Any microsoft word experts here?

[kevin]

This is a long shot but i need to get something submitted and my table of figures is screwed up. Ive messed with it for about 3 hours now trying everything, microsoft word help, google etc.

My problem is that i can align the text on one side (left), but then my numbers on the far right arent alligned- there is a space or half space difference. I can align one but not the other.

Is there some way i can make a right and left allignment?

The table of figures is a separate 3 pg word doc

[okie shooter]

Kevin, I am guessing there is a problem with cell formating, can you make it a excel sheet, then format either rows or cols, then reimport the figure as an imbeded sheet

[kevin]

its a table of figures, basicaly a table of contents, just text

example

Figure 23 Text Here..........................................45
Figure 24 Text Here.........................................46

[okie shooter]

I am guessing you will have to break the table up into two col's with the numbers in one and the text in the other, other wise the formatting of the text will overide the by justification on the right.

[SteelCore]

Check to make sure their styles are the same. you might be getting the kind of thing going on where a Heading 2 is indented under a heading 1 in a TOC

The easiest way is to use the format painter tool. It looks like a little blue brush with yellow bristles.

http://www.zuschlogin.com/content/blogimages/16/FormatPainter.gif or http://infohost.nmt.edu/~es421/ansys/gifs/formatpainter.gif

Here's how you use it:

1. Move the cursor so it is on the line of the Table of Figures that is formatted correctly.
2. Double-click the Format Painter Tool.
The cursor changes to show the cursor with the brush.
3. Click on the line in the table of Figures that you want to fix.
It may also require you to double click or triple click to get the format to take.

Here's a google search page that shows a buncha sources of infor on the format painter tool. Check to make sure your version of word has the tool by searching the online help for "format painter tool"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=MS+Word+Format+Painter+tool


Yeah, I use MSWord professionally, about 40+ hrs a week. Tech Writer, ya know.

[Geilt]

This is a long shot but i need to get something submitted and my table of figures is screwed up. Ive messed with it for about 3 hours now trying everything, microsoft word help, google etc.

My problem is that i can align the text on one side (left), but then my numbers on the far right arent alligned- there is a space or half space difference. I can align one but not the other.

Is there some way i can make a right and left allignment?

The table of figures is a separate 3 pg word doc


Its not something as simple as a difference in font or size of font is it?

Actually, did you manually create the table or did you let Word create it for you using Insert > Referrence > Index and Tables?

[kevin]

I cleared the formatting, checked fonts, and all other things, then gave up and manually typed it and still had the same results! Really frustrating! I hate word!

maybe i can upload one page from the doc

the auto generating table worked great, but i had a section with pictures and the captions had to go sideways under the picture. These would not go into the table automatically so thats where the problem came from to start with, i had to manually type them. Even manually typing the whole list of figures didnt solve the problem though

[SteelCore]

Mebbe I could help more if I knew.

You could always send the file to me, or just the page, and I could proll fix it in 5-10...PM me, if interested.

[tanstaafl4y]

Try changing your font. The term eludes me at the moment but most fonts use a diffrent width for each charachter. Certain fonts are all one fized width.

I'll dig around and see if I can figure out what I am talking about.

[weasel_master]

The above post is the answer. The character spacing is different with an l taking less space than an m per se. I believe arial font will fix this. Also try the justification button. Not left or right or center but justification. It shows as both sides being straight.

[tanstaafl4y]

Monospaced fonts. Thats the term I was look.

According to M$
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/90057/en-us The only supplie monospaced fonts are Courier New and Lucida Sans Typewriter

Changint to either of those fonts should fix you problem.

Another solution (with your current font)

deccriptionofimage(tab)........................... .......(tab) Fig.01
desofthing(tab) (tab)..................................(tab) Fig.02

Another solution: would be Copy/paste into a 3 colum spreadsheet, adjust your formatting/Justification than re import into M$ Word as a table.

Final Solution: shoot self in hand, quit job, draw disability

[SteelCore]

when you're too lazy to do it correctly!:thumbup:

In the end the best thing is to burn your copy of MSWord, then by a real layout/documentation tool like FrameMaker.

[tanstaafl4y]

like FrameMaker.

Or openoffice. Its free, can be installed on most Operating Systems. Saves documents in all major formats, easy export to PDF. Did I mention it is Free and Open Source??? www.openoffice.org

[SteelCore]

for the link. I'm gonna check that out.

[97th Signalman]

As some have said, the official Microsoft way is to create your spreadsheet or table in MS Excel and then import it into MS Word. The cheater way is to simply type your table into MOS Word making sure to use your tab key to set the column spacing rather than using your space bar. That should keep your colums straignt as long as your table can work with left side alignment to the tab setting. This works for me with simple stuff so I don't have to mess around importing from MS Excel if what I am doing is simple.