Fractions in Word

[Beth]

I've had to copy a cookbook from Mastercook over to Word to manipulate the printing format. The fractions 1/2 and 1/4 automatically resize so that the fraction is about the same size as a whole numeral, but 1/3 and 2/3 do not. Anything with thirds sticks out and looks huge. Does anyone know how to get thirds fractions to look the same in Word? I cannot find the answer in my program Help or on-line. The answer must be painfully obvious or impossible. Thanks for any help.

[Laura B]

Hi Beth! I could not find a way to make the 1/3 and 2/3 "shrink." However, you could just turn off that function for the 1/4 and 1/2 so that all fractions look the same. Go to the "tools" menu and choose "autocorrect." Then under "autocorrect as you type" and "autocorrect" unselect the fractions. Hope that will help!

Laura

[Laura B]

I just tried something. You will have to set your options under autocorrect and THEN pull your document over. I tried having some fractions on the page and then turning it off. Even with the text selected, turning it off doesn't change your existing text. So, if you decide to turn them off you'll need to make a new document. I think it should work that way.

[Beth]

That was my other thought, but I liked the neater look of having the smaller fractions if possible. It keeps the quantity and ingredients columns better rather than letting them run together. Guess I could also go through and change all the thirds to the correct number of tablespoons. It's always something, isn't it?

[Laura B]

You know I figured you already knew how to do that! I like the small fractions, too. I have no idea why they would not create the function to apply to all of the basic fractions!?

[Beth]

Sometimes what seems obvious is easily overlooked or forgotten...never hurts to make sure. You know, maybe techie minds have to have neat even fractions and can't handle anything that would require rounding or drive them off to infinity. There must be some reason they skipped over 3 on their way to 4. Oh well, thanks for your help.

[kentgirl]

Here's what I did to set up MS Word to display fractions and it works great. You have to do a little up-front work, but after that it's automatic.

1) Type the fraction 2/3.
2) Highlight just the number 2
3) Press CTRL+D to open the Font dialog box.
4) Select the "superscript" option, click OK
5) Highlight just the number 3
6) Press CTRL+D to open the Font dialog box.
7) Select the "subscript" option, click OK.
NOTE: You do NOT select the slash.
9) Now highlight all three characters.
10) Select the Auto-Correct option in the Tools menu.
11) Type 2/3 in the "replace" box, make sure the "formatted text" option is seleted, and the "with" box should already be filled in.
12) Click ADD, then OK.

Repeat for any and all fractions you want to auto-correct.

This is a slightly different look from the built-in fractions in Word, so I did this for all the fractions, including the built-in ones.

Hope this helps!

[Beth]

Kentgirl, thanks. I wondered about that approach. I'll try it. The thing I discovered in the meantime is that I can manually scale to 6 pts in the font I am using and get a fraction that is pretty close to the autoformatted ones for my 10pt text. I'll see which one looks best and go for it. I did send Microsoft a note about 1/3 and other fractions.

[This message has been edited by Beth (edited 11-05-2000).]