AutoText spacing problem

Question

Good evening. About 3 months ago, my Autotext spacing changed. I format a speaker to be "THE OFFICER: " (2 spaces after the colon.) I always would include two spaces after the colon, and enter it into AutoText. Now it is adding an extra space before I start to type, which is very annoying. If I delete the line after, the text will start at two spaces after. I'm using Word 365 and Windows 10. Can anyone help me? I noticed it started after I received a Normal.dotm error message after saving a document, which read, "This file is in use by another application or user. C:\Users(my user)\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates" Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

An extra space character is added. So it looks like it is ready to type at two spaces after a colon but then jumps one more space when starting to type.

Thanks for the clarification.

With any automatic or semi-automatic insertions, Word often tries to be "clever" and add spaces.

If this is new behavior, I suggest that you report it directly to Microsoft using the Feedback facility at Help > Feedback.

Answer 2

Are you saying that an extra space character is added or that you get extra vertical spacing between the current and the next text paragraph?

Answer 3

When I try to start a new Normal template, it deletes all my AutoText entries too. Any way around this?

Answer 4

An extra space character is added. So it looks like it is ready to type at two spaces after a colon but then jumps one more space when starting to type.

Answer 5

Dear LindaWesson,

Good day. Thank you for posting to Microsoft Community.

As per your description, when you edited on the Word document, there were always some things that you didn't want to happen. It continued nearly 3 months. And you got the error massage:

"This file is in use by another application or user.  C:\Users<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates".

It seems occurred because of your Word Templates. Please try to reset the Normal template and check if it works for you.

Here are steps for you reference:

1. Close all Microsoft Office application before you reset it.
2. Open C:\Users\yourusername\Appdata\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates and delete the file Normal.dotm.
3. Open the Word and close it, there will be popped up “Changes have been made to Normal.dotm, would you like to save them?”, choose Save, and Word will generate a new normal.dotm file. Then try again. Note: Please back up the previous Normal Template.

Let me know if you have any question. Thank you for patience and understanding.

Sincerely,

Claire | Microsoft Community Moderator