Replies

Hi John:
No. There isn’t a special character to search for an end of cell marker. However, you can select your table, & using wildcards:
Find: ([0-9]) {1,}
Replace with: 1

I’m assuming that you’re just trying to replace spaces just before the end of cell marker, & not the ones after the $ sign. (That can be done also, if you want…or you could replace those spaces with a tab).

Hope this helps,

Edited by HansV to remove link that no longer worked

Note: While the steps below work in Word 2002 & 2003, each of these versions has a troubleshooting tool that automates the process (except for deleting temp files). You can read about & download the Word 2002 and 2003 Support Template. My thanks to Rebel for pointing out these tools.

Systematic Method of Fixing Common Problems & the Data Key
I’ve seen a number of questions in Woody’s Lounge, Word Forum that require the same systematic approach to solving. The usual symptom is some strange behavior in Word that hasn’t occurred before & occurs with most documents. I’ve replaced my Data key about a dozen times. Here’s some more detailed info on how to do it: The problem that the MRU doesn’t update correctly tends to be a sign that the DATA key in the registry is corrupt. However, weird behavior from Word can often be caused by temp files, a corrupt normal template or an add-in that is corrupt or incompatible, so these should be checked first, since they are much easier to do.

FIRST STEP: If you haven’t done so already, delete all your temp files.
1. Do the following, after closing all open applications:
2. Click an empty spot on the taskbar & press F3.
3. Make sure that the look in box is your primary hard drive & that “include subfolders” is ticked.
4. Type
*.tmp;~*.do?;~*.wbk
in the “named” box & search.
5. Then delete all these temp files.

I actually delete
~*.*,*.tmp
but warning, there are some programs that actually create & use files that start with a tilde. And some people name files to start with ~ so that it brings it to the top of the list. If so, you could be deleting important files.

SECOND STEP: If that doesn’t correct the problem, try this next step:
1. Start Word from the Start/Run menu & type

winword.exe /a

Then press “enter”. Note that there is a space before the /a. This starts Word without any add-ins, global templates, or normal.dot. Does the problem go away? If not, then neither renaming normal.dot nor the third step should help either. You can then try the fourth step. If the problem did go away, then:

2. Close Word.
3. Use Windows Find to locate normal.dot
a. Click an empty spot on the taskbar & press F3.
b. Make sure that the look in box is your primary hard drive & that “include subfolders” is ticked.
c. Type normal.dot in the “named” box & search.

4. Right click normal.dot & rename to normal.old
5. Restart Word
If the problem goes away, you had a corrupt normal.dot. If not:

THIRD STEP: Disabling Add-ins (Global Templates & COM Add-Ins)
1. Use Find again to locate both your Word & Office startup folder by typing “startup” (no quotes) in step c. above. For an alternative way of finding all the add-ins & coms that are currently loaded, insert the field

{ddeauto winword system topics}

into your document, select it, & press F9 to update the field. Note: the curly brackets are inserted by pressing Ctrl+F9, not by typing. This field was discussed by Woody in WOW-MM#3.24, WOW #7.49, & WOW# 7.51.
2. Drag everything out of the folder onto your desktop & restart Word. If this corrects the problem, it’s one of the add-ins that you dragged onto your desktop.
3. Close Word & drag each add-in back into the startup folder, one at a time, opening Word & testing after each one, & then closing Word. When the problem reappears, you will have located the add-in causing the problem.

NOTE: It is possible for a COM Add-In to be loaded without it showing up in the COM Add-Ins… dialog box. (You can find this box by going to Tools/Customize/Commands tab/ & click the Tools menu under Categories & you’ll see COM Add-Ins… on the right. Drag it to any menu or toolbar.) You can use the following macro from http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…kb;en-us;307479%5B/url%5D to view such COM Add-Ins

Code:

Sub ListAddins()

   Dim MyAddin As COMAddIn
   Dim i As Integer, msg As String

   For Each MyAddin In Application.COMAddIns
      msg = msg & MyAddin.Description & " - " & MyAddin.ProgID & vbCrLf
   Next

   MsgBox msg

End Sub

FOURTH STEP: Delete the Data Key
If this didn’t work, you should delete your Data key & let Word rebuild it. I would use the following steps:

1. Back up all your options. Go to Tools/Options & make a change…any change, preferably on each tab. Go to Tools/AutoCorrect/ & make a change on each tab. I usually change the first checkbox on each tab. Don’t worry! Your not going to leave it this way. Now record a macro (name it, e.g. MyOptions) & then go to each of the tabs & change it back the way you want. Then stop the recording & save the macro in any template. By the way, I would do this even if you don’t have any problems. Any time you want to restore all your options, you can run the macro.

2. Back up the registry. (I don’t, but everyone says to do this. Besides, I do a lot of things I later regret .)

The easiest way to backup your Registry is from the Start Menu, choose Run and type “scanregw” (no quotes). Keep in mind that Windows makes backups of the Registry automatically every day when you boot your PC. Last 5 backups are kept, overwriting any previous copies. If you backup using scanregw, the file will be replaced in five days. As an alternative, you can use the “Export Registry File” option in Regedit.

If you need to restore your registry later, go to:

Start/Shut Down, click “Restart in MS-DOS mode”, when in dos type SCANREG and hit enter, it will probably tell you there is nothing wrong and you don’t need to restore, but you can override it by clicking VIEW BACKUPS, highlighting the backup that you wish to restore (by the time/date stamp), and click the RESTORE button, after it restores your registry, it will reboot into MS-DOS mode again, this time type EXIT and hit enter, this will take you back to Windows.

3. Close Word. Go to Start/Run & type REGEDIT. With Word 97, navigate to

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice8.0WordData

OR, if you’re using Word 2000, go to

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice9.0WordData

& either rename or delete the key. Restart Word & the key will be rebuilt. You will lose your customized options, but that’s why you recorded a macro first. You can run the macro & restore your options easily.

AFTER YOU’VE REBUILT THE DATA KEY:

1. There are five other changes that take place. Your standard & formatting toolbars will share one line. If you use these two toolbars & don’t like that option, click Tools/Customize… & untick “Standard & Formatting Toolbars share one row”.
2. Clipit may reappear (sometimes it doesn’t). If you don’t like to use clipit, you also have to press F1, choose Options on Clipit, then the Option tab, & untick “Use the Office Assistant”.
3. The third change is that you lose all your MRU files on the Files menu.
4. You will lose all your files on the Work menu.
5. Lastly, all your non-global add-ins (the ones that aren’t in the startup folder) are removed from Tools/Templates & add-ins.

What I’ve done is after I restore my Work menu & my Tools/Templates & add-ins, I go back to the registry, select the Data key, & export it. Hopefully, it’s not corrupt at this point & I can restore it the next time it corrupts.

Edited by HansV to update link that no longer worked

Hi Shatzie:

I have a solution to the second part, not the first. Here are two tips that I learned–one from Cindy Meister’s home page & one from Allen Wyatt, who publishes Word Tips. Cindy Meister was disucssing how to create an address book, which might contain duplicate entries.

From Mail Merge FAQ by Cindy Meister:

Suppress duplicate records
Similarly to a complex merge, or for creating an index header in the catalog merge, here again you can use a combination of SET and IF fields in the main merge document to check for duplicate information and suppress merge fields for a record if they are the same as in the previously merged record. As for the other merge types, here you also need to pre-sort the records before merging.

Example: { IF { REF Check } “{ MERGEFIELD FIRSTNAME } { MERGEFIELD LASTNAME }”
“{ MERGEFIELD FIRSTNAME } { MERGEFIELD LASTNAME }
{ MERGEFIELD ADDRESS }
{ MERGEFIELD CITY }” }
{ SET Check “{ MERGEFIELD FIRSTNAME } { MERGEFIELD LASTNAME }”}

Note how this works. It inserts the first record because, by definition, the first record cannot yet be a duplicate. It then creates a bookmark by the name of Check,{SET Check ” “}etc.. It holds this as a variable & then assigns a value to it. The value is contained between the double quotes. Here, the value (result) will be the “{Mergefield FirstName} {Mergefield LastName}” that was just inserted.

Next, the { IF { REF Check } examines this value & asks if it’s not equal to () the next {Mergefield FirstName} {Mergefield LastName}. Notice that while it appears to examine itself,

i.e. is { MERGEFIELD FIRSTNAME } { MERGEFIELD LASTNAME } { MERGEFIELD FIRSTNAME } { MERGEFIELD LASTNAME }

it really compares the results of the current field, to the next one merged. If they are not the same, it puts in the name, address, & city, each on its own line (that’s where the marks come in). If they are the same, it inserts nothing. (While not shown, you could have a space & pair of double quotes after the double quotes which follows the {Mergefield City}.)

I do notice that each time the SET field is inserted & then deleted, it leaves behind a paragraph mark. This marks the number of duplicates it has skipped, which may or may not be useful.

An alternative solution from Allen Wyatt’s Word Tips:

MailMerge: Query Conditional Fields (Alternative to If, Then, Else)
from Allen Wyatt WordTips (edited)

You should note that you cannot use Word’s conditional mail-merge fields to compare values in any record other than the current one. [However, you can use a SET field to create such a condition by holding values from the previous record. See MailMerge: Address Book e.g.] It would be very nice to compare the contents of a data field in the current record with the contents of the same data field in the previous record, but Word will unfortunately not allow it.

One possible workaround to this shortcoming–if you are using an Excel worksheet as your data source–is to simply copy the controlling field (column) to another column, and then offset it by one row. Here is an example:

ITEM	CATEGORY	OLDCAT
Dogs	1	
Cats	1	1
Birds	2	1
Pigs	3	2

As Word processes each record of the data source, the value of the OldCat data field is the same as the contents of the Category data field in the previous record. Thus, you could use a compound field such as the following to check and act upon the comparison between the fields:

{IF {MERGEFIELD Category} {MERGEFIELD OldCat} “first text” “second text”}

Hope this helps.

Hi Al:
As far as I know, my hosts file is performing as expected. I had downloaded some hosts utilities that were recommended at http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm%5B/url%5D. One of them allows you to update the hosts file with known “nasties”. After the ZA update, I noticed that I could no longer update the hosts file, although the property dialog box did not show it to be read-only. I went searching for an answer & found it in the ms winxp newsgroups. The utilities are actually pretty cool & let you update, lock & unlock, turn off, & turn on the hosts file.

FYI. After I installed the new update, I noticed my hosts file was locked. I went to ZA control center/Firewall/Advanced & noticed that locking the hosts file was NOT checked. Nevertheless, I had to check it & then uncheck it in order to modify my host file. After a reboot, I had to do that again. A couple of other people mentioned this on the MS newsgroups, so I thought I’d mention it in case anyone is having trouble with their hosts file.

Hi Hans:
Thanks for checking & the information. I’m going to try making a change in
HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerVisualEffectsAnimateMinMax

However, do you have windows set to slide minimizing & maximizing? If you do, then there won’t be any change for you; it’s only if you’ve turned off the setting that windows appears to turn it on temporarily. BTW, while I was experimenting, I was able to click a hyperlink 4-5 times in Excel without the behavior reverting. Then it started happening again. Weird.

My old tried & true method that I mentioned in post 132,314. I found another weirdness using hyperlinks in Office, but I think I should post it in WinXP, as it affects window minmax animation.

Hi Stuart:
Are you sure? I found that in order to show the hidden bookmarks, I had to open the bookmark dialog box, uncheck show hidden bookmarks, & then recheck it. Then the _hlt bookmarks appeared. Sometimes the hidden bookmarks show the first time I open the dialog box & sometimes they don’t. Weird.

Hi Stuart:
That’s a good possibility. I never use the Web toolbar & when I put the back & forward buttons on, they didn’t become active. All my hyperlinks opened in a new browser window. I must have a setting somewhere that controls this, but I forgot what it is.

You are correct, at least in Word 2003 (which I now have). Two hidden bookmarks are created at the exact character in the hyperlink that you have clicked. And two more will be created, even if you again click the exact same spot on the hyperlink.

Hi Joel:
I’m glad you posted the follow-up. I can see your reason for using docs in the template folder to keep macros in one template & only available to certain documents. You could load Joel.dot as an add-in for only those documents, but it gets a little tricky (at least for me ). I experimented one time with using an AutoOpen macro to load the add-in & an AutoClose macro to unload it. Trouble was if you had two such documents open & you close one, the template is unloaded.

I’m curious as to where you found the solution (if you have a link).

When you said
>>3) .doc files, when placed in Documentum as their (cough) templates, make more .doc files. .dot files placed in the Templates cabinet of Documentum, make more .dot files (ick)<<

I'm not sure what you mean. When you either double click or use File/New on a template, you get a document. You shouldn't get another template unless you're opening the template.
Cheers,

Hi Joel:
>>I’ve built a system of templates with one ‘master’ template (let’s call it joel.dot) and about 200 ‘content’ templates (i.e. cover page.doc, study report.doc) which are all attached to the Master.<>The .doc files are in the local or workgroup template folder so that they’re available from File > New > General Templates (called Templates on My Computer in 2003).<>When the new doc is created, it’s nicely a “Document3” unnamed doc, and attached to joel.dot.<>Under 2002 SP3 (but not 2003), when the document is saved and reopened, the attached template is listed as “cover page.doc”.<<

While I don't have Word 2002, I don't know why the attached template should change, unless you are specifically doing something to make it change.

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to accomplish by having .doc files as templates. You could create documents based on Joel.dot, modify them by copying styles & boiler plate from cover page.doc etc. & save them as templates. If you have macros or autotext in joel.dot that you need for these different types of documents, you could either put them in these new templates themselves or put joel.dot in the Word startup folder, so they would be available globally.

Hope this helps,

Thanks for checking, Doc. I looked through ExplorerPlus & couldn’t find anything related to that option.
Hans, you’re right. I don’t think it’s related to that.
Joe: There’s almost 80 apps or utilities installed on my machine, all after the new motherboard. I could list them, if you thought you might recognize something, but I’ve used most of them before & never had that context menu item that I can recall. Maybe I can search the registry & see where the items came from. I renamed My Documents to Data some time ago, so I’m not sure whether the “Data” part of the command refers to “My Documents”. I’m not quite sure where to look, though, as a search for “Add to Directory Data File” came up blank.

I even searched Google before I posted for “Directory Data File” & “Directory My Documents File”. The latter only brought up Chinese web pages & asked me if I wanted to install Chinese.

Hi Doc: Thanks for the response. A friend of mine put this machine together from components & I just got a new motherboard, so I don’t think there’s any branding. But Joe’s & your response does tell me that this is not something that everyone has.

Joe: I suspected ExplorerPlus also, but…
It wasn’t anywhere in their online help &, in fact, they have a different method of associating files.
I’ve only had the eval version of Explorer Plus for about two weeks, & the command has been on there since I got a new motherboard.

It really doesn’t do anything valid. It/s only on the context menu for folders & drives (& their shortcuts), not files, so it really doesn’t make any sense to “associate” them with anything. If I try to actually associate a folder with a program, (e.g. Notepad), I get access denied (which is a good thing). I’m afraid to experiment too much. I wish I had paid more attention to when I first saw it, but I think it was when I first got my new motherboard. At that point, I reinstalled Windows & installed programs from scratch. There were so many apps & utilities that I didn’t keep track.

I appreciate the ideas, & if you have any more, they’re most welcome.

Hi Michael:
The option to “Remove personal information from file properties on save” is a per document setting. It should stick only for the same document. However, if another user has that setting on, then the document will be returned to you with the option on.

You could download their utility mentioned in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 834427 & run that.
Hope this helps,