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
    2011-04-02T15:26:05+00:00

    I have this same issue. I AM typing in the French language format - and I am required to type in this format in order to do my job.

    This happens with ANY file when I open it in ANY Microsoft Office application (Word, Outlook, Excel etc..) So I highly doubt that all the files on my computer have all of a sudden become corrupted.

    I have unchecked the box for "Detect language Automatically" but it has not resolved this issue.

    I hardly believe that the only solution that Microsoft can offer it's international customers is not to type in any other language but English.

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  2. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2011-04-02T17:24:12+00:00

    If you are typing in French, then you will not be using the apostrophe for contractions such as "don't" or for possessives, and very likely the default spacing is correct.

    If you are typing in English and have that language applied to the text and are still having the problem, then there is something else going on.

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-11-13T10:50:39+00:00

    I was in your position as well.

    I actually discovered that I was working on a word document that had a particular font, but I didn't have that font installed on my computer. While word won't always allow it, sometimes it will allow you to work using a font that you don't have installed, but it comes with very minor twitches, like a large space after an apostrophy.

    To check, look at the font being used in word and the go to c:\windows\fonts\ and search to see if you have that font. If not, close the doc, download the font from the net (there's heaps of places giving away free fonts) and then copy it to your windows\fonts folder. Then open the doc again and you should be right.

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-01-03T20:40:57+00:00

    I am getting the same problem below, only with Office for Mac 2011.   So far I only get the issue in Word.  I am using the Advantage template that comes withe Office for 2011.   I have dutifully checked the keyboard and document language and both are correctly set to English or English (US).  

    Any other ideas?  It's not a corrupt document because I get this in all the Advantage template docs I do.

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