get in the way of day-to-day work. I think MS made a big mistake trying to make Word much too powerful. As mentioned in other threads, I spent a lot of time trying to strip out or "make invisible" most of the updates and upgrades for each new opsys and application. My version of WinXP looks exactly like Win2K ... honestly, the direction of computing applications is worth some real discussion. I am mystified why appl developers spend so much time on appearance and behind-the-scense AI (which ends up being AS) and not on core functionality and robustness. Does anyone really want the semi-transparent crap MS is offering in the next version of Windows (I think the name is WindowsBS). I guess my opinions are showing :motz2:


... Anyway - just had a quick look at your normal - its normal style is Times New Roman 12-point so I'm not sure how you get Arial. I have to go out for about an hour and a half but will check further on my return.
How did you determine that is is TNR12? It SHOULD BE Arial12 because that is what I set the "default" style for the Normal template to be. Having said that, I did notice when trying to set default styles, you get to change either font or size, but cannot set both ??

And, having said that, whenever I start up a new doc, the style is "normal" and the fonrt/size is Arial 12.

Assuming that the normal style is TNR 12, why does Word constantly default to TNR10

[MOS MASTER]

Assuming that the normal style is TNR 12, why does Word constantly default to TNR10

Hi Mark, :yes

To little time but TNR12 is the default setup by factory for a clean Normal.dot.
Questions..go ask bill's designers. :*)

[TonyJollans]

Hi Mark,

Even MS seems to recognose that the UI is over-complex and I agree that more attention to some core-functionality could help but we have what we have and, for the most part, it works.

I determined it to be TNR12 simply by using it - and looking at the styles. I would be interested to know how you are getting either Arial12 or TNR10. Bullet and Numbering formatting is complex - some information is held in the registry as well as the template. It might be worth trying to delete (or rename) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Word\ListGallery Presets and see if it makes a difference. Other than that, I still can't duplicate what you say and can't think what else there might be off the top of my head.

I don't realy understand what you mean when you talk about setting defaults, only font name or font size but not both.

[MWE]

Hi Mark, :yes

To little time but TNR12 is the default setup by factory for a clean Normal.dot.
Questions..go ask bill's designers. :*)
TNR12 is NOT the default for Word2000 (at least for my build). I have reinstalled it more times than I care to count and the default is always TNR10

[TonyJollans]

TNR12 is NOT the default for Word2000 (at least for my build). I have reinstalled it more times than I care to count and the default is always TNR10
Re-installation will not reset it to the factory default. The default is held in the Normal template. It may be different in different versions but I've just checked in my Word 2000 and I get TNR12.

[MOS MASTER]

TNR12 is NOT the default for Word2000 (at least for my build). I have reinstalled it more times than I care to count and the default is always TNR10

Hi Mark, :hi:

Of course it is!! :rofl:

Office doesn't install in full like Tony says. It always expects you to return to install Office and saves some of your settings for you.

If you want a NEW Word after a reinstall you need to delete all occurences of Normal.dot from your computer and go in the registry and delete the "Data-key" of Word where all your personal settings are held.

And if you want really thorough you probably need to delete some other stuff too. :whistle:

[fumei]

Hi Mark. Not to give offence, but if you have been using Word since 1995 and don't use Styles, then you have been using Word badly. I have been using word processors since 1969 (mainframes stuff), and using Word since Word 2.0...for DOS, and have been using Styles from the start. Why? Because Word is totally, completely, absolutely designed around styles. It is essential to the document model - that is, the Microsoft (rightly or wrongly) concept of what a document IS.

If you want to use Word well, use styles.

The problem you are having is, as Tony pointed out, an issue of the paragraph mark.

I am willing to bet you are using bullet or numbered lists from Word defaults, yes? You make the paragraphs bulleted by clicking the Bullets or Numbered button?

I never, ever, use them. Word's native bullets and numbers suck big time. I make....ahem, styles....that are bulleted or numbered. Using custom styles for this is - again - the only way to go if you want to avoid the ugliness of manual format.