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Mysteriously Moving Margins in Word

In Microsoft Word 2008 (and older versions), if you put your cursor in a paragraph and then move a tab or indent marker in the ruler, the change applies to just that paragraph. If your markers are closely spaced, you may have trouble grabbing the right one, and inadvertently work with tabs when you want to work with indents, or vice-versa. The solution is to hover your mouse over the marker until a yellow tooltip confirms which element you're about to drag.

I recently came to appreciate the importance of waiting for those tooltips: a document mysteriously reset its margins several times while I was under deadline pressure, causing a variety of problems. After several hours of puzzlement, I had my "doh!" moment: I had been dragging a margin marker when I thought I was dragging an indent marker.

When it comes to moving markers in the Word ruler, the moral of the story is always to hover, read, and only then drag.

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Published in TidBITS 967.
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Tech News | 26 Feb 2009 | Listen  | Print Printer-Friendly Version of This Article

TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Software Updates for 02-Mar-09

by Doug McLean Send Email to Author

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1Password 2.9.9 from Agile Web Solutions updates the password syncing utility with support for Safari 4 Beta, as well as support for the iCab Web browser. The update also brings improved load time for Agile Keychain, expanded built-in documentation, enhanced imports from Safari and Firefox, and a variety of bug fixes including ones that address import performance, memory leaks, and crashing in Mac OS X 10.4. A full list of changes is available on the Agile Web Solutions Web site. ($39.95 new, free update, 11.4 MB)

Photoshop CS4 11.0.1 is a maintenance update to Adobe's flagship photo editing program. In the latest version the Pen barrel rotation now works correctly with Wacom tablets, 3D textures edited by plug-ins are properly recognized, and the results for the Auto-Blend Layers command have been improved. Also, two crashing bugs have been fixed - one that occurs when pasting formatted text, and another that occurs when working with corrupt fonts. ($699 new, free update, 33.1 MB)

MacSpeech Dictate 1.3 from MacSpeech is a maintenance update for the speech recognition utility, fixing reported issues and adding several features. Changes include new Cache Document and Cache Selection commands that enable users to navigate and edit existing documents by voice, microphone status indicators that have been added to the menu bar, new Press the Key commands that input the keyboard keys specified, and an added Cancel Training command that closes the Recognition window. Other changes include recognition window output now being handled without auto-formatting, and the removal of the Force Quit this Application command. Several bugs have also been fixed, including one that causes the command Go to End to fail, and two that caused MacSpeech Dictate to crash. Lastly, the latest version includes a new online help book written by TidBITS Contributing Editor Matt Neuburg. ($199 new, free update)

Corel Painter 11 from Corel is the latest version of the professional painting and illustration software. Changes include new Hard Media and RealBristle Dry Media controls that offer greater media options, enhanced selection tools including a new polygon mode for the lasso tool, increased support for Wacom pens and tablets, new color profiles for individual documents, a new resizable color palette, improved Adobe Photoshop support, and a feature that enables users to switch between Transform modes from one centralized location. ($399 new, $199 upgrade, 103 MB)

Cocktail 4.3.1 from Maintain is a security and stability update to the general purpose maintenance utility. This version addresses an issue wherein Cocktail stopped responding during a scheduled system cache clearing, adds the capability remove the Trojan Lamzev.A and the worm Inqtana, and improves the utility's capability to clear potentially harmful files. ($14.95, 1.8 MB)

 

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