Microsoft KB Archive/26509

Word: One Column of Letters Down Left Side of Document

PSS ID Number: Q26509 Article last modified on 03-07-1997

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========================================================= 3.00 3.01 3.02 4.00 5.00 5.10 MACINTOSH kbusage kbtlc kbprint

= SYMPTOMS =

An unexpected, narrow column of characters appears in the document.

= CAUSE =

This happens when the right indent marker on the ruler is positioned to the left of the left and first-line indent markers.

NOTE: Word version 6.0 does not allow you to move the right indent marker left of the left and first-line indent markers. They cannot be set any closer to one another than 0.5&quot;, which nay still cause a narrow half-inch column of text.

This undesirable effect occurs most frequently when setting up snaking columns or tables. If the right indent is adjusted to be the desired column width before the snaking column formatting is applied, then the resulting right indent will still be in effect after the columns are set up. This results in a narrower column than expected, and the column often has a negative width that produces the long line of characters down the left side of the screen. To work around the problem, select the entire problem area and then do one of the following:

Word 4.0, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0
After selecting the problem area, from the Format menu, choose Paragraph. In the Paragraph dialog box set the left and right indents to 0 (in Word 6.0, activate the Indents and Spacing tab at the top to see the left and right indent options). Click OK.

Word 3.x
From the Format menu, choose Show Ruler and click the “X” on the ruler. This method will also reset the tab-stop settings to be the default settings and reset the left and first-line indents to 0.

If you have set up special tabs or indents that need to be retained, then follow this alternate procedure:

Hold down the SHIFT key and scroll to the left until the right indent marker appears in the negative portion of the ruler (you must be in Full Menus to do this). Drag the right indent marker to the right until it lines up with the vertical dotted line that indicates the position of the right margin or the right edge of a column.

= MORE INFORMATION =

For example, suppose you are working on a document that has left and right indents of 1.25 inches. The right margin would then coincide with the 6-inch mark on the ruler. If your goal was to create two columns of width 2.5 inches with 1-inch spacing between the two, then the right indent marker should remain at 6 inches and the Division Layout or Section command should be used to indicate two columns with the 1-inch spacing. This is the correct method.

The incorrect method is to first adjust the right indent marker to the column width of 2.5 inches on the ruler (yielding an indent of 3.5 inches to the left from the right margin), and then choose the same Section or Division Layout settings. The resulting “margin” would coincide with the 2.5-inch position on the ruler, but the text would still be indented 3.5 inches from this position, corresponding to a column width of -1 inch. Under such circumstances, there is no horizontal space available for the text, and the program does its best by placing the characters in a column of single-character width.

KBCategory: kbusage kbtlc kbprint KBSubCategory: kbmerge kbtable Additional reference words: macword macword5 ====================================================================== ============================================================================= Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1997.