MS Word 2003: Distributed (Formatting)

I have 2 PCs that I use for business. We use Word a lot. One of the PCs has as a format option, a toolbar button called "distributed".

I am unable to enable this option on my 2nd PC, which is faster and more powerful (hence my shift to use this one more often). I have located a "Fit Text" command button, which doesn't seem to be the same thing as "Distributed".

I also know that CTRL+SHIFT+J will pretty much do this, but we've become accustomed to using the toolbar button as it's faster.

I've tried posting on MS forums and experts-exchange. It doesn't seem to be an easily accessed option...so I don't have high hopes of getting the answer...just hoping.

 

I think the Command you're looking for is "Justify".

You can add buttons to the toolbar by right-clicking the toolbar and choosing Customize. You can then drag and drop functions from the Command tab to the Toolbar (Justify is under Formatting). You can also just try using the 'Reset' button on the Toolbar tab in that window, since I think Justify is there by default.

 

Thanks Lee,

There is Justify, and Fit Text, and also this one called Distributed.

Some other users call it DistributePara which might be the same thing.

The PC that has it on the toolbar calls it "Distributed" when I put my cursor over it.

This is bewildering because it's a very useful tool for my business.

 

I've worked with Word alot, and have never seen such an option. However, I did find the following in the Help:

The feature or some of the options described in this Help topic are only available if support for the appropriate South Asian language is enabled through Microsoft Office Language Settings.

• Place the insertion point in the paragraph that you want to change, or select several paragraphs.
• On the Format menu, click Paragraph, and then click the Indents and Spacing tab.
• In the Alignment box, click Thai Distributed.

Where are you? Are you using Word w/ Thai enabled (on both PCs)?

 

I am in the US. I know the first PC definitely had Chinese enabled, so I enabled Chinese/Japanese/Korean on the second PC. I will try the Thai as well if it's not already enabled.

I've read posts on the MS forums about enabling east asian languages. That does seem to enable the "Fit Text" format toolbar button.

It's so weird because on the one PC that has it, the command is called "Distributed". Both are the same version of Office Word 2003. I have also been told as well as noticed that "Fit Text" and "Distributed" have some minor differences.

I will try what you have posted and hopefully it gets me closer.

 

Maybe it'll help if you explain exactly what this function supposed to do?

Edit - there's a "Distribute Colums" function for when you have a table? Makes each column the same width.

 

The Distributed function essentially forces every line of selected text to fit the column L-R, even half lines of text--which differentiates it from the "justify" function.

It is essentially the "Fit Text" function, but I've been told that this does not work in tables.

Another difference I noticed was the "Fit Text" only works on selected text, while if you hit the "Distributed" command on an empty page, it will set the entire page to be distributed ("fit text" does nothing in the same situation).

I've also been told that the "Fit Text" will play with character spacing in order to fit the text in the spaces, while "Distributed" does not.

It's not the end of the world, but these little differences are meaningful to our business as we do a lot of typesetting.

 

Found this:

"Because the last line of text in a paragraph is often shorter than the other lines, it may not appear to be justified. To justify the last line in a justified paragraph, place the insertion point at the end of the last line, and then press SHIFT+ENTER. Be aware that justifying a very short line of text may look odd because of the large amount of space that will be created between the words."

So basically, you justify the paragraph and use Shift-Enter at the end. It seems work in columns and tables as well as regular, single-column pages, but does not change the character spacing (there has to be at least 2 words on the line).

Hope it helps some...

 

Yeah, I also know that CTRL+SHIFT+J should do the job too. I guess I'm just stubborn and am trying to find the exact same application when there are many other "very close" options out there.

Thanks so much! Rep points for you!

 

Open Office Writer?

 

CTRL-SHFT-J I think only enables 'Justification' on a paragraph. If you show the formatting (paragraph mark on the toolbar) and use SHIFT-ENTER at the end of a paragraph, you'll see it inserts a different paragraph mark than the standard backwards 'P', so it is something different than paragraph alignment (I think....).

 

I will look into that.

Why won't Word just let me have that button on my other PCs?

usapatriot: I also have Open Office, but our work is almost exclusively done in Word.

 

Could it be that you're using the same version of Word with different versions of Windows XP?

From this link:
In order to enable the Indic language features in Office, you must be running a 32-bit Microsoft Windows operating system that has Indic language support— for example, a Indic language version of Microsoft Windows XP, or any language version of Microsoft Windows 2000.
...
This feature is available in Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Microsoft FrontPage, Microsoft Publisher, and Microsoft PowerPoint, and it justifies mixed text by adjusting the spacing between characters. In standard justification the spacing between words is adjusted.

 

Both are updated XP Pro machines.

I will be looking further into everything as soon as I have a chance.

Thanks again lmychajluk!

 

But is one an " Indic language version of Microsoft Windows XP"? (Don't ask me what exactly it is or where you might get it...)

 

That's actually what I was wondering. I'm going to have to do some research on that.

Thanks again for all your ideas and help on this!

 

No problem. You piqued my curiosity!