# The technophobic woman whose work I am obliged to do **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 11, 2004, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-technophobic-woman-whose-work-i-am-obliged-to-do/228688 "2004-02-11T17:48:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-technophobic-woman-whose-work-i-am-obliged-to-do/228688/41 "2004-04-04T01:24:18Z")
> [@featherlou](#): > > I don’t think Word can find two hard returns and replace them with one. The find/replace command works on characters, not on formatting. I just tried it, and I couldn’t get Word to recognize a hard return. Not that you should be using hard returns in a document _at all_, unless you are between paragraphs. Good way to get your parsing screwed up. > > This is another one of my peeves - people who don’t format documents right the first time. If you set your tabs and indents and styles and such right, Word will take care of all your changes for you with the click of a mouse. One of my missions in life is to replace all instances of multiple tabs with a properly set tab when I come across them. > > And just for the record, I’m a Microsoft Word 2000 Expert User. I got the certificate yesterday. 😃 Find and Replace absolutely works on formatting. -Click the Edit menu, then click Replace. -Click the More button -Click Special -Click Paragraph Mark twice, to find 2 carriage returns -Select the Replace With edit box, and click Special, and choose Paragraph Mark once to replace 2 paragraph marks with 1 -Click Replace All to replace all instances of 2 carriage returns with 1 ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-technophobic-woman-whose-work-i-am-obliged-to-do/228688/42 "2004-04-04T02:37:37Z")
Well, lookie that, there’s a “more” button. Now I’m even more expert than I was before. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-technophobic-woman-whose-work-i-am-obliged-to-do/228688/43 "2004-04-04T02:47:42Z")
> [@featherlou](#): > > This is one of my pet peeves - people who are so goshdarned proud of their ignorance and/or incompetence. “Oh, I can’t spell - heeheehee.” \*\*“Oh, I can’t do that - it’s a math thing.” \*\*I understand that people have different strengths and abilities, but being proud of inadequacies that are within your abilities to fix is just, well, stupid to me. Hey, HEY now!!! It might not be “pride” but sheepishness, and feeling-bad/stupid-enough-about-itness. I’m just saying… ;D ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-technophobic-woman-whose-work-i-am-obliged-to-do/228688/44 "2004-04-04T04:38:46Z")
> [@Mama Tiger](#): > > I think she did, **Leaper**. But we were just so totally appalled at this woman’s ignorance, we were completely stunned. At least my co-worker _tries_ to learn, and is always thrilled when I show her new stuff. Ah, gotcha. You made it sound like your co-worker did it all “by hand.” I guess you called her “poor” because she had to be subjected to your other co-worker’s ignorance. 😃 Oh, and while not quite computer related in the same way as the rest of this thread, I’m sure all you teachers/TAs can empathize when I say that I got pretty sick pretty quick of my former Freshman English students telling me at the last minute that they didn’t have their paper because of computer or (especially) printer problems. Unless this was something pretty major that you spent most of the night trying to fix, I can tell you that **I** normally had my papers printed at least an hour before class, to account for stuff like this… ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2004, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-technophobic-woman-whose-work-i-am-obliged-to-do/228688/45 "2004-04-04T04:40:15Z")
Oh, and as far as the MS Word Replace command thing goes, if you don’t have a “More” button, you can use symbols (like ^p, I believe, for carriage returns) instead. Just a friendly public service announcement. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-technophobic-woman-whose-work-i-am-obliged-to-do/228688.md?page=2)