Word 2004: In ‘Find and Replace’ window, font format specifications are not preserved properly in ‘Font’ dialog

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Microsoft
December 2nd, 2004 • 5:14 am

When you are in Word’s “Find and Replace” window, either in the “Find what:” or in the “Replace with:” field, if you go to the “Format” pop-up menu and specify a font (like “Font: Times New Roman“, for example), the next time you return to the same field and invoke the “Font” dialog, Word fails to fill out the “Font” field in that dialog box with the font that is already specified.

This means that the “Font” field is always empty, even when a font is already specified in the format for the “Find what:” or in the “Replace with:” field, and, if you neglect to refill the field with the desired font setting, Word forgets the setting.

It’s particularly irritating when you are making repeated trips to the “Font” dialog to correct your format definition for the “Find what:” or in the “Replace with:” field. Each time you have to remember to refill that particular field, otherwise Word will remove the font specification from your format definition.

It’s a small thing, but not insignificant. It can be particularly destructive if your “Replace All” action involves lots of occurrences and relies on a font specification to identify these occurrences. If you don’t pay attention to this Word flaw, you can end up replacing a lot more than you intended to.

Microsoft simply never runs out of ways to irritate you.


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