WORD: bulleting problem….easy way out?

[cheeryble]

OK

helping a friend.

He has written up 33 pages of text.

Apart from the title, end etc, it is mostly in the form of multiple header questions, followed by three possible answers.

Anyway, he decided in retrospect to bullet the three optional answers.

Only trouble when he did it the bullet came ONLY on the question.

Multiple highlights…….multiple single bullets on the questions.

Although an Apple man I tried to help, on his own document.

Same.

I then tried duplicating his document myself and bulleting.

It worked first time…..three bullets on the answers.

With this clue I clicked the hidden formatting key for both options his and mine.

They were different.

Wait a minute said I……HOW DID YOU TYPE IT? DID YOU PRESS RETURN TO GO TO THE NEXT LINE?

No he said he typed the answer after the question then pressed the SPACE bar to slowly move the answer to the next line. And so on.

(He is not very computery.)

So obviously it would be extremely work intensive (especially as it must be absolutely correct) to retype 33 pages (and in fact there are many many rare and unknown words which have to be copied letter by letter).

My question is:

Is there some way he can transfer his formatting to normal WITHOUT retyping it all?

I asked him to do a simple mini document in the same form….questions and options and same strange way of typing…..as an example for anyone who may be so kind as to help.

I hope it is attached to this!

Can we end up with bulleting on the answers without retyping all?

Travel Questions Bali.docx

Edited April 7, 2014 by cheeryble

[MJCM]

You could try it with this makro

http://www.vbaexpress.com/kb/getarticle.php?kb_id=613

The layout after running this makro will look like this (sample doc you uploaded)

[cheeryble]

The for your interest MCJM

But we'd like to merely make it with the three answer options each wit heir own line but with bullets before.

Cheers

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa app

Edited April 7, 2014 by cheeryble

[MJCM]

That makro does the majority of the work, which is to remove all the unnecessary spaces.

Now you can write your own makro

Find "?"

Press enter

Create Bullet

Etc etc

Thats why they invented Record Makro just for these tedious tasks.

It will take some time to create and test but after that its a couplee of minutes work.

Good Luck

Sent from my iPad so Please excuse any typos

[RichCor]

If this is a MS Word document, my suggestion would be to use a NEW PAGE break (to force new page where needed), then use a simple Style Sheet so you can quickly highlight and format the content of each page.

Please select the correct response

• What does this have to with Thai politics?
• Does this work on an android smartphone?
• Can you just do it for me?
• Does this require a work permit?

[BB1950]

Wow! 33 pages is a lot of pages for a survey. Most people won't do it if there's more than 10 pages. But it's up to you.

I assumed you wanted something like this:

I'll elaborate a little more on what MJCM mentioned using the macro to remove the extra spaces that your friend used.

Use replace to find "? " (note: in all these examples use only the character between the quote marks). Then replace with box use "?^p". Click replace all. This will give you:

Use the replace again to find ". " and replace with ".^p". Again replace all. This will give you:

Then select the all of the first question answer lines click on the down arrow to the right of the numbering icon an use the ABC style numbering.

Then for all the next questions just select all the lines for that question just click the numbering icon.

Good Luck!

Edited April 7, 2014 by BB1950

[RichCor]

If you are looking to remove all the formatting you can either:

1. Use ctrl-space
2. copy the text, open a new document then Clipboard [Paste / Paste Special ] and select something like... Unformatted Unicode Text

then format the document as needed.

Still suggest using a style sheet as then one quick change to font, size, indentation, bullet style, etc can be applied to the entire document.

[DogNo1]

I don't think that Office 2010 on uses style sheets anymore. You can use search and replace to cut excessive spaces down to two. In the "find" box, put in three spaces and in the "replace with" box only two spaces. Just run "find and replace all" as many times as necessary until every sentence is separated by only two spaces. Then format the first question manually with the spacing and bullets that you want. Holding down the shift key, mark the whole question then click on the format painter brush. Next, hold down the control key and select each of the following questions in turn so that they pop into the format that you want. You may have to insert a return (Enter) before and after each question to isolate it from the text above and below. This gives you more minute control of each question and it shouldn't take you more than 10 - 15 minutes. Macros never work exactly right for me and I always end up having to go back and clean things up.

[forgetit]

Why so complicated?

Use search and replace.

Replace two spaces with nothing.

Now you only go after each word and press enter. You have your answers in a new row and can use the bullet formatting. I have done your example page in less than 30 seconds. No need for macro for this.

[wooloomooloo]

Hello, I like you. Do you like me?

• Yes
• No
• Maybe

What appears to be the problem or am I missing something?

[BB1950]

Hello, I like you. Do you like me?

• Yes
• No
• Maybe

What appears to be the problem or am I missing something?

Yes you are. Read the OP again. There are no paragraph marks at the end of each line. His friend pressed the space bar to get to the next line. Apparently you didn't download the sample and show the non printable characters.

[cheeryble]

Thankyou all for your attention.

Im going to start last first with Forgetit as that seems the simplest.

Why so complicated?

Use search and replace.

Replace two spaces with nothing.

Now you only go after each word and press enter. You have your answers in a new row and can use the bullet formatting. I have done your example page in less than 30 seconds. No need for macro for this.

Forgetit

I have looked through all the buttons for search and replace and can't see it.

I clicked help and typed search and replace………0 hits.

Can you tell me the secret?

Thanks!

WAIT

6 hits just came up almost didn't notice.

OK I have Find and Replace box left side.

Where do I look for "two spaces" I can't find that option named

Thanks!

Edited April 8, 2014 by cheeryble

[MJCM]

<snip>

OK I have Find and Replace box left side.
Where do I look for "two spaces" I can't find that option named

What about pressing the space bar 2x in the find what box ??

Edited April 8, 2014 by MJCM

[cheeryble]

Thanks MJCM

tried that and clicked space once in the replace box but it ends up poorly formatted and then when I bullet it still does the questions only.

Friend is on way to a computer school near CMU as we speak he is hopeful the guy spoke perfect English on the phone and said come along let's take a look.

Will keep you posted.

ps the real doc is not a questionnaire its a slightly sensitive document which he doesn't want public for commercial reasons, with many unknown words, so he just made up an example as a Bali questionnaire.

Edited April 8, 2014 by cheeryble

[MJCM]

If you used my solution from Post #2 and BB1950 solution from Post #6, you would have been all done by now !

Good Luck

[forgetit]

Thankyou all for your attention.

Im going to start last first with Forgetit as that seems the simplest.

Why so complicated?

Use search and replace.

Replace two spaces with nothing.

Now you only go after each word and press enter. You have your answers in a new row and can use the bullet formatting. I have done your example page in less than 30 seconds. No need for macro for this.

Forgetit

I have looked through all the buttons for search and replace and can't see it.

I clicked help and typed search and replace………0 hits.

Can you tell me the secret?

Thanks!

WAIT

6 hits just came up almost didn't notice.

OK I have Find and Replace box left side.

Where do I look for "two spaces" I can't find that option named

Thanks!

You don't need an option to search for two spaces. Just click into the search field and press the space bar two times. If you want to replace by nothing just leave the replace field empty.

And don't forget you can navigate to the next empty field/character by holding control and then press the arrow key of the desired direction

Edited April 8, 2014 by forgetit

[cheeryble]

Friend went to computer school the chap there was very nice and quite authoritative.

He was decisive that there was no easy way out.

As half the 33 pages are answer pages only half need re typing.

A student or something was found who will do the whole thing for 500 baht.

No said my friend must be 1000.

Problem solved.

Thanks to all I for one learned something!

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa app

[DogNo1]

Since you're already paying to have it done, your problem is solved but for future reference the easiest way I've found is to type the question and answers as one paragraph. Set your margins and tabs then type your question, shift-return, tab then type the answer. Shift-return and tab for each subsequent answer then return after the last answer in the group. This will begin the next paragraph so you can type the next question and answers using the soft return (shift-return) until the last line of that set of question and answers then a hard return. Now it is easy to apply any change if you decide to change the appearance of a question and answer set. Just manually change one, mark it (shift and drag the mouse over all of the text,) click on the format painter brush, then hold down control as you select all of the other questions and they will pop into same format as the one that you changed. It's very quick. There are other ways to format questions and answers but this method has worked well for me since I divide the page into two or three columns and need to tinker with the question format to fit the maximum number of questions on a page and have it look just right.

[cheeryble]

That sounds like excellent information Dog no1

I shall copy to an email for my friend and extol keyboard shortcuts and like the way of changing the whole style easily.

Thanks!

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