1. Miller0700

    Miller0700 Contributor Contributor

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    Problem writing in word

    Discussion in 'Writing Software and Hardware' started by Miller0700, Jul 9, 2016.

    I downloaded some text to word, but it comes out formatted like this:


    Instead of coming out like this:

    You could just say to go and correct it, but it's a lot of text (45 pages to be exact) which I don't feel like correcting. I tried using align, indent, and paragraph spacing to no avail. Any idea how to fix it?
     
  2. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    Where are you pasting it from?
     
  3. doggiedude

    doggiedude Contributor Contributor

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    I think we need to know what format it's coming from.
    Sometimes if you do a copy - paste WITHOUT formatting it helps with some of those things.
     
  4. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    On the Home tab, in the Paragraph section, there's one of those symbols, the overlapping backward PPs that stand for a paragraph in old copyediting? If you hit that button it will show you the formatting in your text, and you might be able to figure out what the formatting is and then do a find and replace to get rid of whatever it is.
     
  5. Miller0700

    Miller0700 Contributor Contributor

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    Got it from a movie script site. Simplyscripts.com
     
  6. Miller0700

    Miller0700 Contributor Contributor

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    Tried that too (forgot to mention that,) it only changed the font to times new roman or does nothing at all.
     
  7. Miller0700

    Miller0700 Contributor Contributor

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    You mean "show/hide paragraph marks?"
     
  8. doggiedude

    doggiedude Contributor Contributor

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    Not the website -- what is the FORMAT of the original file?
     
  9. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Show/Hide, yeah. Mine doesn't say "paragraph marks", but it's essentially the same thing.
     
  10. Miller0700

    Miller0700 Contributor Contributor

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    .
     
  11. Miller0700

    Miller0700 Contributor Contributor

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    Sorry about that. It's in html.
     
  12. doggiedude

    doggiedude Contributor Contributor

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    Send me a link to the actual page they have it on & I'll take a peek.
     
  13. Miller0700

    Miller0700 Contributor Contributor

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    Here you go.
     
  14. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I cut and pasted and it came out fine for me...
     
  15. doggiedude

    doggiedude Contributor Contributor

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    I didn't have any issue with it. I can send you the word.doc
    There's a little bit which is not formatted correctly but it's not bad.
     
  16. Michael Pless

    Michael Pless Senior Member

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    I haven't used Word for years, but when I last did, it was possible to view "hidden/non-printing characters" and then you could see what's causing the formatting issue. The search and replace was also pretty good - I seem to recall it once had "remove double paragraph breaks" or similar in a drop-down box. Given that the original was in HTML, there might be an issue with the <BR> tag being used instead of <P> or vice versa. A quick check in Google should help sort it out.
     
  17. JLT

    JLT Contributor Contributor

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    In my copy of Word, it works like this:

    At the find-and-replace menu, select "Advanced Search and Replace" in the box marked with the Settings icon. In the "find" box, type '^p" and then click on the "Replace" tab on the little working "window." Leave the "replace" input box blank. Select "replace all" and Bob's your uncle.
     
  18. doggiedude

    doggiedude Contributor Contributor

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    I was able to email the OP with the copy/paste version I did.
     

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