# Help with MS-Word **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 12, 2001, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-ms-word/75937 "2001-08-12T21:07:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2001, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-ms-word/75937/1 "2001-08-12T21:07:15Z")
I’m writing a script using MS-Word. Since it is a script, the scenes are numbered, but not every paragraph is numbered. How do I stop MS-Word from auto-numbering? I’ve tried shutting it off in “formats”, “style”, but it keeps coming back. ---
**Author:** ![Primaflora](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/898d66/32.png) [@Primaflora](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Primaflora)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2001, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-ms-word/75937/2 "2001-08-12T21:21:15Z")
Scream loudly at the computer? Doesn’t work for me either but I felt better. I’m still trying to fathom why Word did em dashes for me in 3 paragraphs but refused to do it in one paragraph. Nothing I did made it behave. ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2001, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-ms-word/75937/3 "2001-08-12T21:32:20Z")
I would suggest just opening up Wordpad or Notepad, unless there’s some other aspect of MS-Word you need in order to write the script. ---
**Author:** ![11811](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/9d8465/32.png) [@11811](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/11811)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2001, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-ms-word/75937/4 "2001-08-12T22:57:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Primaflora \* > \*\*Scream loudly at the computer? > > Doesn’t work for me either but I felt better. I’m still trying to fathom why Word did em dashes for me in 3 paragraphs but refused to do it in one paragraph. Nothing I did made it behave. \*\* Word makes em dashes when you put a space on each side of a hyphen. It doesn’t appear to do en dashes at all. ---
**Author:** ![JimOfAllTrades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@JimOfAllTrades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimOfAllTrades)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2001, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-ms-word/75937/5 "2001-08-12T23:00:39Z")
Two things that should work. 1 - Add a new style, base it on whatever style you’re using as your normal paragraph style, and set that style to use numbers. Use this style for the first paragraph of each scene, and then use your ‘normal’ style for the remaining paragraphs of each scene. Adding a style in Word only takes a few seconds, and has the advantage that if you decide to change the look of something, you change the style and all paragraphs in the document using that style can be automatically updated to the new look. 2 - If you don’t want to change back and forth between styles (and it only takes about a second using shortcut keys) you can set your normal style to number the paragraphs, but press Shift+Enter between paragraphs within a scene. The Shift+Enter gives you a ‘soft’ paragraph break. You get the line break, but the text is still considered part of the same paragraph, so no new paragraph numbers are generated. I use this when I’m in the middle of a series of numbered paragraphs and just want to set some text apart (like a note to the user). Styles are the key to formatting in Word. A kind of pain to get used to, but once you start using them they are actually pretty simple, and are a fast way to shift between various paragraph formats. Ugly ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2001, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-ms-word/75937/6 "2001-08-13T02:35:38Z")
Thanks for the advice. I used **SPOOFE** ’s suggestion of putting it in Wordpad. I got tired of writing so I’ll try **RJKUgly** ’s suggestions when I start up again. **Primaflora** : I don’t like to shout. I prefer a low, menacing voice and subtle threats. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2001, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-ms-word/75937/7 "2001-08-13T04:35:24Z")
On the Tools menu, click AutoCorrect (or AutoCorrect Options, depending on which version of Word you’re using). In the AutoFormat as you Type section, make sure that all options regarding numbered lists and bulleted lists are deselected. Then click OK. Voila, no more automatically bulleted/numbered lists. ---
**Author:** ![kinoons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a698b9/32.png) [@kinoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kinoons)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2001, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-ms-word/75937/8 "2001-08-13T08:06:08Z")
one thing that I’ve noticed that solves a lot of strange MSword problems is deleting the normal.dot file. it will be rebuilt when you reboot…