[LMB]

We have some "mangled" documents that were originally created in word 2.0.
the creator had 3 columns with 4 rows of text. Not all columns were filled
in with text. To get the 3 columns they used tabs and spaces (Argh!) Others
came along and tried to line up the text in columns so now the text is not
all lined up. Yet another person last week said she lined everything up
using tabs and spaces and said everything was fixed. She was working on the
documents remotly from home on one of our network drives. When I open the
documents on my computer, remotly, from the same drive, the text is not
lined up. I sent the document to my home computer and opened it up and it
looks better but certainly not the same. I have screenshots of both
documents with the paragraph marks on. Would anyone be willing to take a
look and see if they have any ideas? One is 105kb and the other is 78kb. I
could also send the document. I need help figuring out how to fix these
documents also, there are probably 100 or more that were done like this. I
tried changing text to table but I have no idea what number goes with what
column. I think I should insert a table above the text and then drag the
correct info then delete the mangled text.



Thanks,

Linda

[Jay Freedman]

First of all, when you're trying to align items like that, you
definitely need a table, not tabs and spaces. See
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Format...ingColumns.htm for a
discussion of what's appropriate where, and
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/TextReflow.htm for an
explanation of why the document may look different on various
computers.

Second, you don't have to spend hours dragging text into a table. Just
select the text and click Table Convert Text to Table. In the
dialog, make sure the "Separate text at" selection is set to Tabs, and
click OK.

There is some preparation that will prevent problems with this. Make
sure that each paragraph contains the same number of tab characters.
(Click the ¶ button on the toolbar so you can see the tabs and spaces,
and count the arrows that represent tabs.) In the Convert dialog,
check the number of columns it says it's going to create, and make
sure it matches what you think you should get -- if the number in the
dialog is too big, at least one line has too many tabs.

It's a good idea to make a backup copy of the document before you
convert it, so you can go back if there's a disaster. Also, remember
that Undo (Ctrl+Z) is always available until you close the document.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

On Sun, 23 Jul 2006 11:46:24 -0400, "LMB"
wrote:

We have some "mangled" documents that were originally created in word 2.0.
the creator had 3 columns with 4 rows of text. Not all columns were filled
in with text. To get the 3 columns they used tabs and spaces (Argh!) Others
came along and tried to line up the text in columns so now the text is not
all lined up. Yet another person last week said she lined everything up
using tabs and spaces and said everything was fixed. She was working on the
documents remotly from home on one of our network drives. When I open the
documents on my computer, remotly, from the same drive, the text is not
lined up. I sent the document to my home computer and opened it up and it
looks better but certainly not the same. I have screenshots of both
documents with the paragraph marks on. Would anyone be willing to take a
look and see if they have any ideas? One is 105kb and the other is 78kb. I
could also send the document. I need help figuring out how to fix these
documents also, there are probably 100 or more that were done like this. I
tried changing text to table but I have no idea what number goes with what
column. I think I should insert a table above the text and then drag the
correct info then delete the mangled text.



Thanks,

Linda

[LMB]

Thanks, Jay.

I'll take a look at the websites. Luckily we have good backups. I
contacted the network people Friday and got a copy of all of the policy tree
from before July 1st when the "fix the policies endeavor" started. The
group asked for my help about 3 weeks after they started. I did try the
convert text to table and chose 3 columns but there are spaces within the
tabs too so the text wasn't aligned properly in the end. I didn't think
about having the same number of tabs between "columns" for it to work. I
probably just need to fiddle with it a little more to get it to work. At
least I was on the right track it sounds like. The headings are Date
Created, Date Revised, Date Reviewed. Sometimes there are 3 dates under
one heading and none under the others...what a mess! Then the dates are
lined up underneath (mostly). Another thing that shows up when the
paragraph button is on is something like this Private which is dimmed
out. Any idea what that is?

Then there are other issues, like they numbered paragraphs manually instead
of using the bullets and numbering and used L indent, spaces and tab key in
that part too. Some of the paragraphs are justified, some are left
aligned. Probably my next post will be how to make a template with styles
so the styles are available with all the documents. Perhaps we just need to
start over.

Linda


"Jay Freedman" wrote in message
...
First of all, when you're trying to align items like that, you
definitely need a table, not tabs and spaces. See
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Format...ingColumns.htm for a
discussion of what's appropriate where, and
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/TextReflow.htm for an
explanation of why the document may look different on various
computers.

Second, you don't have to spend hours dragging text into a table. Just
select the text and click Table Convert Text to Table. In the
dialog, make sure the "Separate text at" selection is set to Tabs, and
click OK.

There is some preparation that will prevent problems with this. Make
sure that each paragraph contains the same number of tab characters.
(Click the ¶ button on the toolbar so you can see the tabs and spaces,
and count the arrows that represent tabs.) In the Convert dialog,
check the number of columns it says it's going to create, and make
sure it matches what you think you should get -- if the number in the
dialog is too big, at least one line has too many tabs.

It's a good idea to make a backup copy of the document before you
convert it, so you can go back if there's a disaster. Also, remember
that Undo (Ctrl+Z) is always available until you close the document.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

On Sun, 23 Jul 2006 11:46:24 -0400, "LMB"
wrote:

We have some "mangled" documents that were originally created in word 2.0.
the creator had 3 columns with 4 rows of text. Not all columns were
filled
in with text. To get the 3 columns they used tabs and spaces (Argh!)
Others
came along and tried to line up the text in columns so now the text is not
all lined up. Yet another person last week said she lined everything up
using tabs and spaces and said everything was fixed. She was working on
the
documents remotly from home on one of our network drives. When I open the
documents on my computer, remotly, from the same drive, the text is not
lined up. I sent the document to my home computer and opened it up and it
looks better but certainly not the same. I have screenshots of both
documents with the paragraph marks on. Would anyone be willing to take a
look and see if they have any ideas? One is 105kb and the other is 78kb.
I
could also send the document. I need help figuring out how to fix these
documents also, there are probably 100 or more that were done like this.
I
tried changing text to table but I have no idea what number goes with what
column. I think I should insert a table above the text and then drag the
correct info then delete the mangled text.



Thanks,

Linda

[Beth Melton]

While Jay provided the answer you are looking for, the reason this
happens is due to the printer driver used when you open the document.

Word uses the printer driver to display your document so it will look
the same on the screen as it looks when printed. Unfortunately, each
printer paginates differently and the amount of space for each
character and line may differ. That's why aligning data using a bunch
of tabs and spaces has been a long standing issue in word processing
software, (I encountered this back in the days of WP 5.1), and why
users should get a little training before they start using Word as a
glorified typewriter. ;-)

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/


"LMB" wrote in message
...
We have some "mangled" documents that were originally created in
word 2.0. the creator had 3 columns with 4 rows of text. Not all
columns were filled in with text. To get the 3 columns they used
tabs and spaces (Argh!) Others came along and tried to line up the
text in columns so now the text is not all lined up. Yet another
person last week said she lined everything up using tabs and spaces
and said everything was fixed. She was working on the documents
remotly from home on one of our network drives. When I open the
documents on my computer, remotly, from the same drive, the text is
not lined up. I sent the document to my home computer and opened it
up and it looks better but certainly not the same. I have
screenshots of both documents with the paragraph marks on. Would
anyone be willing to take a look and see if they have any ideas?
One is 105kb and the other is 78kb. I could also send the document.
I need help figuring out how to fix these documents also, there are
probably 100 or more that were done like this. I tried changing
text to table but I have no idea what number goes with what column.
I think I should insert a table above the text and then drag the
correct info then delete the mangled text.



Thanks,

Linda

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You might also want to see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/SettingTabs.htm and
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/TableBasics.htm, which deal
specifically with aligning table columns.

--
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
...
First of all, when you're trying to align items like that, you
definitely need a table, not tabs and spaces. See
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Format...ingColumns.htm for a
discussion of what's appropriate where, and
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/TextReflow.htm for an
explanation of why the document may look different on various
computers.

Second, you don't have to spend hours dragging text into a table. Just
select the text and click Table Convert Text to Table. In the
dialog, make sure the "Separate text at" selection is set to Tabs, and
click OK.

There is some preparation that will prevent problems with this. Make
sure that each paragraph contains the same number of tab characters.
(Click the ¶ button on the toolbar so you can see the tabs and spaces,
and count the arrows that represent tabs.) In the Convert dialog,
check the number of columns it says it's going to create, and make
sure it matches what you think you should get -- if the number in the
dialog is too big, at least one line has too many tabs.

It's a good idea to make a backup copy of the document before you
convert it, so you can go back if there's a disaster. Also, remember
that Undo (Ctrl+Z) is always available until you close the document.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

On Sun, 23 Jul 2006 11:46:24 -0400, "LMB"
wrote:

We have some "mangled" documents that were originally created in word
2.0.
the creator had 3 columns with 4 rows of text. Not all columns were
filled
in with text. To get the 3 columns they used tabs and spaces (Argh!)
Others
came along and tried to line up the text in columns so now the text is
not
all lined up. Yet another person last week said she lined everything up
using tabs and spaces and said everything was fixed. She was working on
the
documents remotly from home on one of our network drives. When I open the
documents on my computer, remotly, from the same drive, the text is not
lined up. I sent the document to my home computer and opened it up and
it
looks better but certainly not the same. I have screenshots of both
documents with the paragraph marks on. Would anyone be willing to take a
look and see if they have any ideas? One is 105kb and the other is 78kb.
I
could also send the document. I need help figuring out how to fix these
documents also, there are probably 100 or more that were done like this.
I
tried changing text to table but I have no idea what number goes with
what
column. I think I should insert a table above the text and then drag the
correct info then delete the mangled text.



Thanks,

Linda