I'm going insane with Word overiding my layout

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dean Daniels
  • Start date Start date
D

Dean Daniels

I'm used to professional layout environments like Quark
or InDesign. MSWord/MSFrontpage/MSPublisher have made me
insane for years with style and format defaults set to
some strange idea of typesetting and page layout that has
a zero typographical history on this planet. Linespacing,
character spacing, tabbing, sub-heading, image and text
placement, numbered lists and other nominal efforts are
defaulted to useless parameters. Trying to nudge and
change things is a Hurulean effort and the worst thing is
that I can not make Word "forget" about a style. Word
should be set up on a scaleable grid/point based layout
system convertable to inches and metric - simply put -
it's easy and easier to deal with. Meanwhile, HOW do I
turn EVERYTHING OFF? How can I put a picture next to text
or text next to a picture without former things jumping
all out of position - just what kind of programming
wisdom is that anyhow? How can I copy text with shoody
formating into another place and make it "foreget" it's
original formatting? Much etc...
 
Dean

All these desires are just about possible. But knowing which Word version
you have would have been a good starting point! (I think that most of the
Word MVPs will agree about Word's basic settings: they are market driven
standard settings and tool displays that many of the Word users quickly
throw away!

Meanwhile, for help on these points there are several good FAQ sites:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/index.htm
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/

The above two sites should provide you with most of the information you need
and you will find links to other equally good sites from those sites too.
Anything you cannot find, come back here and ask.

--
Terry Farrell - Word MVP
http://word.mvps.org/

: I'm used to professional layout environments like Quark
: or InDesign. MSWord/MSFrontpage/MSPublisher have made me
: insane for years with style and format defaults set to
: some strange idea of typesetting and page layout that has
: a zero typographical history on this planet. Linespacing,
: character spacing, tabbing, sub-heading, image and text
: placement, numbered lists and other nominal efforts are
: defaulted to useless parameters. Trying to nudge and
: change things is a Hurulean effort and the worst thing is
: that I can not make Word "forget" about a style. Word
: should be set up on a scaleable grid/point based layout
: system convertable to inches and metric - simply put -
: it's easy and easier to deal with. Meanwhile, HOW do I
: turn EVERYTHING OFF? How can I put a picture next to text
: or text next to a picture without former things jumping
: all out of position - just what kind of programming
: wisdom is that anyhow? How can I copy text with shoody
: formating into another place and make it "foreget" it's
: original formatting? Much etc...
 
Hi Dean,

To add one piece to Terry's reply, keep in mind
that of the three products you listed only one,
MS Office Publisher, is designed to be a page
layout package.

MS Word is text reflow software. The person reading
the document has a great deal of control on how they
see or print the document to their liking that may
not be what the author was envisioning.


MS Office Frontpage is web creation, which makes it
mutable by different reader devices.

=======
I'm used to professional layout environments like Quark
or InDesign. MSWord/MSFrontpage/MSPublisher have made me
insane for years with style and format defaults set to
some strange idea of typesetting and page layout that has
a zero typographical history on this planet. Linespacing,
character spacing, tabbing, sub-heading, image and text
placement, numbered lists and other nominal efforts are
defaulted to useless parameters. Trying to nudge and
change things is a Hurulean effort and the worst thing is
that I can not make Word "forget" about a style. Word
should be set up on a scaleable grid/point based layout
system convertable to inches and metric - simply put -
it's easy and easier to deal with. Meanwhile, HOW do I
turn EVERYTHING OFF? How can I put a picture next to text
or text next to a picture without former things jumping
all out of position - just what kind of programming
wisdom is that anyhow? How can I copy text with shoody
formating into another place and make it "foreget" it's
original formatting? Much etc... >>
--
Let us know if this helped you,

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

Office 2003 Editions explained
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/office/editions.mspx
 
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