Unpredictable font formatting behaviour

Question

Hi,

Can someone please have a look at this document:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hmneiabbnva253y/font.docx?dl=0

and then explain to me why, when I copy ANYTHING inside the first paragraph and try to paste it somewhere in the last paragraph, it inserts the text in a different font (Consolas on my Mac)?

The whole document is in Cambria. Why would a simple copy/paste insert text in another font?

(This is just an excerpt from a bigger document. Problem is reproducible with this excerpt in a test user environment with no customizations.)

Thanks.

Pierre Igot

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BETALOGUE - Weblog at http://www.betalogue.com | Twitter: @betalogue

Answer 1

It's because of a hodge-podge applied to the destination paragraph causing an unintelligible Linked paragraph style:

Plain Text+(Latin)+Theme Body, 11 pt

The underlying font of Plain Text is Consolas 10.5 [along with tighter (single) line spacing & a few other tweaks] so an excerpt pasted into it is taking on that formatting... If you copy the entire 1st paragraph it doesn't happen.

Reformatting the last paragraph to Normal will obviate the issue.

Answer 2

Word formatting is an algebraic addition of the various formatting sources that have been applied to the text.

If the document creator correctly formats the text using a style (e.g. the built-in "Body Text" style) and pastes into that as plain text, they will always get the formatting they have defined into the Body Text style.

When you get a document created by a user that has formatted a paragraph with a mixture of style, theme, and direct formatting (as has happened here) then you are going to get a very entertaining result.

Remember Microsoft's slogan "Where do you want to go today?"  Word will try very hard to make that possible: but if the user doesn't know how to get there, the result can be "unexpected".

If you could persuade both yourself and the other user not to use any manual formatting, your document would be fast, stable, and robust.  If you can't, it won't be.

There are three configurable behaviours that may occur when you use an ordinary paste:

1.  You paste the text and all its properties, including style, theme, font, and manual formatting.
2.  You paste the text as in 1, but merge the numbering with the list formatting of the destination.
3.  You paste plain text, discarding any formatting from the source and adopting the formatting of the destination.

Mac Word supports only the first two options unless you make a macro to override it.  The default is the first option.  Let us know if you want the macro.

If you are going to spend much time in other people's documents, especially if they are created by people who do not know how to use Word properly, you may like to install a "Paste Unformatted" macro to make your life more peaceful.

The tools are there: but you need to take command.

Cheers

Answer 3

I am not sure how this is relevant. I am talking about a behaviour that occurs when copying and pasting within the same document, just from one paragraph to the next.

And I am not talking about pasting as plain text, which works as expected. (Thank God!) I am talking the default Copy/Paste behaviour, with nothing special.

I copy a word that is formatted in Cambria 12 pt with the default Copy command, and I paste it into a paragraph that is formatted in Cambria 12 pt with the default Paste command, and it gets inserted as text formatted in Consolas 10.5 pt. It's as simple as that. 

I am not sure what part of it is not clear or no reproducible here.

Pierre Igot

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BETALOGUE - Weblog at http://www.betalogue.com | Twitter: @betalogue

Answer 4

Okay Try this:

1. Copy your Paragraph from original file.
2. Switch to your new document in Office 2011 or 365Mac
3. Click on desired location.
4. Then go to Edit Menu and choose paste special.
5. Then choose Plain Text or Text only.
6. Click okay.

Text should take on Formatting of current document.

_________

Disclaimer:

The questions, discussions, opinions, replies & answers I create, are solely mine and mine alone, and do not reflect upon my position as a Community Moderator.

Answer 5

I love it when problems in Word are always blamed on the user (euphemistically, in the passive voice).

In my experience, users don't apply "hodgepodge" formatting on purpose or for fun. Paragraphs end up with hodgepodge formatting because Word is unintuitive in the first place and people can't figure out how to use it “properly”. So the ball is effectively (as always) in Microsoft's court.

As for the fix, obviously, I can always MANUALLY undo things that were MANUALLY done. Just like I can MANUALLY change the text in Consolas 10.5 pt back to Cambria 12 pt. Unlike reapplying the Normal style to the last paragraph, at least I can predict the results of those manual changes.

I simply find it mind-boggling that a word processor is allowed to exist where, if you copy a word formatted in Cambria 12 pt and paste it into a paragraph formatted in Cambria 12 pt, regardless of the circumstances, the word is pasted as… Consolas 10.5 pt. Why on earth does it take on the formatting of the underlying paragraph and not the formatting of the actual, surrounding text?

I guess my question wasn't a practical one. The damage is done, so to speak, as soon as people start using Word, usually cluelessly. I just know that there is no miracle cure once the damage is done.

My real question is, to be honest: Why do we always have to deal with such crappy, unintuitive behaviours? When will Word be finally behave intuitively (by pasting text in Cambria 12 pt as Cambria 12 pt, for instance) and also be designed in a way that helps prevent clueless users from creating a mess in the first place? Because clueless users are never going to get any smarter, that's for sure.

Thanks, I guess.

Pierre Igot

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BETALOGUE - Weblog at http://www.betalogue.com | Twitter: @betalogue