Automatic hyphenation in Word

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I have been struggling with this to no avail since I began using Office 2008, specifically Word. In Word for a PC, one can set automatic hyphenation as the default. I cannot figure out how to do this in Office 2008. Every time I look for this answer, my question is misunderstood. The answer is always "go to tools>hyphenation>automatically hyphenate document". That's just fine for that one session. It does not create a default. I want Word to always be in automatic hyphenation just as one can set it on a PC. I don't know why this is so difficult but I can't find an answer. There must be one.

Thanks for whatever help you can give. It must be a fairly simple answer that I'm somehow missing.
 

chscag

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You must apply the auto hyphenation feature to the "normal template" and save it. Then whenever you open a new document that feature will automatically be applied.

The normal template is located here:

/Users/your user name/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/normal.dotm

Navigate to that file in the Finder and double click on it. Word will open it automatically. Make the changes via "Tools" as before and then save the template. Exit Word. Restart Word, open a new document (not a previous saved document) and see if it works.

Regards.
 
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This is very helpful. The trouble is that I always screw up my work with templates. I did it with the PCs I worked with for 100 years, and with the Mac I’ve worked with for six months.

Here’s what happens (and I’m probably not working with the same template I started out the day with):

I do what you tell me to do. I go to the Normal.dotm template in User Templates, double click on it, and it opens as Document1.docx. I do nothing but go to Tools and check the “Automatically hyphenate document” box and save that. I go to Save (not Save as) and then save the document as Normal.dotm. It does not go to the User Templates but to Documents in my User Name. I then find it and copy it to User Templates. Doesn’t work.

In Library, under Office, I have not only User Templates, but My Templates under User Templates (as well as My Themes, which I haven’t touched). I have tried the latest Normal.dotm under both User Templates and My Tem-plates. Neither works. In fact, I have even screwed it up so that Word opens, but I’m told the template is corrupt (I don’t think that’s the exact word that’s used.) I then man-age to get it back to where it opens normally, and I start all over again.

I’m sure I’m make this more complicated than I need to. But it puzzles me why the template opens as a regular document rather than as a template, and specifically, the Normal.dotm template.

It seems simple and I’m sure your answer is correct. So what am I doing wrong. Once I’ve made the change in the document, how specifically should I save it. And why doesn’t it go write to User Templates? And should it be there or in My Templates? Right now it’s in both.

Any further help you can give me would be much appreciated.
 
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PS -

I don't know which template is opening when I simply open the program: the one in User Templates or the one in My Templates. In other words where should the operative template be located?

Thanks and sorry for all the talk.
 

chscag

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First make sure you're not saving documents or templates in Word using "compatibility mode". In other words, use the XML format for saving templates and documents. (At least for now until the normal.dotm gets changed)

The "normal.dotm" template you need to modify is located in /User Templates

You should not have a copy of normal.dotm located in the /My Templates folder. That folder is specifically for templates that you may have created and are using for special purposes apart from what is already supplied by the program. I have all my special templates located there.

When you double click on the normal.dotm file, it will open in Word as "document1" and will want to be saved to your documents folder as a document file.

You have to over ride that. Select "save as", use the down arrow in file type and select Word template. Save as "normal.dotm" and point the location to your ".........../User Templates. That will automatically create a backup file of your normal.dotm (that you overwrote) if you have that feature turned on.

Sometimes my explanation can get a bit "wordy" (sorry about that) so here's a nice tutorial that you might find helpful. LINK

Let me know how it went.

Regards.
 
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Wordy is good. Wordier the better. Too many assume you know things that you don't. This was perfect and it is now all set. And beyond that, I am now an expert on editing templates (we'll see about that).

I'm very grateful to you and appreciate your prompt help.

If you're with FEMA, congratulations on all the fine work you do.

Here's another issue entirely. I have a DVD of a church play that was made by amateurs, and plays perfectly well in my MacBook Pro. I can copy it perfectly well on the Mac in that it plays just fine on my wife's PC. But the copies do not play on my Mac. I get a message when I hit 'play' that says 'supported disk not available'. THe top Apple people have no idea what to do. Google is full of posts and answers, most of which have to do with resetting permissions on the superdrive...although many of those solutions don't stick. And it doesn't work in my case. But it seems to be a major problem.

Any ideas? Hardly seems fair to put you to work on something else.

Thanks again.
 

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