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General discussion

Word 2000 Justified text

Aug 4, 2005 7:50PM PDT

I have an enquiry with word 2000. When I try to Justify text, all the lines, take up the full width of the page i.e. including the lines that only have 1 or 2 words in them. Even the letter heading and the address are stretched over the whole width of the page. I have tried selecting paragraphs individually and then dealing with the rogue lines on their own but they get justified regardless. It's driving me crazy!

Discussion is locked

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Re: justify text
Aug 4, 2005 8:45PM PDT

With me (Word 97) it's like this.

If you justify a multi-line paragraph left, right or middle the last shorter line goes with it (also on the left, right or middle).
If you justify a multi-line paragraph both left and right (I'm doing all my justify's with the buttons on the toolbar) the last shorter line goes to the left side and isn't stretched.

A one-line paragraph behaves as the last line of a multi-line paragraph.

The word 'paragraph' is essential. As you surely know you make a paragraph by hitting enter. If you go to a new line by hitting ctrl-enter, every line is justified as instructed. There are no paragraphs then, so the exception for the 'last shorter line of a paragraph' can't be executed.

You can see the difference between a paragraph and a ctrl-enter by setting some checkboxes in Tools>Options>View (show everything).

If this doesn't work as it should in a newly created document, start with deleting normal.dot.

Hope this helps.


Kees

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Re: Word 2000 justified text
Aug 5, 2005 11:44AM PDT

Alistair

Until today, I had never heard of the problem you described; that all lines, regardless of length, were being fully justified. Normally Word behaves as Kees said; the last line of any paragraph, or a one-line paragraph, is left aligned rather than justified.

Then, in researching this problem on my Win 98 / Office 2000 system, I did find an old file that behaved in just that manner when I justified it (something I had never before done to this file). It was text I had copied from a Web page about two years ago, and had pasted into Word. Unfortunately, I don?t know what conversion I used HTML, RTF, or unformatted text.

I tried reproducing this effect by copying text from several Web pages and pasting them as HTML, RTF, and Unformatted text. All of them behaved normally. Looking at the formatting of the strangely-behaving text, I saw that every line ended with a hard carriage return ? something you don?t see in normal Word documents. I then wrote a short paragraph in word, inserting a hard CR at the end of each line (something not readily done). When I justified this paragraph, it behaved in the abnormal manner; the short last line was improperly justified.

Normally it takes deliberate effort to insert hard CRs at the end of each line in Word, but if you looked at the formatting as Kees suggested, you probably saw these hard CRs. I conclude, therefore, that the text causing the problem was imported into Word from some outside source. Am I correct? I would like to know the source ? Web, another Word Processor, or what -- so that I can discuss this problem in the next Word Processing class I teach.

And now for the solution, which may take a little work. First, make a backup of the file just in case something goes wrong.

It is likely that the problem text has no paragraph marks, so the first job is to insert these: Set the option to see all formatting marks. Place the insertion point at the beginning of each line that has only a hard CR, and hit Enter; this will place a paragraph mark there.

After putting in all the paragraph breaks, set the insertion point at the beginning of the text. Go to Edit > Find, select the Replace tab, and click on More. Place the insertion point in the Find what box, click on Special, and select Manual Line Break. Next, place the insertion point in the Replace with box, click on Special, and select Nonbreaking Space . Now replace all the hard CRs. You may still need to do a little clean up on the paragraph formatting, but you should now be able to justify the text properly.

Hope this helps

Frank

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Justified Word 2000 problem
Aug 6, 2005 8:14AM PDT

To my good friend the Spanish panacean....
WOW....you really gave it your best shot. 10 out of 10 I'd say. Would give you a better score if their was one!
Before reading this tonight (23.00 UK time) I'd played about with it a little more and had come to the conclusion it was probably something to do with being imported from Outlook Express.... so you're spot on with your assumption that ''it came from some outside source.'' I've not had the time to check out your closing remarks as yet but I've included the letter in question for your perusal so that it might help you with your class. i.e. if this reply allows me to include an attachment (one that includes the hidden formatting as well!) Thanks again from Bonnie Scotland.

Alistair Mackay
Just realised you can't get the attachment..must have been mixed up with Helptogo.com. If you want it just ask.

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Thanks, Alistair
Aug 7, 2005 3:07AM PDT

for your reply and kind words. Now that I know the source is OE, I don't need a copy; I should be able to generate an example whenever I need. I will point this problem out the next I teach a word processing class.

Dest of luck

Frank