Fess up; have you ever received a Microsoft Word document from a co-worker or friend that didn't appeal to your design standards? Perhaps, the author used too many fonts and colors that detracted from the content. Or, you imported a document from another word processor that didn't convert correctly? In these cases, it makes sense to first remove Word's format codes.

Sometimes the fix is easy and works in minutes. Other times, I find that regardless of whatever corrections I apply to the document, the result is worse. One case occurred last week where the source document had a myriad of formatting codes, columns, section breaks and tabs. Although the document looked fine in Print Preview, it printed with overlapping text. Even my quick fix of saving the document as a RTF file didn't work.

If you have abundant time, you can sit there and try to figure out exactly where the problem lies. Or, you can bring the text down to a bare bones state by removing all the formatting codes.

To remove Word format codes,

1. Highlight the problem text. If its the entire document press Ctrl+A to select all.

2. Press Ctrl and your spacebar key

After the original formatting is removed, I then rebuild the document by reapplying various format options.

 

Related Word Tutorials:

• Assigning Word Commands to Keyboard Shortcuts
• Finding Text or Objects in Microsoft Word
• 5 Tips to Compress Word Files