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

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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

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-03-22T00:10:37+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.

    Thanks for your tip, ClarksJewelers.  I had the same problem too, but it only occurred in a table when I have the text direction going sideways.  When the text is horizontal, there is no extra space after the apostrophe.  Weird or what!  The fonts are normal ones like Arial or Times New Roman and using English (NZ) language.  This is a new phenomenon as I haven't had any trouble like this before. 

    I would also like to know how to fix this problem permanently so that I don't have to press Ctrl Z every time this happens.  Maybe it's a bug in Word itself.  I use Microsoft Office 365, a subscription product that automatically updates, on a Windows platform.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-05-31T02:42:48+00:00

    I had this problem with an Office Word document also. I used Left click and dragged over the area surrounding and including the inverted comma and apostrophe and on each occasion the font changed to indicate MS Mincho, a Japanese font, in the toolbar at the top of the screen. In this case the commas and apostrophes appeared slightly darker than the surrounding text (Times new Roman). The font on the task bar at the bottom of the screen still indicated ENG. I changed each MS Mincho back to Times New Roman manually on the toolbar. The problem arose when I was using another computer in 2012. When I type fast sometimes I hit more than one key at a time. Control + Shift + F gives you the font. I think I might have created the problem myself, as it occurred halfway through typing a document. I checked and the font stayed on Times New Roman for each comma and apostrophe after it had been corrected.

    I hope this is useful.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-06-30T17:50:05+00:00

    The suggestion for the font check was right on.  I had copied an address from a website into Word and of course it kept that font for the rest of the doc.   Font changed, and voila.  Thx

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-07-07T22:32:24+00:00

    I experienced the same issue.  After reading the list of solutions I checked my Language settings - set to English Canada.  I then Ctrl+A entire document and switched to English US - save.  Issue still persisted - switched back to English Canada.  I then Ctrl + A entire document again and changed FONT STYLE from Microsoft JengHei Light to Calibri - saved and tested.  This solved the problem.  I then Ctrl+A document again and changed font back to Microsoft JengHei Light and the problem came back (did not save this time) and just hit Ctrl+Z (back).  So it appears to be an issue with the font style - at least in my case.

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