Extra space after apostrophe

Anonymous
2010-07-19T19:31:29+00:00

Every time I type an apostrophe " ' " Word adds an extra space before the next letter.

For example, If I type don't, Word makes it come out Don' t 

Needless to say, this is annoying.  Does anyone have an idea how to make this problem go away?

Thnx

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2010-07-20T08:14:10+00:00

Hi RER

This sounds to me as if the language formatting may be set to something other than English. French, perhaps? Some languages require spaces before or after punctuation, so Word does this for the user. Which can be annoying if you aren't actually typing in that language.

At the bottom of the Word status bar you may see a little box with the language. If you don't right-click the status bar (that's the bar across the bottom of the Word windows,  in case you're not familiar with the term) and choose "Language" from the context menu. This will tell you the language formatting of the selected text.

If the text in the document is not an English "dialect", and you want the entire document to be in English, press Ctrl+A to select the document. Click on this "Language" button in the status bar, then select the language you want to use from the dialog box that pops up.

Cindy Meister, VSTO/Word MVP

Was this answer helpful?

40+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

61 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2014-06-24T00:06:35+00:00

    I had the same problem, tried every suggestion on this thread and none of them worked.  I found a solution on another thread elsewhere online- someone said to type CTRL 'Z' (UNDO) after typing the apostrophe and that worked for me to remove the big space.  It is an autoformat thing that word is doing and UNDO works to get rid of it.  But you would have to do it for every instance that you type the apostrophe unless you figure out how to change the autoformat options (which I don't know how to do).  Hope this helps.

    Was this answer helpful?

    9 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2017-05-20T21:56:08+00:00

    I had a similar issue.  However my language was set to ENGLISH.

    If you highlight you document (CTRL A), choose Times New Roman, or a font your computer has installed, it will go away.

    Was this answer helpful?

    7 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2010-07-20T08:08:07+00:00

    In Windows Regional Settings, change the keyboard associated with the input language from 'US International'  to the correct pattern keyboard that you are using e.g. US.

    Was this answer helpful?

    6 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2016-10-12T09:23:38+00:00

    You are correct if you change the font of your document to the ones available in your microsoft word's font options then this extra space problem goes away. language has got nothing to do with this problem thanks a lot for this man.

    Was this answer helpful?

    5 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments