Spacing and Kerning (Changing charater spacing for a set of tables

[John9999]

Is there any way to adjust the character spacing of either Arial or Times New
Roman font such that they are the same width at Courier New font?

Someone sent me a bunch of data tables created using Courier New font and
used spaces to separate items rather than using columns or even tabs. It
would be quire expensive to reprogram the tables.

I need to use either Arial or Times New Roman font per the end user.

So, I was hoping there might be a way to adjust the character spacing using
the Percent Scale, Spacing, Kerning, or some combination of those settings.

Thank you,
John

 

[CyberTaz]

Again, you've wandered into the Mac Word group although I doubt the answer
would be much different in the PC Word groups.

IMHO, your plan of attack is not only the hard road but probably is close to
impossible... There's far more to font metrics than spacing between
characters, which isn't universal in the first place. That's why it's
referred to as "proportional" spacing Based on your description of the
situation I'd think it far more expedient to use the special features of
Find & Replace to replace the multiple spaces with Tab characters, then
Convert the Text to Tables. If you have a number of them to do I'm sure a
macro would come in quite handy. Someone over there will be glad to help:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/FlyoutOverview.mspx

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[John9999]

I thought that would be the answer. It will be painful no matter which
approach. (The number of spaces between the numbers varies, so find and
replace is not ideal.)

And thank you for pointing out I posted to a Mac group.

~ John

 

[John McGhie]

No.

Arial and Times New Roman are proportionally-spaced. That means the letter
width and spacing varies letter-by-letter and also according to the letters
either side of each letter.

Courier and Courier New are mono-spaced fonts: they are specifically
designed to emulate a typewriter. Every letter is the same width and has
the same spacing.

If you import those tables into Excel and use the "Text Import Wizard" (look
it up in the Excel Help) Excel will lay each column of text out in a
separate column for you.

When it has done so, you can then copy it from Excel and paste it back into
Word as a Word Table. You can then change the font and things will stay
lined up.

Once you get the hang of it, this is a fast, easy, and efficient fix.

Cheers

Is there any way to adjust the character spacing of either Arial or Times New
Roman font such that they are the same width at Courier New font?

Someone sent me a bunch of data tables created using Courier New font and
used spaces to separate items rather than using columns or even tabs. It
would be quire expensive to reprogram the tables.

I need to use either Arial or Times New Roman font per the end user.

So, I was hoping there might be a way to adjust the character spacing using
the Percent Scale, Spacing, Kerning, or some combination of those settings.

Thank you,
John

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[CyberTaz]

Your certainly welcome. The variable number of spaces is exactly why I
suggested a macro -- it can be written to accommodate that depending on a
few other considerations.

However, you might also consider the suggestion John McGhie made about using
Excel to organize the data into columns & rows.

Good Luck |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[John9999]

Hi John,

Thank you for your helpful discussion on fonts.

At your suggestion, I explored importing the text into Excel. I will
definitely use that approach in the future.

(In this case, it was complicated by each table having several header and
footer rows that were each one wide cell, and then several data rows that
were 7 cells. With my limited Excel experience, it was easier to use Word to
work around this. But, it encouraged me to enhance my Excel skills, and will
be very userful in other situations).

Thank you for your time,
John
..

 

[John9999]

Hi Bob,

Your suggestion solved my problem. It also forced me to learn something
about macros, which is a good thing too. I wil use macros again.

Thank you for your assistance,
John

 

[John McGhie]

Hi John:

You can paste just the body rows into Excel and sort them out.

Then bring them back in as a Word table, then add the header and footer rows
above and below, merge the cells, then paste the content in.

Row and Column straddles are a pain...

Cheers

Hi John,

Thank you for your helpful discussion on fonts.

At your suggestion, I explored importing the text into Excel. I will
definitely use that approach in the future.

(In this case, it was complicated by each table having several header and
footer rows that were each one wide cell, and then several data rows that
were 7 cells. With my limited Excel experience, it was easier to use Word to
work around this. But, it encouraged me to enhance my Excel skills, and will
be very userful in other situations).

Thank you for your time,
John
.

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[John9999]

Hi John,

Ah yes, you are right. It did work just pasting the table body rows into
Excel. I ended up using this approach for several of the tables.

It is good to have options.

Thanks much,
John