Autoformat Rules & Behaviour (Word 97/SR2 Win NT4)

[dansy]

Someone in my office is attempting to convert a received PDF file (originally a word file that was converted to PDF by the file owner) by the following process,

1.Select all text using PDF select text tool
2. Paste the text in a new word doc.
3. Run Autoformat to ensure page setup and section numbering are ok.

A nasty byproduct of the last step is that it does not appear to behave consistently, inserts TABS (Adjust Alignment) where there should be none - but not consistently, borders and shades areas of text near the word "Figure" etc.

Can anyone point me to a detailed description of the rules used by the Autoformat function - I have tried setting as many different options and combinations thereof including preserve styles but this seems to make little difference.

We do not have Acrobat so that is not an option.
<img src=/S/igiveup.gif border=0 alt=igiveup width=31 height=23>

[KB MacKenzie]

Hi, dansy. The best I could find after a short search is from MVPs.org FAQ page: <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Formatting/CleanWebText.htm>Cleaning up text pasted from the Web</A>. Many of the tips and functions could apply to your PDF experience.

HTH

[Charles Kenyon]

My experience with AutoFormat has mostly been negative. The sole exception has been cleaning up emails and web text.

The article on the MVPs site referred to elsewhere should help you with what you are trying to do, though.

If AutoFormat doesn't do what you want, consider writing your own clean-up macro. When you do this, use Styles, don't do direct formatting. You may have to prep documents by going through and designating paragraphs for particular updates by applying styles to them. Then your macro changes the styles or grabs styles from another template using the organizer.

Remember that if you use the organizer to copy multiple styles you will want to copy the styles three times. That is, copy stylea, styleb, stylec then copy stylea, styleb, stylec, and then copy stylea, styleb and stylec yet a third time. (The last copy may be superstition but is easy enough to do with a macro.) The multiple copying is needed if you have any style that is based upon another style; it preserves these links.

Finally, why not contact the original owner and ask for a copy in Word format?