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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 99.
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16 Dec 1991 | Print Printer-Friendly Version of This Article

Fun with the Finder

by Adam C. Engst Send Email to Author

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Virtually every article ever written about ResEdit warns you to always work on a copy and to keep backups and so on. This warning has become somewhat cliche, but we're going to do it anyway: only work on a copy of the file and keep backups. We recommend always using the latest version of ResEdit since Apple does make significant improvements to each new version. As of the publication date, the latest version we've seen is 2.1.1. With all of these procedures for modifying the Finder, you'll have to drag the original out of the System Folder, drag your modified copy into the System Folder, and reboot before any changes will take effect. Finally, ResEdit is not for the timorous. Because of that, we have not taken a hand-holding approach to the directions, so if you have no idea what the directions mean, feel free to experiment, but make sure that you're working on a copy and that you don't throw the original Finder out until you have determined that your copy works fine. 'Nuff said.

We should note that there are several shareware utilities that will do some of this dirty work for you. Check out the System 7 Pack from Adam Stein for application substitution, rename delay editing, and adding command keys to the Finder. FileEdit (soon to be called FinderEdit) can add substitute applications, and the freeware extension UnderStudy can do the same, although UnderStudy requires the use of ResEdit to configure your substitutions. Connectix makes the most powerful utility in this arena, Hand-Off II, which can not only substitute different applications for standard document formats but goes one further by allowing you to substitute (for example) Nisus for all documents that have been created by Word, no matter what type (TEXT, WDBN, etc.) those files may have. Finally, a small application called Anti-Finder can quit the Finder and then launch it again.

In a bit, the tricks, but first a note from Eric, who contributed much of this issue and a bunch of tips on System 7 for a forthcoming issue. "The following are various tricks I've come across. If you have any questions drop me a line. These are my tips, not Apple's!"

Information from:
Eric Apgar -- apgar@apple.com
Robert Hess -- ENDPOINT@applelink.apple.com
Adam C. Engst -- ace@tidbits.halcyon.com
Trey Campbell -- FLC3527@tamxrd.tamu.edu
Russ Arcuri -- raa92@137.238.1.1

 

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