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251

General Software Discussion / Re: align specific text in MS Office

« Last post by AndyM on June 03, 2010, 02:26 AM »

you could use tabs:

252

General Software Discussion / Re: align specific text in MS Office

« Last post by AndyM on June 02, 2010, 09:06 PM »

Turn on ShowFormattingMarks so you can see the endPara mark.

Here's what it should look like.  Notice the endPara mark I inserted after "dapibus", I just hit the enter key.
(Btw, if all your lines end in an endPara mark, you'll have to take a different approach, or remove them and do it like this.)



Oops, should have moved the right indent a shade out so "felis" didn't jump to the next line.

253

General Software Discussion / Re: align specific text in MS Office

« Last post by AndyM on June 02, 2010, 05:56 PM »

One way (the only easy way I can think of at the moment) -

I'm assuming your example is all one paragraph. 

Make it three paragraphs, the selected portion to be the middle one.  Then you can indent that paragraph as you see fit.  You'll have to play with the right paragraph indent if your text flows to an extra line in an undesireable way.

Make the SpaceBefore and SpaceAfter for the middle paragraph zero; the space after the first paragraph and the space before the third paragraph also have to be zero in order to maintain the appearance of single spacing.

If you have to do this often (break out a paragraph in the middle of a bigger paragraph and indent it), write a macro. 

254

Living Room / Re: Google Ditches Windows on Security Concerns

« Last post by AndyM on June 01, 2010, 12:03 PM »

god i feel like a paranoid nut.

-mouser (June 01, 2010, 11:42 AM)

no, just appropriately cynical

255

General Software Discussion / Re: Word 2007: Are Table Styles safe to use now?

« Last post by AndyM on May 28, 2010, 12:49 PM »

Another advantage to processing text in Word compared to Excel is that the Search & Replace in Word is more powerful.  Many of the tricks to massage imported data require clever Search&Replacing.

But I do find Excel easier to use to parse or concatenate strings.  And if your data includes dates, a pass thru Excel can save grief and time.

256

General Software Discussion / Re: Word 2007: Are Table Styles safe to use now?

« Last post by AndyM on May 28, 2010, 12:45 PM »

...  So is that what you would do?  Use html export from IQ, and then paste in Word and apply a table style? ...

-superboyac (May 28, 2010, 12:20 PM)

Unless they work in Word 2007, not a table style!!!  If it doesn't import as a table, import it as tabbed data.  Then turn it into a table (Table>convert>...).  Once it's a table, then apply paragraph styles column by column (usually everything in a single column has the same basic format).  Select a cell's contents, make it pretty, name a style after it.  Select the whole column (and any other suitable columns) and apply that paragraph style.   

btw, Word stores paragraph formatting in the endPara mark (the pilcrow).  If you have the cursor in the paragraph, with nothing selected, then any paragraph style you apply will automatically be applied to the whole paragraph (same as if you selected the entire paragraph including the endPara mark).  If you select part of the paragraph, which also includes the scenario where you select everything except the endPara mark, then the style will be applied as a character style, not what you want.  (Remember the difference between including and not including the endPara mark when you select and copy.  When pasting into another document this will determine whether or not the style also gets pasted.  Experiment.)

The thing about table cells:  they are paragraphs without endPara marks.  I think the little shaded square that appears at the end of cell text, when you show formatting marks, serves the same purpose.

You can use end para marks in a table cell, but I usually use line breaks if I want to force a newline.  That way everything, both sides of any line breaks, is still all in the same paragraph.

257

General Software Discussion / Re: Word 2007: Are Table Styles safe to use now?

« Last post by AndyM on May 28, 2010, 12:22 PM »

superboyac, I wonder what the data looked like originally, the data you imported.  Because when I look at the example you posted, my first thought is Word.  This just looks like a natural for a Word table, right from scratch.  And the fact that these are not one-line records would make tabs the wrong tool here imo.  Plus as soon as you want borders around the cells, tabs stop being convenient.

The stuff they talk about in the article, I have run into that sort of problem.  In general the bulk of the problems seem to happen when you are copying and pasting cells (as opposed to just the text).  When there are no merged cells (problematic in both Word and Excel and worth avoiding), I usually don't have problems moving/adding/deleting/copying/sorting whole rows or columns.  Tried a table within a table once or twice, never again.  Merging tables has at times caused major headaches.

I do serious and extensive version saving/backup while I'm working and check carefully that things are ok before I press on.  Mutters heard often from my corner:  "shouldn'ta done that, sure glad I saved a version just before I tried it."

258

General Software Discussion / Re: Word 2007: Are Table Styles safe to use now?

« Last post by AndyM on May 27, 2010, 11:35 PM »

Here's an example of what I'd like the glossary to look like.  This is done in excel: (see attachment in previous post)

-superboyac (May 27, 2010, 06:09 PM)

What happens when you copy that table from Excel and simply paste it into Word?

And when you talk about "headers" I only see the one (Item   Description) at the top of your sample.  I assume there are others since it's easy to make the first row/rows of a Word table repeat at the top of each page.

259

General Software Discussion / Re: Word 2007: Are Table Styles safe to use now?

« Last post by AndyM on May 27, 2010, 11:29 PM »

I would have to say, though, much of the reasons provided for Word being "easier" is because of lack of knowledge

-steeladept (May 27, 2010, 01:38 PM)

I wasn't trying to come up with any comprehensive list, only tossed out a few things that came to mind after reading the posts. My "knowledge" is based on what I have found useful.  In any event, I've used tables extensively in Word, and "tables" extensively in Excel.  My successful experience with both is making it difficult to persuade me that there is any validity to the idea that tables should rarely if ever be used in Word. I'll listen to the arguments, but so far they are not consistent with my experience, which is that tables in Word are often handy, useful, and the right tool for the job.

Word tables can be handy for entering data or for composing/designing when you know you will have some kind of row/column setup but not sure what the final layout will be.  The kind of thing I have in mind would be tedious using tabs (which most definitely have their place - tables aren't always the best tool).

-AndyM (May 26, 2010, 10:03 PM)

Word was never designed for final layout inline with composition anyway, so this really is something of a non-issue.  If you create the data, then apply formatting, you are following the workflow Word was designed for.  If you are creating the layout and then filling in the content, tables are much more efficient, and that is the way Excel is designed and should be used - hence my statement about using the correct tool for the job.

-steeladept (May 27, 2010, 01:38 PM)

Not sure you and I are talking about the same thing here.  When I say compose, I mean something from scratch, all sorts of different things.  If I am manipulating primarily text - text that I am writing, importing, or both - nine times out of ten I will find Word to be the more suitable tool, Excel only rarely.

Re "Word was never designed for final layout inline with composition..." , what do you mean by "final layout inline with composition?"

260

General Software Discussion / Re: Word 2007: Are Table Styles safe to use now?

« Last post by AndyM on May 27, 2010, 09:57 AM »

You set the nine tabstops (for ten columns) for the first row at the top (the ruler thing), or set them in the tab settings dialog, spaced the way you want.

You enter data across, inserting a tab to jump to the next column.  When you get to the end of the row, you hit enter, which ends the single-line paragraph and starts a new paragraph with the identical tabstops already there.  Enter the next row.

If you already have some kind of delimited data, you replace the delimiters with tabs if necessary and paste the data instead of typing it in.

Since each line is a paragraph (it's handy to show the formatting marks - ShowAll, the pilcrow symbol - to see the tabs and the endparagraph marks), you set the space before/after each line to zero in Paragraph settings.

There are several different types of tabstops (right/left aligned, center, decimal).  Btw, the way to make things line up by decimal in a table is to use decimal tabstops.

You can create a style from your 10-column paragraph, and any time you apply it to a line with 9 tabs it will look the same.

261

General Software Discussion / Re: Word 2007: Are Table Styles safe to use now?

« Last post by AndyM on May 26, 2010, 10:03 PM »

Why would you need tables in your Word document?

-steeladept (May 26, 2010, 07:33 PM)

among other reasons, easiest way to do certain kinds of underlining.  also handy for forms, both printed and fill-in-the-blanks.  Unless you are using VBA to do forms in Excel (powerful but much more to learn), Word is much handier for fill in the blank stuff.  Without using tables it's almost impossible to keep variable length fields from changing your line-length and therefore your pagination.

Word tables can be handy for entering data or for composing/designing when you know you will have some kind of row/column setup but not sure what the final layout will be.  The kind of thing I have in mind would be tedious using tabs (which most definitely have their place - tables aren't always the best tool).

Generally it's easier to line things up with a table than with tabs.  Except when it's not.

(Word 2002)  I've always found Table Styles to be useless, so I've never used them enough to cause the formatting problems cited in the excerpt from superboyac's post.

As far as the other things it says not to do because they lead to instability,  I've already learned not to do them, but not due to instability problems.  Some of the things he talks about (tables within tables, merging or splitting cells) I don't do because they don't turn out to be useful, don't work well enough to be useful, or make things tougher (eg merged cells make selecting rows/columns and a few other things difficult).

I've never had instability problems using tables, but my tables are seldom complicated, and rarely more than a few pages. 

If you are talking about a generic table (rows and columns), sometimes Word is better, sometimes Excel is better.  Word is usually much better if there's much text and fancy formatting, Excel if the numeric formulas are anything more than really simple (try copying a calculated field formula with cell references down a column in Word).

If I'm importing rows and columns of data that I'm ultimately going to put in Word, sometimes it's easier to first import the data into Excel, do some massaging/formatting and then copy it to Word where it automatically turns into a table, and then finish the massaging and formatting.  This is because some things are easier in Excel than Word and the reverse.

Holy crap:
Do Not Use Tables!!

-superboyac (May 26, 2010, 05:37 PM)

interesting, but what did you do?  Was it a massive table? did it have some sort of complex styling going on?

-Target (May 26, 2010, 05:56 PM)

Yeah, what did you do? 

262

Living Room / Re: Sexual harassment taken too far...

« Last post by AndyM on May 19, 2010, 07:21 PM »

Okay (seriously) ...Zoologists aside ... How many of the guys here would feel comfortable sharing the fruit bat BJ article with a female coworker?

Me no, because the content is way to easy to misinterpret, intent wise.

-Stoic Joker (May 19, 2010, 06:05 PM)

You'd have to be completely clueless to not think this sort of thing could cause a very sticky problem.

263

General Software Discussion / Re: What to use to back up 1:1 ?

« Last post by AndyM on May 18, 2010, 10:07 AM »

I use Acronis Home 11 and have an older version on another machine.  I don't use it for incremental backups, simply do a full image of each of my two hard drives every few days.

Each drive has around 20g, the .tib files are around 10g each.  It takes around 15 minutes to image each drive and around the same to verify the backup.  Total time around an hour.

I've had to restore backups to each computer a couple of times, no problem.  Plus it's been easy to retrieve individual files/folders from the .tib files.

264

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me with MS Word styles

« Last post by AndyM on May 18, 2010, 08:47 AM »

I need to make a glossary.  What is the best (or most stable) way to do it in Word 2007?  I tried finding articles, but nothing was clear to me.  I'd like to have two columns, the terms on the right left in bold, and the definitions on the right in normal style.

-superboyac (May 17, 2010, 11:36 PM)

I'd use a two-column table with no borders (show gridlines while you are setting it up).  Set up the first column to be bold, the second column not bold, etc.  Good way to learn about tables.  Watch out for the paragraph settings for SpaceBefore and SpaceAfter, can be very confusing for tight tables.  Usually easiest to start with zero before and after - you can also control vertical spacing with the table row settings.  The key here is to have one Style for the first column and a second Style for the left column.  

You can sort on the first column.  Use the OutlineMoveUp and OutlineMoveDown commands to manually move rows up and down with keystrokes (works with any paragraphs).  Then when you see how handy that is, write a macro to do the same thing in Excel (or ask me for mine) - move a row/rows up or down with a keystroke.

(anything I say is based on my experience with Word/Excel 2002,2003.  Other than the interface, almost everything works the same in 2007 as far as I know)

On the advice of the wise geeks, I never use the Normal style.  I have several sets of styles independent of each other.  Each set's style is based on one main style for that set so changes to the main style only ripples thru that set.  The ones I use most often are BT (bodytext) and all it's derivatives (different spacing, indents, tabs, etc), and my numbering/list styles (Num, Num1, Num2, NumPara, NumPara1, NumPara2, etc).

I also have a few styles I use in table cells (TabCell, TabCellTxt, etc).

The styles live in my normal.dot file.  When I use them in a new document, if necessary I modify them for that document.  You have to learn how to import a style from your template (normal.dot or something.dot) or another file into someone else's file if you want to use your styles in that file (either copy a paragraph or use whatever Word 2007 uses for an Organizer).

265

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me with MS Word styles

« Last post by AndyM on May 17, 2010, 09:14 PM »

PPS  If it's really important that everyone sees the exact same thing when they are reading your document, distribute it as a .pdf.

Word formats a document wysiwyg for the current printer.  When the document is opened on a machine with a different printer, the margins, number of pages, page breaks, and a bunch of other stuff can look different.  But a pdf will always display the same. 

266

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me with MS Word styles

« Last post by AndyM on May 17, 2010, 09:09 PM »

Oh yeah, biggest no-no in Word:

Empty paragraphs.  You don't hit the Enter key to skip a line.  You use the Space After (and/or Space Before) settings for the paragraph.  Which is cumbersome if you don't use styles.

2nd biggest no-no:

Manual page breaks.  Use the PageBreakBefore and KeepTogether settings to control pagination when you have to override the automatic paging.

267

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me with MS Word styles

« Last post by AndyM on May 17, 2010, 09:05 PM »

Before this, I would use Word only as a basic text editor.  All I would do is click the bold/italic buttons, change some fonts, etc.  I'm glad to see that I can do a lot of other things with it.

-superboyac (May 17, 2010, 12:02 PM)

I was perfectly happy running OS/2 and doing all my writing using a text editor, and had been for years.  In a matter of months I had to buy an XP computer, learn Windows, Word and Excel 2002, and produce a 75 page booklet compiled from a disparate collection of .doc, .xls, .pdf and wordperfect files, emails, and hard copy.  The booklet pages were 5.5" x 8.5" but all the copy was formatted for 8.5 x 11.  Couldn't just shrink the pages, every single one had to be reformatted.

I did it all in Word, converting Excel sheets into tables.  It was a nasty crash course, and knowing I'd have it to again the next year I put time into learning the software.  The following year went much smoother, but had I not had such a pressing need I would never have learned so much so fast.

Let's say I wanted to put together a nicely formatted booklet.  Would I use Adobe InDesign (which I like, but don't know how to use yet), MS Word, or both?  Shouldn't InDesign be able to do all these things like managing styles, fields, etc.?

-superboyac (May 17, 2010, 12:02 PM)

I know you can make a decent booklet using Word 2002, but I don't know if or how much InDesign would make that easier.  Perhaps someone familiar with both programs?

What is the best forum to get answers to Microsoft Word questions?  I like the tutorials shown in this thread, but a lot of what they say is for Word 2003 or older.  And while they may apply to 2007 also, i want to know for sure.  For example, the experts say to avoid using tables because of instability issues, but I wonder if that is fixed in 2007.  Also, I want to know if some of the fancier features, like Building Blocks, are ok to use, or if they are also unstable.  Thanks.

-superboyac (May 17, 2010, 06:12 PM)

The microsoft.public.word newsgroups are good (the excel newsgroups are better) for getting questions answered.  I find for general things I'm better off checking all the MVP and Word guru sites for articles when I'm delving into something.

Re tables, I don't know about unstable, but they can be a real pita.  Perhaps in Word 2007 it's better (I seem to remember talk of improvements here), but table styles don't work well at all.  This is different from using paragraph styles and character styles in tables, which work fine (except watch out for endpara marks in table cells, not necessary).  

What I have read is unstable is the whole Master document scheme, but I've never had a reason to find out.

I spent huge amounts of time learning this stuff (and I don't know that much but what I do know has been helpful).  I did most of it on my own time, either when I was self-employed or when I was working in an office.  No way would a boss pay me to put that kind of time in on his nickel.

I also got a broadband connection when I was learning Windows, Word, and Excel.  Boy did I learn to love Google.

268

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me with MS Word styles

« Last post by AndyM on May 17, 2010, 10:42 AM »

In case kfitting doesnt' answer this right off -

It's not an error.  Looks like it's simply a message telling you that your TOC doesn't use fields (a toc field), but instead must use Headers (don't ask me, I set up my tables of contents using fields).

It's just info.  Comment it out by putting a ' in front of the msgbox line ('msgbox "TOC.....).

269

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me with MS Word styles

« Last post by AndyM on May 14, 2010, 09:50 PM »

For all the negative stuff we see and hear about all things MS, at the end of the day their office suite is incredibly capable and powerful if we only knew how to use it to it's fullest (I know I wish I did  )     

-Target (May 13, 2010, 11:23 PM)

You know, this exact thought was probably the biggest lesson in all of this for me.  I have the tendency to bash the big time companies, not to mention my consistent railing against Word.  But now, I'm realizing that, yes, it is a powerful program.  It's me that has to learn how to use it.  And I don't know why that wasn't my attitude to begin with.  After all, software is a tool, it's up to you to learn to use it or even want to use it.  Anyway, this has all been very good for me.

-superboyac (May 14, 2010, 08:46 AM)

This was my story then, and I'm sticking with it  :

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=5372.msg49315#msg49315

270

General Software Discussion / Re: Help me with MS Word styles

« Last post by AndyM on May 14, 2010, 09:44 PM »

I'll bet someone at work is pretty good with VB.

-superboyac (May 14, 2010, 06:49 PM)

VBA Express, like DonationCoder for vba.  Someone will always answer your question and will often write some (or a lot) of code:

http://vbaexpress.com/forum/

271

General Software Discussion / Re: HowTo repair/replace tcpip.sys ?

« Last post by AndyM on May 14, 2010, 12:41 PM »

I believe the common factor is situated 40 inches in front of the monitor...

-Curt (May 14, 2010, 08:16 AM)

272

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: folder type templater

« Last post by AndyM on May 09, 2010, 12:33 PM »

I still think it would be a great utility to be able to copy setting views from folder to folder

-RealRaven (May 09, 2010, 05:54 AM)

me too

273

General Software Discussion / Re: an entire drive suddenly missing!

« Last post by AndyM on May 06, 2010, 09:39 AM »

a backup of the backup drive

or simply two rotated backup drives, so even if the one with the most recent backup tanks, you still have the previous one

274

Finished Programs / Re: autohotkey makes cursor slide - i want mouse movement to halt the slide

« Last post by AndyM on May 05, 2010, 09:24 PM »

i've been using this simple script to slide my cursor around my screen(s) by hitting buttons on my house

-nudone (May 05, 2010, 05:10 PM)

Clearly you need to modify the home keys.

-cranioscopical (May 05, 2010, 06:03 PM)

275

Living Room / Re: A really cool modern visual illusion

« Last post by AndyM on May 03, 2010, 11:37 AM »

maybe i'm the only one who finds this cool and for whom it seems like a visual illusion?

-mouser (May 03, 2010, 03:09 AM)

nope, very cool and a little shocking that visual perception is so easily manipulated.

Of course, it doesn't work with simpler schemes, such as Linux-KDE:

-zridling (May 03, 2010, 07:50 AM)

it does work, a little.  I see the separator bars around the Save/SaveAs buttons as depressed in the top view, and raised in the bottom, rotated view.
But the scroll bar looks raised in both views.