[geekgrrl]

Hello,

I am trying to open a .txt file in Word. The .txt file was created on
a mainframe and can be up to 134 characters wide. Is there no way that
I can get this document to display properly upon opening?

If I open the document, change the font used for Plain Text style to be
Courier New 8 point instead of Courier New 10 point, and change the
page layout to Letter Landscape, my mainframe txt file fits on the
page.

I can change (and have changed) the Plain Text style to always be
Courier New 8 point, and change my Normal.dot to have all my documents
automatically open in Letter Landscape with 1" margins. This does not
work when I open a .txt file using Word. It formats the plain text as
if it was letter portrait and places it smack in the middle of my
Letter Landscape page (basically increasing the L/R margins from 1" to
2.17")

Is there a way to change how Word opens and formats a .txt file?
Without having to run extra macros and whatnot? I have a tool that
creates TIFF files by automating the opening and printing txt files
using Word to a special virtual printer, and if I can get Word to open
the .txt file in the format/layout I need then I can use my tool to
automatically convert my (many) txt files to the TIFF files I need.

Thanks,
Sheri

[Klaus Linke]

Hi,

No idea why Word acts that way...
It looks like a bug or very weird design to me.

You could save the document you have formatted the way you like it as a
template, say Text.dot.
Then next time you usually would open a text file, instead create a new
(empty) document based on that template, and use "Insert File" to insert
the text.

Regards,
Klaus



"geekgrrl" wrote:
Hello,

I am trying to open a .txt file in Word. The .txt file was created on
a mainframe and can be up to 134 characters wide. Is there no way that
I can get this document to display properly upon opening?

If I open the document, change the font used for Plain Text style to be
Courier New 8 point instead of Courier New 10 point, and change the
page layout to Letter Landscape, my mainframe txt file fits on the
page.

I can change (and have changed) the Plain Text style to always be
Courier New 8 point, and change my Normal.dot to have all my documents
automatically open in Letter Landscape with 1" margins. This does not
work when I open a .txt file using Word. It formats the plain text as
if it was letter portrait and places it smack in the middle of my
Letter Landscape page (basically increasing the L/R margins from 1" to
2.17")

Is there a way to change how Word opens and formats a .txt file?
Without having to run extra macros and whatnot? I have a tool that
creates TIFF files by automating the opening and printing txt files
using Word to a special virtual printer, and if I can get Word to open
the .txt file in the format/layout I need then I can use my tool to
automatically convert my (many) txt files to the TIFF files I need.

Thanks,
Sheri

[Terry Farrell]

That seems weird and not my experience with Word. Word should wrap your text
automatically: there should be no need to mess around with margins,
orientation or fonts. Are you sure that you haven't enabled the Wrap to
Windows option?

--
Terry Farrell - MS Word MVP

"geekgrrl" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello,

I am trying to open a .txt file in Word. The .txt file was created on
a mainframe and can be up to 134 characters wide. Is there no way that
I can get this document to display properly upon opening?

If I open the document, change the font used for Plain Text style to be
Courier New 8 point instead of Courier New 10 point, and change the
page layout to Letter Landscape, my mainframe txt file fits on the
page.

I can change (and have changed) the Plain Text style to always be
Courier New 8 point, and change my Normal.dot to have all my documents
automatically open in Letter Landscape with 1" margins. This does not
work when I open a .txt file using Word. It formats the plain text as
if it was letter portrait and places it smack in the middle of my
Letter Landscape page (basically increasing the L/R margins from 1" to
2.17")

Is there a way to change how Word opens and formats a .txt file?
Without having to run extra macros and whatnot? I have a tool that
creates TIFF files by automating the opening and printing txt files
using Word to a special virtual printer, and if I can get Word to open
the .txt file in the format/layout I need then I can use my tool to
automatically convert my (many) txt files to the TIFF files I need.

Thanks,
Sheri

[geekgrrl]

Terry,

Thanks for the answer. Normally Word does wrap my text for me. The
problem here seems to be how Word treats plain text (unformatted)
files. Whenever I open a plain text file Word wants to wrap it at 80
characters, no matter what my page layout is. My text file is actually
134 characters wide as it comes from mainframe. You could duplicatate
this by creating a text file in notepad that is greater than 80
characters wide and seeing what happens when you double-click to open
that txt file in Word. My file does have the extension .txt and not
..doc.

Thanks again,
Sheri

Terry Farrell wrote:
That seems weird and not my experience with Word. Word should wrap your text
automatically: there should be no need to mess around with margins,
orientation or fonts. Are you sure that you haven't enabled the Wrap to
Windows option?

--
Terry Farrell - MS Word MVP

"geekgrrl" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello,

I am trying to open a .txt file in Word. The .txt file was created on
a mainframe and can be up to 134 characters wide. Is there no way that
I can get this document to display properly upon opening?

If I open the document, change the font used for Plain Text style to be
Courier New 8 point instead of Courier New 10 point, and change the
page layout to Letter Landscape, my mainframe txt file fits on the
page.

I can change (and have changed) the Plain Text style to always be
Courier New 8 point, and change my Normal.dot to have all my documents
automatically open in Letter Landscape with 1" margins. This does not
work when I open a .txt file using Word. It formats the plain text as
if it was letter portrait and places it smack in the middle of my
Letter Landscape page (basically increasing the L/R margins from 1" to
2.17")

Is there a way to change how Word opens and formats a .txt file?
Without having to run extra macros and whatnot? I have a tool that
creates TIFF files by automating the opening and printing txt files
using Word to a special virtual printer, and if I can get Word to open
the .txt file in the format/layout I need then I can use my tool to
automatically convert my (many) txt files to the TIFF files I need.

Thanks,
Sheri

[geekgrrl]

Klaus,

Thanks for taking the time to answer.
Normally what you suggested would work, but I have lots of these types
of files that I need to convert to TIFF images and I was hoping to find
a way to use a batch conversion tool that I already have.

Thanks again,
Sheri.

Klaus Linke wrote:
Hi,

No idea why Word acts that way...
It looks like a bug or very weird design to me.

You could save the document you have formatted the way you like it as a
template, say Text.dot.
Then next time you usually would open a text file, instead create a new
(empty) document based on that template, and use "Insert File" to insert
the text.

Regards,
Klaus



"geekgrrl" wrote:
Hello,

I am trying to open a .txt file in Word. The .txt file was created on
a mainframe and can be up to 134 characters wide. Is there no way that
I can get this document to display properly upon opening?

If I open the document, change the font used for Plain Text style to be
Courier New 8 point instead of Courier New 10 point, and change the
page layout to Letter Landscape, my mainframe txt file fits on the
page.

I can change (and have changed) the Plain Text style to always be
Courier New 8 point, and change my Normal.dot to have all my documents
automatically open in Letter Landscape with 1" margins. This does not
work when I open a .txt file using Word. It formats the plain text as
if it was letter portrait and places it smack in the middle of my
Letter Landscape page (basically increasing the L/R margins from 1" to
2.17")

Is there a way to change how Word opens and formats a .txt file?
Without having to run extra macros and whatnot? I have a tool that
creates TIFF files by automating the opening and printing txt files
using Word to a special virtual printer, and if I can get Word to open
the .txt file in the format/layout I need then I can use my tool to
automatically convert my (many) txt files to the TIFF files I need.

Thanks,
Sheri

[Graham Mayor]

This is not normal behaviour. Word will wrap the text to the current
margins. If the wrap is fixed at 80 characters then there is a hard return
at 80 characters. You can establish this by pressing SHIFT+* to display the
formatting characters.There will only be a paragraph mark at the end of each
true line. If there are more paragraph marks then you should check your
mainframe output as it appears to be wrapping at 80 characters.

If you want to send me one of your documents to check, then do so to the
link on my web site.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


geekgrrl wrote:
Terry,

Thanks for the answer. Normally Word does wrap my text for me. The
problem here seems to be how Word treats plain text (unformatted)
files. Whenever I open a plain text file Word wants to wrap it at 80
characters, no matter what my page layout is. My text file is
actually 134 characters wide as it comes from mainframe. You could
duplicatate this by creating a text file in notepad that is greater
than 80 characters wide and seeing what happens when you double-click
to open that txt file in Word. My file does have the extension .txt
and not .doc.

Thanks again,
Sheri

Terry Farrell wrote:
That seems weird and not my experience with Word. Word should wrap
your text automatically: there should be no need to mess around with
margins, orientation or fonts. Are you sure that you haven't enabled
the Wrap to Windows option?

--
Terry Farrell - MS Word MVP

"geekgrrl" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello,

I am trying to open a .txt file in Word. The .txt file was created
on a mainframe and can be up to 134 characters wide. Is there no
way that I can get this document to display properly upon opening?

If I open the document, change the font used for Plain Text style
to be Courier New 8 point instead of Courier New 10 point, and
change the page layout to Letter Landscape, my mainframe txt file
fits on the page.

I can change (and have changed) the Plain Text style to always be
Courier New 8 point, and change my Normal.dot to have all my
documents automatically open in Letter Landscape with 1" margins.
This does not work when I open a .txt file using Word. It formats
the plain text as if it was letter portrait and places it smack in
the middle of my Letter Landscape page (basically increasing the
L/R margins from 1" to
2.17")

Is there a way to change how Word opens and formats a .txt file?
Without having to run extra macros and whatnot? I have a tool that
creates TIFF files by automating the opening and printing txt files
using Word to a special virtual printer, and if I can get Word to
open the .txt file in the format/layout I need then I can use my
tool to automatically convert my (many) txt files to the TIFF files
I need.

Thanks,
Sheri

[Poprivet]

geekgrrl wrote:
Klaus,

Thanks for taking the time to answer.
Normally what you suggested would work, but I have lots of these types
of files that I need to convert to TIFF images and I was hoping to
find a way to use a batch conversion tool that I already have.

Thanks again,
Sheri.

Klaus Linke wrote:
Hi,

No idea why Word acts that way...
It looks like a bug or very weird design to me.

You could save the document you have formatted the way you like it
as a template, say Text.dot.
Then next time you usually would open a text file, instead create a
new (empty) document based on that template, and use "Insert File"
to insert the text.

Regards,
Klaus



"geekgrrl" wrote:
Hello,

I am trying to open a .txt file in Word. The .txt file was created
on a mainframe and can be up to 134 characters wide. Is there no
way that I can get this document to display properly upon opening?

If I open the document, change the font used for Plain Text style
to be Courier New 8 point instead of Courier New 10 point, and
change the page layout to Letter Landscape, my mainframe txt file
fits on the page.

I can change (and have changed) the Plain Text style to always be
Courier New 8 point, and change my Normal.dot to have all my
documents automatically open in Letter Landscape with 1" margins.
This does not work when I open a .txt file using Word. It formats
the plain text as if it was letter portrait and places it smack in
the middle of my Letter Landscape page (basically increasing the
L/R margins from 1" to
2.17")

Is there a way to change how Word opens and formats a .txt file?
Without having to run extra macros and whatnot? I have a tool that
creates TIFF files by automating the opening and printing txt files
using Word to a special virtual printer, and if I can get Word to
open the .txt file in the format/layout I need then I can use my
tool to automatically convert my (many) txt files to the TIFF files
I need.

Thanks,
Sheri

Have you tried Wordpad with the Wrap setting where you want it?

With Word, you may have to use Paste Special; have you looked it?

Pop`

[geekgrrl]

Graham,

Thanks for the reply.

When I display the formatting characters, the paragraph mark is at the
end of the line, not where Word wraps the text, so I don't think it is
the mainframe output.

The text file is 134 chars wide with paragraph markers at the end of
each line where I want them. If I load the .txt file, change my Plain
Text style to Courier 8pt and default my page setup to be Letter
Landscape with T/L/R/B margins of 0.5", my mainframe page displays
correctly. I save my style change, and make my current page setup the
default, and close Word. If I open the same file again by
double-clicking on it,or throught File-Open the margins are
automatically adjusted to 2.83" L/R and the file is wrapped.

I can send you the file to look at. I'll send it from your website.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Sheri


Graham Mayor wrote:
This is not normal behaviour. Word will wrap the text to the current
margins. If the wrap is fixed at 80 characters then there is a hard return
at 80 characters. You can establish this by pressing SHIFT+* to display the
formatting characters.There will only be a paragraph mark at the end of each
true line. If there are more paragraph marks then you should check your
mainframe output as it appears to be wrapping at 80 characters.

If you want to send me one of your documents to check, then do so to the
link on my web site.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


geekgrrl wrote:
Terry,

Thanks for the answer. Normally Word does wrap my text for me. The
problem here seems to be how Word treats plain text (unformatted)
files. Whenever I open a plain text file Word wants to wrap it at 80
characters, no matter what my page layout is. My text file is
actually 134 characters wide as it comes from mainframe. You could
duplicatate this by creating a text file in notepad that is greater
than 80 characters wide and seeing what happens when you double-click
to open that txt file in Word. My file does have the extension .txt
and not .doc.

Thanks again,
Sheri

Terry Farrell wrote:
That seems weird and not my experience with Word. Word should wrap
your text automatically: there should be no need to mess around with
margins, orientation or fonts. Are you sure that you haven't enabled
the Wrap to Windows option?

--
Terry Farrell - MS Word MVP

"geekgrrl" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello,

I am trying to open a .txt file in Word. The .txt file was created
on a mainframe and can be up to 134 characters wide. Is there no
way that I can get this document to display properly upon opening?

If I open the document, change the font used for Plain Text style
to be Courier New 8 point instead of Courier New 10 point, and
change the page layout to Letter Landscape, my mainframe txt file
fits on the page.

I can change (and have changed) the Plain Text style to always be
Courier New 8 point, and change my Normal.dot to have all my
documents automatically open in Letter Landscape with 1" margins.
This does not work when I open a .txt file using Word. It formats
the plain text as if it was letter portrait and places it smack in
the middle of my Letter Landscape page (basically increasing the
L/R margins from 1" to
2.17")

Is there a way to change how Word opens and formats a .txt file?
Without having to run extra macros and whatnot? I have a tool that
creates TIFF files by automating the opening and printing txt files
using Word to a special virtual printer, and if I can get Word to
open the .txt file in the format/layout I need then I can use my
tool to automatically convert my (many) txt files to the TIFF files
I need.

Thanks,
Sheri

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

You are not saving the changes in the file that you are opening. The
changes that you have saved as defaults will only apply to new documents.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"geekgrrl" wrote in message
ups.com...
Graham,

Thanks for the reply.

When I display the formatting characters, the paragraph mark is at the
end of the line, not where Word wraps the text, so I don't think it is
the mainframe output.

The text file is 134 chars wide with paragraph markers at the end of
each line where I want them. If I load the .txt file, change my Plain
Text style to Courier 8pt and default my page setup to be Letter
Landscape with T/L/R/B margins of 0.5", my mainframe page displays
correctly. I save my style change, and make my current page setup the
default, and close Word. If I open the same file again by
double-clicking on it,or throught File-Open the margins are
automatically adjusted to 2.83" L/R and the file is wrapped.

I can send you the file to look at. I'll send it from your website.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Sheri


Graham Mayor wrote:
This is not normal behaviour. Word will wrap the text to the current
margins. If the wrap is fixed at 80 characters then there is a hard
return
at 80 characters. You can establish this by pressing SHIFT+* to display
the
formatting characters.There will only be a paragraph mark at the end of
each
true line. If there are more paragraph marks then you should check your
mainframe output as it appears to be wrapping at 80 characters.

If you want to send me one of your documents to check, then do so to the
link on my web site.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


geekgrrl wrote:
Terry,

Thanks for the answer. Normally Word does wrap my text for me. The
problem here seems to be how Word treats plain text (unformatted)
files. Whenever I open a plain text file Word wants to wrap it at 80
characters, no matter what my page layout is. My text file is
actually 134 characters wide as it comes from mainframe. You could
duplicatate this by creating a text file in notepad that is greater
than 80 characters wide and seeing what happens when you double-click
to open that txt file in Word. My file does have the extension .txt
and not .doc.

Thanks again,
Sheri

Terry Farrell wrote:
That seems weird and not my experience with Word. Word should wrap
your text automatically: there should be no need to mess around with
margins, orientation or fonts. Are you sure that you haven't enabled
the Wrap to Windows option?

--
Terry Farrell - MS Word MVP

"geekgrrl" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello,

I am trying to open a .txt file in Word. The .txt file was created
on a mainframe and can be up to 134 characters wide. Is there no
way that I can get this document to display properly upon opening?

If I open the document, change the font used for Plain Text style
to be Courier New 8 point instead of Courier New 10 point, and
change the page layout to Letter Landscape, my mainframe txt file
fits on the page.

I can change (and have changed) the Plain Text style to always be
Courier New 8 point, and change my Normal.dot to have all my
documents automatically open in Letter Landscape with 1" margins.
This does not work when I open a .txt file using Word. It formats
the plain text as if it was letter portrait and places it smack in
the middle of my Letter Landscape page (basically increasing the
L/R margins from 1" to
2.17")

Is there a way to change how Word opens and formats a .txt file?
Without having to run extra macros and whatnot? I have a tool that
creates TIFF files by automating the opening and printing txt files
using Word to a special virtual printer, and if I can get Word to
open the .txt file in the format/layout I need then I can use my
tool to automatically convert my (many) txt files to the TIFF files
I need.

Thanks,
Sheri

[Graham Mayor]

I have had a look at the document you sent me. There is nothing amiss with
that and if you open it in Word, provided there is enough space between the
margins it will wrap correctly. I have posted a macro solution to you that
will do just that.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


geekgrrl wrote:
Graham,

Thanks for the reply.

When I display the formatting characters, the paragraph mark is at the
end of the line, not where Word wraps the text, so I don't think it is
the mainframe output.

The text file is 134 chars wide with paragraph markers at the end of
each line where I want them. If I load the .txt file, change my Plain
Text style to Courier 8pt and default my page setup to be Letter
Landscape with T/L/R/B margins of 0.5", my mainframe page displays
correctly. I save my style change, and make my current page setup the
default, and close Word. If I open the same file again by
double-clicking on it,or throught File-Open the margins are
automatically adjusted to 2.83" L/R and the file is wrapped.

I can send you the file to look at. I'll send it from your website.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Sheri


Graham Mayor wrote:
This is not normal behaviour. Word will wrap the text to the current
margins. If the wrap is fixed at 80 characters then there is a hard
return at 80 characters. You can establish this by pressing SHIFT+*
to display the formatting characters.There will only be a paragraph
mark at the end of each true line. If there are more paragraph marks
then you should check your mainframe output as it appears to be
wrapping at 80 characters.

If you want to send me one of your documents to check, then do so to
the link on my web site.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


geekgrrl wrote:
Terry,

Thanks for the answer. Normally Word does wrap my text for me. The
problem here seems to be how Word treats plain text (unformatted)
files. Whenever I open a plain text file Word wants to wrap it at
80 characters, no matter what my page layout is. My text file is
actually 134 characters wide as it comes from mainframe. You could
duplicatate this by creating a text file in notepad that is greater
than 80 characters wide and seeing what happens when you
double-click to open that txt file in Word. My file does have the
extension .txt and not .doc.

Thanks again,
Sheri

Terry Farrell wrote:
That seems weird and not my experience with Word. Word should wrap
your text automatically: there should be no need to mess around
with margins, orientation or fonts. Are you sure that you haven't
enabled the Wrap to Windows option?

--
Terry Farrell - MS Word MVP

"geekgrrl" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello,

I am trying to open a .txt file in Word. The .txt file was
created on a mainframe and can be up to 134 characters wide. Is
there no way that I can get this document to display properly
upon opening?

If I open the document, change the font used for Plain Text style
to be Courier New 8 point instead of Courier New 10 point, and
change the page layout to Letter Landscape, my mainframe txt file
fits on the page.

I can change (and have changed) the Plain Text style to always be
Courier New 8 point, and change my Normal.dot to have all my
documents automatically open in Letter Landscape with 1" margins.
This does not work when I open a .txt file using Word. It formats
the plain text as if it was letter portrait and places it smack in
the middle of my Letter Landscape page (basically increasing the
L/R margins from 1" to
2.17")

Is there a way to change how Word opens and formats a .txt file?
Without having to run extra macros and whatnot? I have a tool
that creates TIFF files by automating the opening and printing
txt files using Word to a special virtual printer, and if I can
get Word to open the .txt file in the format/layout I need then I
can use my tool to automatically convert my (many) txt files to
the TIFF files I need.

Thanks,
Sheri

[geekgrrl]

Graham,

Wow! Thank you for the macro solution - with your help I was able to
get Word to format the .TXT file the way I wanted it upon opening.
With the macro in place I could use my conversion tool to create TIFF
files from all my mainframe text files.

Thanks again so much. You're a life saver.
Sheri.


Graham Mayor wrote:
I have had a look at the document you sent me. There is nothing amiss with
that and if you open it in Word, provided there is enough space between the
margins it will wrap correctly. I have posted a macro solution to you that
will do just that.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


geekgrrl wrote:
Graham,

Thanks for the reply.

When I display the formatting characters, the paragraph mark is at the
end of the line, not where Word wraps the text, so I don't think it is
the mainframe output.

The text file is 134 chars wide with paragraph markers at the end of
each line where I want them. If I load the .txt file, change my Plain
Text style to Courier 8pt and default my page setup to be Letter
Landscape with T/L/R/B margins of 0.5", my mainframe page displays
correctly. I save my style change, and make my current page setup the
default, and close Word. If I open the same file again by
double-clicking on it,or throught File-Open the margins are
automatically adjusted to 2.83" L/R and the file is wrapped.

I can send you the file to look at. I'll send it from your website.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Sheri


Graham Mayor wrote:
This is not normal behaviour. Word will wrap the text to the current
margins. If the wrap is fixed at 80 characters then there is a hard
return at 80 characters. You can establish this by pressing SHIFT+*
to display the formatting characters.There will only be a paragraph
mark at the end of each true line. If there are more paragraph marks
then you should check your mainframe output as it appears to be
wrapping at 80 characters.

If you want to send me one of your documents to check, then do so to
the link on my web site.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


geekgrrl wrote:
Terry,

Thanks for the answer. Normally Word does wrap my text for me. The
problem here seems to be how Word treats plain text (unformatted)
files. Whenever I open a plain text file Word wants to wrap it at
80 characters, no matter what my page layout is. My text file is
actually 134 characters wide as it comes from mainframe. You could
duplicatate this by creating a text file in notepad that is greater
than 80 characters wide and seeing what happens when you
double-click to open that txt file in Word. My file does have the
extension .txt and not .doc.

Thanks again,
Sheri

Terry Farrell wrote:
That seems weird and not my experience with Word. Word should wrap
your text automatically: there should be no need to mess around
with margins, orientation or fonts. Are you sure that you haven't
enabled the Wrap to Windows option?

--
Terry Farrell - MS Word MVP

"geekgrrl" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello,

I am trying to open a .txt file in Word. The .txt file was
created on a mainframe and can be up to 134 characters wide. Is
there no way that I can get this document to display properly
upon opening?

If I open the document, change the font used for Plain Text style
to be Courier New 8 point instead of Courier New 10 point, and
change the page layout to Letter Landscape, my mainframe txt file
fits on the page.

I can change (and have changed) the Plain Text style to always be
Courier New 8 point, and change my Normal.dot to have all my
documents automatically open in Letter Landscape with 1" margins.
This does not work when I open a .txt file using Word. It formats
the plain text as if it was letter portrait and places it smack in
the middle of my Letter Landscape page (basically increasing the
L/R margins from 1" to
2.17")

Is there a way to change how Word opens and formats a .txt file?
Without having to run extra macros and whatnot? I have a tool
that creates TIFF files by automating the opening and printing
txt files using Word to a special virtual printer, and if I can
get Word to open the .txt file in the format/layout I need then I
can use my tool to automatically convert my (many) txt files to
the TIFF files I need.

Thanks,
Sheri

[Graham Mayor]

You are welcome

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


geekgrrl wrote:
Graham,

Wow! Thank you for the macro solution - with your help I was able to
get Word to format the .TXT file the way I wanted it upon opening.
With the macro in place I could use my conversion tool to create TIFF
files from all my mainframe text files.

Thanks again so much. You're a life saver.
Sheri.


Graham Mayor wrote:
I have had a look at the document you sent me. There is nothing
amiss with that and if you open it in Word, provided there is enough
space between the margins it will wrap correctly. I have posted a
macro solution to you that will do just that.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


geekgrrl wrote:
Graham,

Thanks for the reply.

When I display the formatting characters, the paragraph mark is at
the end of the line, not where Word wraps the text, so I don't
think it is the mainframe output.

The text file is 134 chars wide with paragraph markers at the end of
each line where I want them. If I load the .txt file, change my
Plain Text style to Courier 8pt and default my page setup to be
Letter Landscape with T/L/R/B margins of 0.5", my mainframe page
displays correctly. I save my style change, and make my current
page setup the default, and close Word. If I open the same file
again by double-clicking on it,or throught File-Open the margins are
automatically adjusted to 2.83" L/R and the file is wrapped.

I can send you the file to look at. I'll send it from your website.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Sheri


Graham Mayor wrote:
This is not normal behaviour. Word will wrap the text to the
current margins. If the wrap is fixed at 80 characters then there
is a hard return at 80 characters. You can establish this by
pressing SHIFT+* to display the formatting characters.There will
only be a paragraph mark at the end of each true line. If there
are more paragraph marks then you should check your mainframe
output as it appears to be wrapping at 80 characters.

If you want to send me one of your documents to check, then do so
to the link on my web site.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


geekgrrl wrote:
Terry,

Thanks for the answer. Normally Word does wrap my text for me.
The problem here seems to be how Word treats plain text
(unformatted) files. Whenever I open a plain text file Word
wants to wrap it at 80 characters, no matter what my page layout
is. My text file is actually 134 characters wide as it comes
from mainframe. You could duplicatate this by creating a text
file in notepad that is greater than 80 characters wide and
seeing what happens when you double-click to open that txt file
in Word. My file does have the extension .txt and not .doc.

Thanks again,
Sheri

Terry Farrell wrote:
That seems weird and not my experience with Word. Word should
wrap your text automatically: there should be no need to mess
around with margins, orientation or fonts. Are you sure that you
haven't enabled the Wrap to Windows option?

--
Terry Farrell - MS Word MVP

"geekgrrl" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello,

I am trying to open a .txt file in Word. The .txt file was
created on a mainframe and can be up to 134 characters wide. Is
there no way that I can get this document to display properly
upon opening?

If I open the document, change the font used for Plain Text
style to be Courier New 8 point instead of Courier New 10
point, and change the page layout to Letter Landscape, my
mainframe txt file fits on the page.

I can change (and have changed) the Plain Text style to always
be Courier New 8 point, and change my Normal.dot to have all my
documents automatically open in Letter Landscape with 1"
margins. This does not work when I open a .txt file using Word.
It formats the plain text as if it was letter portrait and
places it smack in the middle of my Letter Landscape page
(basically increasing the L/R margins from 1" to
2.17")

Is there a way to change how Word opens and formats a .txt file?
Without having to run extra macros and whatnot? I have a tool
that creates TIFF files by automating the opening and printing
txt files using Word to a special virtual printer, and if I can
get Word to open the .txt file in the format/layout I need then
I can use my tool to automatically convert my (many) txt files
to the TIFF files I need.

Thanks,
Sheri