Well since we use every font available which also work in AutoCAD &
MicroStation and their supporting programs ... yes I can blame Microsoft for
being so proprietary and for not making something as common as a FRACTION
work properly particularly in their own programs!!! There are far more
than the 3 fractions they support, if they could make 1/2 look like a normal
fraction they could do the same for any two numbers divided by a / ... but
that's too much to ask of Microsoft.
Microsoft doesn't make their product work properly with other programs ...
and that causes major issues with those programs that run in the engineering
community. Its not short sightedness on our IT department ... its knowing
how many MAJOR issues are caused everytime they migrate something to
Microsoft -- for instance, We just switched from GroupWise to Outlook this
past weekend .. the migration brought down about 100 people for over a half
day because it changed every program we use!! Thanks a helluva lot of
overhead that was caused by Microsoft! This is not a little mom & pop
engineering firm by the way ... its one of the larger ones in the Country!
The IT folks don't allow us to install downloads at will because too many of
them -- particularly from Microsoft change things in other programs and
shared resources ... you can't have 1700 people doing that on a daily basis
-- we'd never get any work done fixing issues caused by Microsoft.
I do find it humorous though ... how many times you and a couple of others
have posted precisely the same post with precisely the same links -- almost
seems like a form letter!
Sherrie
"Graham Mayor" wrote:
You can hardly blame Microsoft for your choice of fonts. The limited number
of formatted fractions is simply attributable to the character set of the
fonts you are using and nothing whatsoever to do with the Word program. What
is ridiculous is the short sightedness of the IT department that prevents
you from using the tools at your disposal. This is to save them work at the
cost of productivity. IT systems are supposed to aid the workforce, not
inhibit them. It is time you urged management to rethink.
You can format numbers to represent fractions, and macros will aid that, or
you can build them manually. The various methods are described at:
http://www.gmayor.com/createfraction.htm
or
http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/Insert_For..._Fractions.htm
or
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Format...teFraction.htm
Alternatively you may be able to find a specialised font that has the extra
characters you require - but then I don't suppose that your bone idle IT
department will allow you to use it 
--
Graham Mayor - Word MVP
My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org
KCSherrie wrote:
I agree wholeheartedly with KGlennC's point. I too work in
engineering, and I also work part time for a furniture store. When I
am placing dimensions of furniture on the tags being displayed with
very expensive furniture, it looks VERY tacky to have some looking
like normal fractions and others full sized numbers ... as for dates,
if you are using 3/21/05 ... you shouldn't get a fraction with that
because there is more than one slash and also ... the fraction
doesn't turn to a fraction until you hit space or enter ... so that
shouldn't be a problem.
There should be a far easier way to accomplish fractions ... for
instance ... I cannot use any of the macros that are suggested
numerous times in the answers to the question on "How to format
Fractions" because my company will not allow us to download or
install anything like this to our computers! Its pretty disgusting
that the only thing that Microsoft thinks is important is someone's
recipe collection.
"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:
I have the existing one turned off already because I still use
slashes in dates. When I was membership chairman for the Friends of
the Library, our annual membership mailing went out in late
December, so we received a lot of dues in early January. I didn't
want 1/2 and 1/4 converted to fractions!
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.
"Jay Freedman" wrote in message
...
I do see KGlennC's point... Being able to write all fractions in a
consistent format with minimal manual work would probably benefit a
lot more users than something like easy-to-use drop caps.
The improvement over Greg's macro that MS could add is to recognize
a fraction automatically in text and trigger AutoFormat, instead of
having to enter the fraction in a special box. In fact, if it were
available I'd consider that to be one of the few AutoFormat As You
Type options that I wouldn't turn off. ;-)
--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 18:41:42 -0600, "Suzanne S. Barnhill"
wrote:
I don't think you can blame Microsoft for the Unicode standard.
Word makes available as made-up fractions those that are available
in common fonts.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.
"KGlennC" wrote in message
...
Neither option is that realistic.
But, I did find a solution elsewhere in this Discussion Group
that APPEARS to work and is very easy to use once you've
developed the Macro and added it to the Toolbar. See
http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/Insert_For..._Fractions.htm
If I can do it (after finding where someone else did it), then
Microsoft could add the same capability/function to its products
very, very easily, thereby ensuring document compatability for
all users. Not sure why Microsoft forces a user to jump through
hoops using EE or adding a zillion AutoCorrect entries.
Apparently, Microsoft doesn't think engineering-related enties
are that important, only cooks and their recipes.
/rant
"Bob Mathews" wrote:
On 25-Feb-2005, wrote:
I own an engineering related company and our documents
look unprofessional in that if not all fractions can be
displayed in the basic fraction format, then I use the "full-
size" format (e.g., 3/16).
One of Microsoft's suggestions discusses recipes; another
recommends using Equation Editor (very, very time
consuming, cumersome and does not return characters
consistent with document font).
Glenn, Equation Editor (EE) returns characters in whatever font
you set it up for. With EE active, the menus on Word's menu bar
aren't Word menus any more; they're EE menus. With EE open,
select Style Define, and set up the fonts to match your
document fonts. Keep in mind that these styles must be set to
Symbol font: Symbol, LC Greek, & UC Greek. Similarly, select Size
Define, and set the Full size to match your document's font
size. Set the rest of the sizes in percent values. I recommend
these values: 58%, 45%, 150%, and 100%, respectively, from top to
bottom after full-size. Be sure to include the % symbol. Setting
these values to percent values allows you to change your font
size by changing only the Full size value.
You can also program as many fractions as you want into Word's
AutoCorrect feature. Obviously there is an infinite number of
fractions, and you can't include them all in AC, but I'm sure
there are many that you use most often. On our web site, we have
a tutorial on doing this:
http://www.dessci.com/en/support/tut...t/tutorial.htm.
This tutorial specifically discusses MathType, the professional
version of EE, but much of what the tutorial discusses can be
done with EE.
--
Bob Mathews
Director of Training 830-990-9699
http://www.dessci.com/free.asp?free=news
FREE fully-functional 30-day evaluation of MathType 5
Design Science, Inc. -- "How Science Communicates"
MathType, WebEQ, MathPlayer, MathFlow, Equation Editor, TeXaide