Behave, Word, Behave!

If you copy something from a Web site or elsewhere... or you reuse a document and the formatting is making you crazy with its weirdness, then stop the insanity. The first option to make the document behave loses some of the formatting. You can always undo the changes if you don't like it by pressing CTRL+Z. To dump some of the formatting, press CTRL+A to select all and then select "Normal" from the style drop-down box in the left corner next to the AA as shown in the picture. This changes some of the formatting. If it's too much, remember CTRL+Z is there. If it's not enough, try option two.

If the document has HTML formatting or has serious formatting problems, you can get rid of all of the formatting including bullets, paragraphs, bolds, and font sizes. Press CTRL+A to select all and then select "Clear Formatting" instead of "Normal." This converts the content to plain text using the default text font and size.

In some cases, it's the paragraphs causing the commotion. Option three is to once again CTLR+A, select Format > Paragraph and under Spacing > Before change the number. 0 means no spacing. The higher the number, the bigger the space before the paragraph. You can see how it will look in the preview. Auto automatically inserts a 14 point space. Or you can put both Before and After at 0 and select one of the options under Line Spacing.

When specific formatting items are misbehaving, then do the following. Let's say you don't want tables. Select the table and select Table > Convert > Text to Table. Don't like italics? Select all, then click on the 'i' twice (it will turn everything on and then off). These are simple examples.

When a sentence, paragraph, or block of text isn't behaving, just select those items rather than selecting all.

Meryl K. Evans is the Content Maven behind meryl's notes, eNewsletter Journal, and The Remediator Security Digest. She is also a PC Today columnist and a tour guide at InformIT. She is geared to tackle your editing, writing, content, and process needs. The native Texan resides in Plano, Texas, a heartbeat north of Dallas, and doesn't wear a 10-gallon hat or cowboy boots.