formatting 1 line

[Kathryn]

I'm using Word 2000 and can't get it to format correctly. I'm using it to
make letterhead that is supposed to have the street address on the left edge
of the page and the phone number on the right edge, then on the next line
the city, state, zip on the left edge and the fax number on the right edge.

I can open it from WordPerfect and it may or may not look right. I can also
type it in from scratch and have the same problem. What it does is that
instead of staying the way it's entered, it spreads out the words so that
the city is at the left edge, state is about 3 inches over, zip is another 3
over and then the fax number is push over even farther. It ends up wrapping
to 2 lines. Both of the lines do this. If I open it from WordPerfect, it
may look fine to start with but then it changes to what I just described.
If I delete 1 space from between city and state, it's all run together like
one word. It didn't add spaces, it changed the spaces into tabs or
something, but I can't seen any formatting that is there.

Any ideas on how to make it stay the way I enter it?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Do yourself a favor and enable display of nonprinting characters (Ctrl+*) so
that you can see the spaces and tab characters you are dealing with. My
guess is that you're using multiple tab characters, combined with Justified
paragraph alignment. See
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Formatting/SettingTabs.htm for advice on
correct use of tabs. If you're creating your letterhead in the header
paragraph (as you should), you should know that the Header style has a
built-in center tab stop at the center of the line and a right tab stop at
the right margin. For more on this see
http://home.zebra.net/~sbarnhill/Letterhead.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Kathryn]

I turned that on. I have no tabs at all. I have no paragraph formatting
set. It's a total of 8 lines, each with a return at the end. What happens
is that I have city, state, zip then spaces to put the fax number at the
other end of the line. It for some reason is longer than I entered. If I
go to the end of the zip and delete 1 space, it fits on the line. I can
save it; close it and reopen it. When I reopen it, it looks like it did
before I changed it, with the line wrapping. The line above that one seems
to be fine. It looks like it should. I'm using left justification for that
line; however, I can change it to full, right or center justification and it
remains the same. (Like it should, since it is supposed to be one entire
line exactly.) The line that's a problem, I have on left justification and
it behaves as I described above. If I set it to full justification, it
spaces it all out funny like I described before. At the left edge, it says
"Durham" and has a . to show a space (JUST 1 SPACE) and then 3 inches away
is the "NC" then another 3 inches to the zip code, then all the spaces that
are there to separate the address from the fax number run off the right edge
of the page and wrap around to the next line and the fax number is on the
2nd line of this line. For both left and full justification, the fax number
starts on the 2nd line. There is a small square at the beginning of this
line. When I try to find out what it is, it tells me it's the selection
bar, which it is not.

It prints out just the way it looks on the screen, too.

Do yourself a favor and enable display of nonprinting characters (Ctrl+*) so
that you can see the spaces and tab characters you are dealing with. My
guess is that you're using multiple tab characters, combined with Justified
paragraph alignment. See
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Formatting/SettingTabs.htm for advice on
correct use of tabs. If you're creating your letterhead in the header
paragraph (as you should), you should know that the Header style has a
built-in center tab stop at the center of the line and a right tab stop at
the right margin. For more on this see
http://home.zebra.net/~sbarnhill/Letterhead.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

I'm using Word 2000 and can't get it to format correctly. I'm using it to
make letterhead that is supposed to have the street address on the left edge
of the page and the phone number on the right edge, then on the next line
the city, state, zip on the left edge and the fax number on the right edge.

I can open it from WordPerfect and it may or may not look right. I can also
type it in from scratch and have the same problem. What it does is that
instead of staying the way it's entered, it spreads out the words so that
the city is at the left edge, state is about 3 inches over, zip is

another

 

[Kathryn]

I'm not trying to create letterhead in a header paragraph. I'm unfamiliar
with Word and find it very
awkward to use. Even when I tell it to show all formatting marks, for
instance, I can't tell why one paragraph is formatted different than the
next because there are no marks that are different in one than the next. I
need to be able to use it simply because alot of our clients use it and I
can send attachments to them in Word.

All I want is to be able to open a document that has the letterhead on it,
type up my letter and then save it with a different name. Then I can use
the same, unchanged letterhead again and again. Not a difficult concept.
Very, very simple in WordPerfect.

The link you sent about letterheads is either dead or down.

Do yourself a favor and enable display of nonprinting characters (Ctrl+*) so
that you can see the spaces and tab characters you are dealing with. My
guess is that you're using multiple tab characters, combined with Justified
paragraph alignment. See
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Formatting/SettingTabs.htm for advice on
correct use of tabs. If you're creating your letterhead in the header
paragraph (as you should), you should know that the Header style has a
built-in center tab stop at the center of the line and a right tab stop at
the right margin. For more on this see
http://home.zebra.net/~sbarnhill/Letterhead.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

I'm using Word 2000 and can't get it to format correctly. I'm using it to
make letterhead that is supposed to have the street address on the left edge
of the page and the phone number on the right edge, then on the next line
the city, state, zip on the left edge and the fax number on the right edge.

I can open it from WordPerfect and it may or may not look right. I can also
type it in from scratch and have the same problem. What it does is that
instead of staying the way it's entered, it spreads out the words so that
the city is at the left edge, state is about 3 inches over, zip is

another

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You should not be using spaces to align your text. Set tab stops as needed
and insert tab characters as required.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

I turned that on. I have no tabs at all. I have no paragraph formatting
set. It's a total of 8 lines, each with a return at the end. What happens
is that I have city, state, zip then spaces to put the fax number at the
other end of the line. It for some reason is longer than I entered. If I
go to the end of the zip and delete 1 space, it fits on the line. I can
save it; close it and reopen it. When I reopen it, it looks like it did
before I changed it, with the line wrapping. The line above that one seems
to be fine. It looks like it should. I'm using left justification for that
line; however, I can change it to full, right or center justification and it
remains the same. (Like it should, since it is supposed to be one entire
line exactly.) The line that's a problem, I have on left justification and
it behaves as I described above. If I set it to full justification, it
spaces it all out funny like I described before. At the left edge, it says
"Durham" and has a . to show a space (JUST 1 SPACE) and then 3 inches away
is the "NC" then another 3 inches to the zip code, then all the spaces that
are there to separate the address from the fax number run off the right edge
of the page and wrap around to the next line and the fax number is on the
2nd line of this line. For both left and full justification, the fax number
starts on the 2nd line. There is a small square at the beginning of this
line. When I try to find out what it is, it tells me it's the selection
bar, which it is not.

It prints out just the way it looks on the screen, too.

Do yourself a favor and enable display of nonprinting characters

(Ctrl+*)

so
that you can see the spaces and tab characters you are dealing with. My
guess is that you're using multiple tab characters, combined with Justified
paragraph alignment. See
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Formatting/SettingTabs.htm for advice on
correct use of tabs. If you're creating your letterhead in the header
paragraph (as you should), you should know that the Header style has a
built-in center tab stop at the center of the line and a right tab stop at
the right margin. For more on this see
http://home.zebra.net/~sbarnhill/Letterhead.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the

newsgroup

so
all may benefit.

it

to left
edge can
also another

WordPerfect,

 

[Susan W. Gallagher]

Kathryn
Set the paragraph alignment to Justify
Type the street address using non-breaking spaces (Shift+Ctrl+spacebar) between the words. Press the spacebar once to type a regular space, then type the phone number using non-breaking spaces within it as well. Press Shift+Enter to move to the next line and use the same technique for the city/stat/zip and the fax number

 

[Kathryn]

Okay, I set it to justify. I aligned the text up where I wanted it to be
and set tab stops. I removed all the spaces and hit the tab button. The
ruler at the top shows the tabs are set where I told them to be but the text
doesn't go there. The tabs are set where I put them but the text does not
go there when I hit tab. What is that about?? What is wrong now?

Why won't spaces work? It should be a simple thing to say put this
character here and then go this many spaces and put the next character.
They must have had lots and lots of problems with formatting changing as it
goes along if they had to invent a new space that can't be adjusted by their
software.

Why is it that I can do something and it's just the way I want it and I save
it that way, but when I reopen it, the software changes it? Is there
something in my settings that's doing that? One line is fine and the next
won't work right. That doesn't make any sense at all.

Why is this so complicated? It is not a difficult thing I am trying to do.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You've been given an answer that does use spaces (nonbreak and regular), but
when using tabs, you don't necessarily want the paragraph to be Justified.
Are you using a right tab stop at the right margin? Are you sure there are
no other intervening tab stops (if you want text aligned just left and
right, you should not need more than one tab stop)? Are you pressing Tab
just once?

This is *not* complicated. If you will go back and reread
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Formatting/SettingTabs.htm, you will see that
it is very simple. You set a tab stop where (and only where) you want to
align text. You use a left, right, center, or decimal tab stop depending on
how you want the text aligned. You don't ever use the built-in tab stops or
(ideally) have to press Tab more than once to get to a tab stop.

The reason you can't use spaces is that, in working with proportional fonts,
different characters have different widths, so a space is not the same width
as a character, and what you see on the screen may not be exactly what
prints out, no matter how WYSIWYG the display.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Kathryn]

It is in fact complicated when Word help does not explain types of tab stops
anywhere. Left right and centered tab stops are counterintuitive when
you've used either typewriters or word processors that only have standard
tabs all of your life. It really shouldn't be necessary to have to do
research to figure out how to use a tab, but it was. Much more complicated
than necessary. If they are going to put different types of tabs in the
software, shouldn't they explain them in the help section that comes with
it? Also, I still don't understand why I can save it the way I want it but
it changes it when using spaces. There is no change of font involved, so it
should just do what I tell it to do. It's just very frustrating that you
can't just start using the software without having to do a lot of research
to understand why it does what it does.

Anyway, reading this last message I figured out what was wrong and was able
to get it to look the way I want it by using the tabs. Thank you very much
for your help.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I agree that Word's Help assumes that you are familiar with tabs other than
left ones (in fact, my typewriter also has center and left stops). If you're
new to word processing, you might want to see these articles:

Getting started in Microsoft Word
http://home.zebra.net/~sbarnhill/GettingStarted.htm

Basic Concepts of Microsoft Word
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/concepts/introduction/index.html


--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Kathryn]

I'm not at all new to word processing. It's just that this software is
clearly awkward until you figure it out. Many things seem backwards from
what would make sense and things that should be simple are complicated. The
webpages you refer to that are home.zebra.net/ are down more often than they
are up.