Word 2016 Paragraph Indent Problems

Anonymous

I've been experiencing a problem in Word documents since the upgrade to '16 a few weeks ago. My paragraphs keep randomly un-indenting, or indenting double. I'll fix all the problems, save the document and next time I open it, there's random indent again. Sometimes it's the same place, sometimes it is in a different location. Sometimes it even happens while I'm working in an open document! I've tried taking out all the formatting and starting over, I've tried resetting the paragraph parameters...nothing seems to help.

Any ideas on a fix? This problem is not only distracting, but also very frustrating because I'm not getting any real work done! It's driving me nuts!

Thanks for any help or suggestions. Appreciate it!

Beth

UPDATE 1/14: I received a reply from Doug after I sent my diagnostic file to be reviewed by a Microsoft team:

I have received information from the Word Product Team that they have identified the cause of the issue and are presently validating a fix for it.

In the meantime, it appears that toggling the display of “non-printing” characters by the use of the Show\Hide (¶) button on the home tab of the ribbon, causes the screen to be re-painted which will cause the indents to re-appear. However, the issue *will* return again following subsequent edits, so it will be necessary to toggle the show\hide every now and then.

Apparently, it is a display only issue and printing should produce the document laid out correctly with the indents in place.

So at least we know now what the issue is, hopefully a fix will not take that long. I see down the thread that Justin has reverted to '13 with no major issues, so that could be a good solution for those of you in need of proper paragraphs yesterday. Thanks to everyone for their help and suggestions and best of luck!

Beth

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Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

Hi everyone. We just released a new update that should resolve the following formatting/selection issues:

Sections that should be indented, are not indented
Tabs no longer display correctly
Strange pieces of characters are left on the screen
Selection range is incorrect, (Word doesn't select the text you choose)
Bullet and Number Lists don't display correctly

For more information, see: FIXED 1/26/16: Word 2016 doesn't display your document formatting correctly when you edit a document in progress.

Please try it out and let us know if you run into any trouble.

Thank you.

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Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

Yes, these all sound like part and parcel of the same bug. The symptoms are:

Sections that should be indented, are not indented
Tabs no longer display correctly
Strange pieces of characters are left on the screen (i.e., the screen painting issue)
Selection range is incorrect, (Word doesn't select the text you choose)
Bullet and Number Lists don't display correctly

The good news is that the fix for the bug has already gone out to our Office Insider audience, which means that it should roll out to the rest of you soon. Here's a bit more info about how the Office 365 updates work: How do I get the newest features in Office 2016 for Office 365?

I also want to take a moment to say that we appreciate each of you reporting your issues and working with us to resolve these bugs. We are listening closely.

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57 additional answers

Stefan Blom 352.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2016-01-13T08:58:22+00:00

It would also be possible to start the program from the Run dialog box: Hold the Windows logo key as you press R; from within the Run dialog box, type dxdiag and press Enter.
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Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2016-01-13T01:16:02+00:00

Hi Elizabeth,

You can go to Start>All Apps and scroll down to Windows System and expand it and click on Command Prompt and the enter

dxdiag

at the DOS command prompt and then press Enter.
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Anonymous

2016-01-13T01:05:41+00:00

I feel your pain over here; I just published my book over the weekend and had to go through line by line, constantly saving before I converted it to a pdf. Even still, there were a few errors that came out, but nothing significant enough to stop publishing. I just sucked it up.

I don't know if this will work, but have you tried saving in .rtf (if your editor/publisher allows)? I don't have a lot of experience with it, but maybe rich text would "fix" the formatting in place or something?

Like you, I hope we get a real fix soon, especially as I plan to have my second book ready to go by end of summer. Best of luck to you!
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