Changing MS Word margins affecting table editing and white space in multilevel lists

Question

Changed margins from normal to narrow on 2 different documents and had adverse affects.

Not sure if this is due to the latest upgrade, which happened right before these issues were noticed (never seen this problem before when making these same changes), but here is what happened:

Problem 1 (EDITING TABLES)

After changing margins to 'narrow' on a previously saved document (already created and modified multiple times - i.e. adding more text in a table and manipulating row orders), the existing table no longer allowed me to select rows from the table by clicking in front of the row.  I also could not 'cut' a row from the table after clicking and dragging to select row(s), even if the selection went beyond the far right column border to include the carriage return or line feed.  It would cut the contents, but leave the row as if the <CR> or <LF> was not highlighted.  I The table was only 4 pages long, so I created a new table and copied the contents from the previous table.  The new table worked as expected.  I was able to do all the things above, as described, with no problems IN THE NEW TABLE.  What happened? How can I avoid this in the future when I need to edit old docs? 

Problem 2 (WHITE SPACE IN MULTILEVEL LIST)

After changing margins to 'narrow' on a different previously saved document (already created and modified multiple times - i.e. adding more text and images), the existing multilevel list text lost all spaces between words.  Unfortunately, I saved and modified this doc many times before I saw the problem.  Every <SPACE> is missing even if I 'Show' Paragraph symbols.  This is what about half the document looks like:

8.7  Determineadatabaseformatfortherecipes

8.8  Converttherecipefilesintothedatabase

Is there a simple way to solve or recover from this issue?  

Thanks!

Answer 1

<CR> = Carriage Return

<LF> = Line Feed

<EOL> = End of Line (in Windows OS = <CR><LF>)

Yeah, they are all ways to add a paragraph symbol in Word.

The fonts, table formatting, and table grids were not changed by me and did not look changed when the problem happened.  FYI, I have been editing these exact documents in the exact same way I originally described for over a month without issue.  No issues until I got the upgrade pushed on me.  Also, I didn't notice the issues until I tried changing the margins. 

I have already manually fixed these issues, so I no longer have the files with the original problem.  I has been an awful, arduous journey that I did not enjoy and my customer isn't happy about.  They have been thinking about migrating to the Google enterprise solutions too.  This was ammo for their decision making, lol.  I hope I don't have to do it for this project, cause I prefer Office products, despite Microsoft's lack of QC.

It does appear to be related to compatibility or version issues.  I also noticed that the <SPACE> problem did not affect the entire document.  It appears to be related to sections of text originally copied from a PDF (even the sections where text was modified later).  At least the <SPACE> issues SEEMS to be related. 

I'm still suspicious that all of these issues are related to the new office 365 upgrade.  

It could be that it is related to an update, but MS does not let us know about stuff they change "under the hood." This is especially true with the stream of changes coming out in 365.

It is rare, IME, that they admit that they did anything that causes problems even after they fix it.

Imported text from pdf or anything that maintains formatting makes for hard editing.

Answer 2

<CR> = Carriage Return

<LF> = Line Feed

<EOL> = End of Line (in Windows OS = <CR><LF>)

Yeah, they are all ways to add a paragraph symbol in Word.

The fonts, table formatting, and table grids were not changed by me and did not look changed when the problem happened.  FYI, I have been editing these exact documents in the exact same way I originally described for over a month without issue.  No issues until I got the upgrade pushed on me.  Also, I didn't notice the issues until I tried changing the margins. 

I have already manually fixed these issues, so I no longer have the files with the original problem.  I has been an awful, arduous journey that I did not enjoy and my customer isn't happy about.  They have been thinking about migrating to the Google enterprise solutions too.  This was ammo for their decision making, lol.  I hope I don't have to do it for this project, cause I prefer Office products, despite Microsoft's lack of QC.

It does appear to be related to compatibility or version issues.  I also noticed that the <SPACE> problem did not affect the entire document.  It appears to be related to sections of text originally copied from a PDF (even the sections where text was modified later).  At least the <SPACE> issues SEEMS to be related. 

I'm still suspicious that all of these issues are related to the new office 365 upgrade.

Answer 3

Changed margins from normal to narrow on 2 different documents and had adverse affects.

Not sure if this is due to the latest upgrade, which happened right before these issues were noticed (never seen this problem before when making these same changes), but here is what happened:

***

Problem 2 (WHITE SPACE IN MULTILEVEL LIST)

After changing margins to 'narrow' on a different previously saved document (already created and modified multiple times - i.e. adding more text and images), the existing multilevel list text lost all spaces between words.  Unfortunately, I saved and modified this doc many times before I saw the problem.  Every <SPACE> is missing even if I 'Show' Paragraph symbols.  This is what about half the document looks like:

8.7  Determineadatabaseformatfortherecipes

8.8  Converttherecipefilesintothedatabase

Is there a simple way to solve or recover from this issue?  

Thanks!

There can be a bunch of different things going on. I'm going to address your questions separately.

Again, a sample document with the problem (and purged of confidential/proprietary info) would help. It can be stored on OneDrive or DropBox and a link posted here.

When I've seen something like this in the past, it has to do with the font.

What happens if you copy some of the text but not the paragraph to other places in either this document or a new document?

Try copying as plain text rather than saving formatting. Any difference?

Answer 4

Changed margins from normal to narrow on 2 different documents and had adverse affects.

Not sure if this is due to the latest upgrade, which happened right before these issues were noticed (never seen this problem before when making these same changes), but here is what happened:

Problem 1 (EDITING TABLES)

After changing margins to 'narrow' on a previously saved document (already created and modified multiple times - i.e. adding more text in a table and manipulating row orders), the existing table no longer allowed me to select rows from the table by clicking in front of the row.  I also could not 'cut' a row from the table after clicking and dragging to select row(s), even if the selection went beyond the far right column border to include the carriage return or line feed.  It would cut the contents, but leave the row as if the <CR> or <LF> was not highlighted.  I The table was only 4 pages long, so I created a new table and copied the contents from the previous table.  The new table worked as expected.  I was able to do all the things above, as described, with no problems IN THE NEW TABLE.  What happened? How can I avoid this in the future when I need to edit old docs? 

****

There can be a bunch of different things going on. I'm going to address your questions separately.

A sample document with the problem (and purged of confidential/proprietary info) would help. It can be stored on OneDrive or DropBox and a link posted here.

I'm not sure what you mean by <CR> or <LF>. Are you are talking about paragraph marks and manual line breaks or HTML markup?

• Editing Tables extensively almost always requires that table grid lines and formatting characters be turned on, at least for me.
• When selecting rows the selection must go outside the end of the row.
• If a document is in compatibility mode, certain manipulations may not be available.
• When you cut a row, you normally will simply cut the contents of the row but leave the structure there.