I hate using MSOffice and formatting sucks. I always get these little annoyances whenever I try to format something. I want certain lines to be a bullet point and I highlight the text I want bullet points on and it bullet points only the first sentence no matter what I highlight or where my courser is located... and this is after I removed all formatting styles. I don't know... maybe it's just me, but working on MSOffice just pisses me off, especially Word. But since this seems to the be the world standard, I can't get away from it.
Hold the kitty a moment . . . I feel the need to point out this: chances are, Word is doing exactly what you want it to do. Not buggy or crazy, just following your specific directions like a good little soldier.
Let me explain.
Buried in all of those dialog boxes, settings and controls are the commands Word follows until you change something. Because many users do not change something here or there, Word ignores what they think Word should do and proceeds to do what it is setup to do.
Always use Word headings (heading 1, heading 2, heading 3) and avoid abusing the Enter Key. If you want more space between lines or paragraphs, change the heading space before and after settings.
Bullets and numbers are a problem for some, but again, you can tell Word what to do if you learn how to modify the settings.
Also watch out for the Autocorrect commands and such.
I suggest you do this: NUKE YOUR DOCUMENT and start over after you learn more about styles.
To nuke a document, ALWAYS make a backup and open that in Word. Save as a text file.
Then open the text file in Notepad, not Word Pad. Once open, save it again as a text file. This will remove the problems. Sometimes Word does act up but more often than not, it really is not acting up; it is merely doing what you told it do do.
Again, notepad not word pad.
Remove all spaces you added by abusing the enter key. That is to say, you end a paragraph and hit enter several times to add the spacing you favor. DO NOT DO THIS!. What you must do is modify the paragraph style and add the desired spaces.
One great thing about styles, is you will be assured of consistency. If you decide to change your paragraphs from 11 point Garamond to 12 point TNR, just make one change to one style and you are done. If you mix legitimate Word Styles with direct formatting, you cannot make global changes except by manual means.
Learn about templates and your standard template, Normal.dot. A .dot file is a template file and Word considers templates much differently than it considers document files. And every Word document is based upon a template. That being, normal.dot.
A template actually stores thousands of things believe it or not. Very different animal.
And avoid .docx files. I find many issues with those blasted things. Hate them, for sure.
Luck to you.
Bob Maxey
Lost in Distro Land with a fork in my brain.