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nickg5Flag for United States of America

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MS Word - back space and highlighting one list

Document left to right with four list. Date > charge > paid > still owed.

After the latest date 12-8-16 we left double click of mouse to move the cursor to the paid list.
This was done for 12 other dates before 12-8-16. After I finished I noticed the paid list was not straight. Some one space to far to the left or one to the right. I tried on each line to use the back space key to move the paid amount back one space.
This fails and goes all the way back to beside the date. (a)

So, instead of trying to line all 13 up individually, I wanted to highlight the paid list and then use the center text setting. That fails to it wants to highlight more than the paid list. (b)

Solutions to both problems: a. and b.
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Joe Howard
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Please upload the document.
You probably messed up the indents.
A sample would help.
If it isonly thr look you want, convert it to a table and remove all borders...?
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ASKER

Here are two images. The first shows a cursor, an orange dot and a green dot and an yellow line. When we started the document after we entered the dates we had to use the space bar to go all the way to the right to get the cursor where we could enter the amount. An example is what you see marked by the green dot.
The solution to that per another question was to double click and the cursor would move from the date to the paid list where I could enter the amount. Otherwise the space bar had to be pressed dozens of times one space at a time to get to the list of payments. That's been solved by double click where you want the cursor for the paid list.

Also you see the paid numbers are not in line. The cursor has been placed too far to the right for the middle two amounts of 25.00.
So the question is how to move those two 25.00 numbers back one space. When I use the back space key it goes all the way back to the date via the yellow line as an example.

The second image shows my failed attempt to "highlight" just the paid list so I can use the center text setting to get those numbers to look like this:
25
25
25
25
and not
25
 25
 25  < If I press the back space key to try to move the 25 one space to the left, the cursor goes all the way back to the date list.
25

These images and just examples and there are dozens of dates and numbers for the real document.
User generated imageUser generated image
Press ctrl+* then you will be able to seethe differences between the "good" and "bad" lines.
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ctrl and *  ?
That would be control and caps lock and 8

Lines (good or bad) are not an issue. It's the vertical list. I'm not calling them columns because I tried columns and it did not work well.

I inserted 4 tables and that did not work well. The issue was getting from one table to another. Ex: add a date in table 1 and then go to table 4 to enter the number. Same for columns going back and forth from one column to another.

So trying to avoid tables and columns.

At this point I can be more careful in the placement of the cursor before double click to get the next 25 in line with the ones above it. This will require a solution to how to highlight just the paid list to then use the center text setting.
ctrl and *
try it
Use the show / hide button - sounds like your spaces have been converted to tab characters
SOLUTION
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dbrunton
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dbrunton:
Yes.
I did notice that if an error is made and the cursor is to the left of $145.00 and you back space it ruins it.

I went ahead and tried control + * and now when I open your document the arrows, etc. are there due to the control + *. How to reverse that?

Here is where I tried it. Then in the second image I needed to skip list #2 and when I tried to use the space bar to get to the 3rd or 4th list, you can see the result. As far as show / hide not sure what that is.

So now when I open your document the arrows and ...... are there. But yes, that is what is needed but there won't be entries for all lines and all lists.

User generated imageUser generated image
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ok I finally got the watermark removed from new documents and now when I open yours the arrows are not there.
How did you set that page up? Thanks.
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I think I got it. I had initial trouble with the ruler and then tried double click and the symbols (upside down T) appeared.

This program has a least several hundred settings. How in the world are people supposed to find them and know how to use them.

User generated image
Yep, that looks like it.

Tabs can be very useful.  But as in a previous topic I stated that there's an art to making and using them.

As for learning all the features of Microsoft Word ... well, you get a good self tutorial manual and work through the exercises.  Many of the advanced features in it aren't really useful unless you are into heavy word processing duties.
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never found show / hide button.
control + * encountered issues when an item from a date skipped over to the last list. Never heard back from that comment.

So neither create the desired document view going forward.