Torts outline a total mess

May 3, 2006 10:28 AM

Help! I am creating an outline for a very important exam tomorrow, and Word keeps dropping my formatting.

The formatting is dropped only after I've stopped working on a section for a while. I'll finish a section and it looks fine. I come back to review something a while later (after I've done several more pages) and the bullet points and numbered outline points have disappeared. The result is a jumbled mess of text. I don't want to fail Torts for lack of appropriate bullet points!
How do I get the formatting back? If that's not possible, how do I prevent this from happening again?

I've looked through Word's help and either it's not in there or I don't know what to look for. I have no idea how anything technical works, so please keep explanations simple!

posted by ohio to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

As a 2L, the best I can offer you is to give up on the formatting. YOU ARE WASTING TIME. Get the information you actually want down, hit 'ENTER' several times between topics/sections, print it, and then do it caveman style and use colored highlighters and tabs to mark the different sections. Trying to fight with your computer when you have less than a day before such an important test is ridiculous.
posted by gatorae at 10:37 AM on May 3, 2006

I don't have a fix for you, but I can answer this part:

how do I prevent this from happening again?

Look - Word, for all it's popularity, can be maddeningly, insanely complex. Have you considered learning and using another tool for the next time? There are numerous systems, programs, and whatnot designed for these sorts of things.

Spend some time researching better solutions than that infuriating MS Word.
posted by unixrat at 10:43 AM on May 3, 2006

I would recommend using an outlining program instead of Word in the future. My boyfriend (a 2L) uses OmniOutliner and loves it. If you need to get the data into Word to use for writing a report, it will do that no problem.
posted by bcwinters at 10:54 AM on May 3, 2006

ohio, how long is the document? If it's a page or few, I would first save a backup (very important) under a different name. Then open your original document, highlight it all and use Format -> Style -> Normal to get rid of all paragraph styles. It will remove the mess, I think, and also all your hard-earned formatting. So then turn off Word's stupid auto-fuckup via Tools -> AutoCorrect -> AutoFormat As You Type -> Automatic Bulleted/Numbered Lists. Then apply formatting again, either by typing in numbers and tabs manually, or with Styles if you know how to do that. This is not really the best way but may be your best hope for a quick emergency fix.

I can somewhat post more detailed instructions if you like. This will horrify you at first, and make sure you have a backup. It also might be too much work for a long document. But "next time" solutions aren't going to help you now, even if they're good advice.
posted by theredpen at 11:10 AM on May 3, 2006

Just reread and saw that it's multiple pages. You can still try my approach (and also might want to try a middle step of hitting Control-Spacebar to remove more formatting), but even less practical for long docs -- sorry.
posted by theredpen at 11:21 AM on May 3, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks. I think for now I'll just try gatorae's suggestion and live with it. I also have turned off automatic fomatting, although I still am setting formatting so I'm not sure it'll work.

Now I just need to understand Palsgraf . . .
posted by ohio at 11:32 AM on May 3, 2006

"How do I get the formatting back?" if that is a literal question, then:

First, copy-paste all of your content into a new document, and save. Second, undo undo undo undo until you get back to a point where the formatting for the earlier portions still exist. Third, paste in the new content you have created since that point and format it.

Good advice above about turning off auto-bullet" and whatnot, as things you do way down can affect things off-screen up above, and you don't know until too late.
posted by misterbrandt at 11:35 AM on May 3, 2006

Don't use any auto-format features. For the future, I suggest you use the outline toolbar along with the document map feature to make sure everything is in order. If you assign proper levels to the headings, you can create quite a useful table of contents from the headings, which will act like a mini outline on exams.
posted by subtle-t at 12:07 PM on May 3, 2006

While gatorae is undoubtedly right that learning torts is a better idea than making your outline look perfect, us law students can be OCD type folks who can't think straight unless we know exactly where something is in the outline. So if this makes you feel better, go nuts.

Anyway, I have a Word template that has served me well for three years. E-mail me if you want a copy, or if you have any torts questions.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 1:26 PM on May 3, 2006

I found that I could get Word to play nicely with my outlines only if I did them one line at a time, in sequence. Which is to say, no cut-n-paste of large sections into the middle of an existing "Bullets and Numbering" section. Otherwise it got all messed up.

For next semester, I recommend that you start by taking your notes in the form that you want your outline to be. Later, you just delete the crap, and additions are relatively small.

Oh, and good luck. Torts is a killer.
posted by MrZero at 1:57 PM on May 3, 2006

Download a free version of Microsoft OneNote (google it). You will thank me. The version is good for 30 days.
posted by skepticallypleased at 3:32 PM on May 3, 2006

There are bugs in almost all versions of word that cause the behavior you are seeing. They arise because the "styles" that auto-formatting uses for bullets don't track changes that occur later in the the document -- instead, when you creat a "custom" bullet (or numbering) style, Word spawns a whole host of new styles and then tries to "catch up" by changing previous uses of those styles to Normal (or worse, to what it thinks the bullets should be).

This series of bugs is probably the single most infuriating aspect of the hideous mess that is Word, and that's really saying something. I'm a lawyer myself and let me tell you, this doesn't go away after law school. Wait untill you have to use Word to make up tables of Contents and tables of Authorities for briefs.

Anyway, the answer, tough as it is, is to open a new doucment, turn off all auto formating, cut and past the entire old document text into the new one (using "Paste Special --> Unformatted Text") and then reformat (assuming the outline is short enough that this is doable). If you keep trying to fix the current document it will only get worse.

From then on, as others have suggested, do your outlining by hand and, when you are done with this semester, get yourself an outlining program. You and your study group will all be happier.
posted by The Bellman at 3:56 PM on May 3, 2006