Old habits die hard... so when you find yourself with changing circumstances it can be difficult to quickly adapt. For example, did you know that the new standard in online media is one space after a period instead of two? For someone who has been typing for 20 years or more that can be a difficult standard to relearn.
Luckily there are some band-aids embedded in the software that we use. In the example above, which is a simple one, there are several solutions that we could utilize if we are using Microsoft Word. For existing documents that need to be converted to the new standard, a simple find and replace will do it.
CTRL+H brings up the find and replace dialog box in any version, which you will notice has tabs for Find and Goto. These last two are navigation tools that are mostly helpful in larger documents. In 2007 there is a section of the Home ribbon that gives access to all three as well as select.
In Find what: type a period and two spaces '. ' (without the single quotes.)
In Replace with: type a period with a single space '. '
If you are confident that every situation in the document can be converted without creating problems, then by all means boldly click Replace All and - *poof* - your document has a single space after each period.
But what about new documents? Of course we can learn to use one space over time. However, we can expect many slips along the way. As a stopgap we can use the AutoCorrect feature to catch our error and fix it in real-time.
AutoCorrect is one of those things that is wonderful when it works, and maniacal when it works against you. On the plus side, if you type v-e-y-r, Word will recognize that you probably meant v-e-r-y and will swap the letters around for you. There are dozens of pre-programmed items that correct common typing, spelling, and grammatical errors. Also included are some helpful shortcuts. Need a copyright or a trademark symbol? You could Insert > Symbols and scroll through to find it. Or you could type (c) or (tm) respectively and Word will replace it with the appropriate symbol. This is great unless you are actually trying to type (c)!
To find the AutoCorrect (in 2007) click the Office Button > WordOptions > Proofing > AutoCorrect Options. In 2003 go to Tools > AutoCorrect Options...
The list that ships with Word is only a starting point. We could easily add the '. ' to '. ' example to the list. We can also remove items from the list. A lawyer or architect that often quotes statutes or building codes might be annoyed when typing 1501.21(c) and the (c) switches to a copyright symbol! So if AutoCorrect is being 'too helpful' for you, simply open up the AutoCorrect list and delete this entry. Problem solved.
A related feature is the exceptions list. Word defaults to correcting words that begin with two capital letters instead of one. So if I entered MIcrosoft, this feature would automatically change it to Microsoft. Since every industry has its own quirks and jargon this can be frustrating if what you are typing is not a mistake. For example an architect, in addition to specifying building codes, may use the abbreviation AB for as-built. If it is common practice in the industry to refer to these as ABs (without an apostrophe) and Word will automatically change it to Abs. To avoid the problem we need to add an exception to the list.
From the AutoCorrections dialog box click the Exceptions... button to bring up the AutoCorrect Exceptions dialog box. Click on the cleverly mis-capitalized INitial CAps tab, and add ABs to the list. Word ships with IDs as the only default exception.
If you spend some time exploring all of the correction options you will see that they are pretty extensive. And between the selectable options and specific lists, there is almost always a way for you to get Word to behave to fit your needs.
And if you need additional assistance or have questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.
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