Dots Across The Page

[RST Engineering]

Whenever I try to use a text break character like this

******************

to separate a couple of independent thoughts in a single Word (Office
10) the program takes away the asterisks and replaces it with a
single line of square dots all the way across the page like this:

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

only square instead of round.

How do I tell Word to mind its own business...if I want dots all the
way across the page I can do it myself.

THanks,

Jim

 

[Jennifer Murphy]

Whenever I try to use a text break character like this

******************

to separate a couple of independent thoughts in a single Word (Office
10) the program takes away the asterisks and replaces it with a
single line of square dots all the way across the page like this:

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

only square instead of round.

How do I tell Word to mind its own business...if I want dots all the
way across the page I can do it myself.

You can use Undo (Ctrl-Z) immediately after any of Word's attempts at
helpfulness to undo the help. Type your asterisks. When Word changes
them into square dots, type Ctrl-Z and you should have your asterisks
back.

I'm not sure if there is one single setting that will disable all of
Word's "helps". The one that i happening to you is probably one of the
autocorrect settings. Those can be disabled, but then you won't get
some others that you might want, like the raised letters for 1st, 2nd,
3rd, etc., the degree symbol, the copyright symbol, and others.

The problem is that most people want the help sometimes and Word has
no way of knowing when and when not.

What I do is set it up the way I want it most of the time and use Undo
when I don't.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/CantGetRidOfLine.htm and
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/TameAutoFormat.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org