This is driving me nuts. I'm using Word 07 on my mac for a job I have. Two things:



First -- is there any way to set the number of spaced after a period when it's the end of sentence? I've been looking for this in autocorrect and can't find it. I'd like it to auto correct if there are either more or less than 2 spaces after the period at the end of a sentence. And also, I was wondering if it's possible to set Word so that after titles such as Ms., Mr., or Dr., etc. It will only keep the one period instead of making it two, should I go back and autocorrect.

Thirdly, can anyone tell me how to use wildcards when doing a find and replace?

And lastly -- I try to use word, but when I went over and tried to use the spelling and grammer when I was finished, I got some message saying that a certain dictionary couldn'd be found. All I see is custom.dic when I want to see which dictionaries are being used. Are there any others available and where can I get them, if they're already part of Word but haven't been accessed yet?

Hi straitsfan,

AFAIK there is no setting in Word for inserting two spaces after a period. In any event, that practice is a legacy from the days of typewriters with fixed-pitch fonts. In that era, the additional spaces made a great deal of difference in the text's readability.

As for using wildcards, the 'how' really depends on what you're trying to do. Word's help file has some useful pointers. Appropos your double-spacing after sentences, if you have a document with possible multiple spaces between sentences and between some words, but you want to have only one space between words and two between sentences, use a wildcard Find/Replace, with:
Find = ([!.][ ])[ ]{1,}
Replace = \1
Similarly, to ensure double spacing after sentences that are only followed by a single space:
Find = (. )([! ])
Replace = \1 \2
Do note, though, that this will also insert double spaces after any period followed by a space then any character that is not a space (eg Mr._X and Mrs._Y will become Mr.__X and Mrs.__Y (where the _ represents a space)).

Regarding the spell-check dictionary, you should check to ensure the relevant proofing tools have been installed. If they have been, you may need to repair your office installation.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]