In 2007, no good way to paste paragraphs

  • Thread starter Thread starter LurfysMa
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LurfysMa

In Word 2000, I used to be able to paste a paragraph pretty much
anywhere (except inside a table) and have it retain its formatting so
long as I captured the paragraph mark when I did the cut/copy.

In Word 2007, this is another in the long list of features that have
been crippled. It has something to do with lists, but I thin there are
problems in other areas as well.

It is no longer possible to copy a normal paragraph in the middle of a
list or just before a heading if that heading has list numbering.

Suppose I have a simple list:

* item 1
* item 2
* item 3

I cannot paste a paragraph in between item 1 and 2 with a simple
Ctrl-V. There are three popssible places for the insertion point and
none of them work.

1. In Word 2000, I could place the insertion point at the start of the
paragraph that I wanted insert the text before. In 2007, this causes
the new test to become a new item in the list.

2. If I move the inswrtion point back one step so that all of the list
dingbats are highlighted (a position that did not exist in 2000),
idiotic things happen. The new text becomes a list item and the
following paragraph assumes the formatting of the inserted text and is
no longer a list item. Whoever thought that one up should be sentenced
to 5-10 at hard labor or 6 months on the tech support line.

3. If I place the insertion point at the end of the previous paragraph
(just before the paragraph mark), then the new text is concatenated to
that paragraph, which assumes the formatting of the inserted text and
drops out of the list, and a new emply list item is added. I think
this is what happened in 2000 and makes sense.

Bottom line, you can't get there from here. Kudos to the Word
developers. Idiots.
 
Place the insertion point at the end of a list item, either press Enter and
then Backspace to line up the pasted content with the list items, or press
Enter twice to move the insertion point to the left margin, and then Paste.

Note that these behaviors were changed to make working with lists easier.
Folks would complain that their pasted data wouldn't merge with the existing
list items. And there were some changes in how multilevel lists work when
using the keyboard. Unfortunately this sounds like a "you can't please
everyone" situation.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/
 
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