Recently, I got Office X for my work machine. Previously, I was using Office 98 for Mac. I like X much better, of course, especially since I can now go weeks without having to boot up OS9 to run an old program.
However, I’d like Word to stop automatically turning one-slash-2 into a single-character fraction. The text I’m typing is to be saved as plain text files and is going to go into Adobe InDesign. I’d prefer to deal with the fractions in InDesign, rather than having Word correct them.
In Word 98, turning off all autotext, autoformat and autocorrect features prevented this. Word X doesn’t want to stop. Lots of the annoying autocorrections (like superscripting the ‘th’ in ‘10th’) have stopped, but the fractions keep going. After I type one, I need to undo the autoformat before continuing. Anyone know how to turn this off?
I’ve been hesitant to post this for a while, because I anticipate a lot of people telling me to stop using Word as a text editor. However, it’s what I have, and I’m fairly comfortable with it.
Thanks for the replies, but none of them have helped.
springears, there is no Help section under Preferences. There is nothing about AutoFormat under Preferences. If you meant that I should look for Preferences under Help, that’s not where it is. It’s on the Microsoft Word menu. You also don’t generally right-click on Macintoshes. I’m not sure why you’d right-click in this situation even on a Windows machine. I have Word 2002 on my Windows box, and it doesn’t even have a menu selection called ‘Preferences.’
brianmelendez, that’s where I’d go to make this change on Word 98 on the Mac or Word 2002 on the PC. But on Word X, the fractions checkbox doesn’t seem to be there. I suppose it could be a strange symptom of a bad install, though it seems unlikely. Are you using Word X on a Mac?
Chairman Pow, I have been undoing all the fraction changes so far. I want to change the setting, but I can’t seem to figure out how.
I’m sure this will turn out to be something totally simple, but I’m just not finding it so far. If anyone is running the same version I am, it would be easier for you to see what I’m seeing.
I have gone to Tools>Autocorrect and unchecked every box on all 4 tabs. None of those checkboxes refer to fractions (there is such a checkbox in Word 98 and Word 2002, but not here in Word X), but they’re all unchecked anyway. There are no fractions listed in ‘Replace text as you type,’ and besides, that option is turned off.
Still, whenever I type 1/2, 1/4, or 3/4, it is automatically changed into a single-character fraction. I have to command-z to undo the change (the Edit menu says ‘Undo AutoFormat’ before I undo) before continuing.
Is there any other information needed to explain what i’m seeing and doing that will help someone suggest a solution?
Under Tools > AutoCorrect, is there an AutoFormat tab? If not, and they’ve hidden it somewhere else, then look in Help for it – there is usually an option to open the dialog box for a control in the Help entry associated with it. You’ll want to look for AutoFormat, since it identifies that as the culprit.
I don’t have access to a Mac right now, so I can’t actually check this, but here’s another idea. It’s possible that this option field still exists and was just mistakenly omitted from the appropriate menus; in this case you should still be able to set it via Visual Basic. In Word for Windows, the two relevant options appear to be AutoFormatReplaceFractions and AutoFormatAsYouTypeReplaceFractions. Open up the VB editor (Tools > Macro > Visual Basic Editor) and then the Visual Basic help window. Search for “fraction” and it should find these two options if Mac Word has them.
If it does, I think you can just write a VB subroutine with the lines
Sub TurnOffAutoFormatFractions()
Options.AutoFormatReplaceFractions = False
Options.AutoFormatAsYouTypeReplaceFractions = False
End Sub
and run the macro to turn off the autoformatting.
(Disclaimer: I don’t actually know anything about Visual Basic, but this appeared to work for me.)
A funny thing to do is to sneak up to a co-worker’s computer while he is away, and make new entries in the auto-substitution table. For example, you can replace his last name with “the dumb*ss.” Substitute other words he would likely type with funny replacements. I practiced on my own computer first so that I could do it quickly when someone stepped away.