Sunday, August 1, 2010

Microsoft Word. And Giant Dot After That Word.

Computers are great, don't get me wrong.  Clearly, they have made any and all information readily available, communication greater, and entertainment easier to steal.
HOWEVER-
Sometimes (see: Frequently) I would like to PUNCH technology.  In the throat.  Mostly when it won't do something simple.  Something that I can express in two sentences.  Something like don't put a dot between every word I type in my Microsoft Word document.  (forgive the bold underline.  I didn't want to all caps you to death.  Even though that probably would have been more appropriate there.  But hopefully you get the gist.)  But you can't say "don't put a dot in between every word I type please" to Microsoft Word.  You have to try and find the "dot between words" command and check it or uncheck it.
Where, by chance, would this command be?  Well, I think the "Format" menu would be a good place to start, seeing as how they do not have an "Obvious things you don't want in your word document" menu.  Seriously- why would they have that stupid dot?  I'm not talking about a period dot.  I'm talking about a dot as big as this "o", only floating in midair and-in-between-every-word-like-this.--only-with-a-dot-instead-of-a-dash.  And why would they have it as the option you start your document with?  The only thing you should have mandatory to start whatever type of writing you're going to be doing is the alphabet.  And numbers I guess.  Everything else just gets in the way.  Well, we should probably have punctuation too.  Hopefully you understand the point I was trying to make and I can move on.  So yes, here we are in the "Format" menu.  I'll go into "font" because I don't think this is an issue with shading or columns.  (Heaven forbid I have to go into those though because that's when my document somehow becomes diagonal and every "r" gets changed into a "q" and the only way to change it back is to delete everything I've worked on for the past 20 minutes.)  Great: font.  After looking through this option, I can "shadow" effect everything I've written, do strikethough, which is really great stupid, or make my font sparkle.  This, I know how to do.  Not having my spacebar send dots onto the screen?  No. 

Great, after looking through multiple other tabs and menus I will try to "reveal formatting", why not?  I didn't know it was hidden from me in the first place, but what the hey. I've found the "paragraph, allignment, and indentation" links.  I'll click on them and see what's what.  Here's something: "Pagination".  A tab after clicking "indentation".  Wait a minute- "Pagination"?  That must be what people who program letter writing document programs for a PC have instead of imaginations.  While I'm in Pagination land, let's see what they have to offer:  A bunch of blank boxes except for one:  "Windows/Orphan Control".  Since I have no idea what this does, except preventing someone like Oliver or Annie from escaping, possibly with bars(?) I will uncheck it and see what it does.  There's nothing else I've found in my adventures through this program that I'm unfamiliar with, so this must be it.  (checking)  .....
I will now show you what I typed as a test:


Does-this-work?-Alskdjglsdkjglsjk-COME-ON-YOU-STUPID-JAIOSTDUSAPASOUDG
(only again I have added dashes instead of giant dots)

At this point, I've pretty much given up using my college educated I-take-pride-in-being-a-semi-intelligent-person brains to figure this out and do what every person does when they have any sort of problem whatsoever:  Type the question into google in a poorly formed ill-formatted "question".
 "stop ms word from putting dots in between every word i type"
Beauty.  
This, of course, answers my question instantly.  And is why Bill Gates should be very, very afraid of google.
(By the way, for those curious how to solve this problem, read on.  For those who are not, have a nice day.

Apparently you open your "reveal formatting" then click on the giant weird extra lined "P" next to your sentences, then unclick "show all formatting marks" then you're good to go!  It's as simple as that!!!!!!! (angry face))


EDIT ONE DAY LATER:  The different font at the end of this entry is not a joke.  It seems to be my computer's way of getting back at me.

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