issue with different MS Word versions (words joining randomly)

[Lothlorien]

I've been working with a variety of Word documents in the course of my latest pursuit, many of which have been created in various versions of Windows and I'm running into a really annoying problem where swapping between the various versions (not by choice) makes some of the spacing between words go funny and some words join together.

For example, "Annie had a cat and the cat was black and liked to spend time in the sun" becomes
"Annie had a catand the cat was black and liked to spendtime in the sun", or "Annie had acat and the cat was black...".

This is happening when I re-open my own previously saved document, or when I open a downloaded file. As I'm dealing with position descriptions, key selection criteria statements and my resume, this is a problem as it makes it look like I can't spell/type properly.
And I don't know what happens with spacing in my carefully edited and proof read documents when they're opened by someone else - like my hoped-for boss.

I have both Office 2013 and Office 2007 on my laptop. The 2013 is a student copy which may disappear any moment, as I'm not enrolled anymore, so the 2007 is for when that happens. Uninstalling 2007 for now isn't an option because I've accidentally deleted the set up files, so it wouldn't be possible to reinstall it. I'm trying to use only the 2013 while I have it.

Would anybody happen to know what is going on here and how to stop it?

 

[rjblue]

You need to look at the document with show formatting marks turned on.

Make sure you don't have tabs or other characters used instead of spaces.

I've had to clean up files that were Word Perfect converted to MS Word and full of glitches.

 

[Japanfan]

As rjblue suggests, I would think some formatting command must be in place that is overriding your spacing? I'd appreciate knowing whether this is the case, as I might have that issue myself at some point.

I started using Word 2013 last fall and all sorts of issues have arisen, though not the one you're having right now. Most of them have had something to do with Options. At one point there was a language issue when I was editing a document that had been previously included Arabic text, and it was fixed under 'Languages'. It was very strange.

 

[Aussie Willy]

Funny spacing in Word can be fixed by opening the Font dialog box, then click on the Advanced tab and then set your spacing that way.

 

[Lothlorien]

Thanks @rjblue and @Aussie Willy.

Unfortunately neither of your suggestions solves the issue. Maybe I should change the threat title to "words joining" rather than "spacing"

Not all of the spacing is affected - the glitches are completely random and occur only a few times in a given document. Just opened one of the versions of my CV which had no issues two days ago - and found 5 instances of joined words which were NOT joined two days ago. The randomness is irritating, plus apparently I can't trust that a 'clean' document will open clean on someone else's screen!

I've had a look at Options, but none the wiser so far.

 

[Japanfan]

Lothlorien, have you googled about the issue?

When we had issues with Word 2013 we've punched the issue into Google, and usually found others who had had the same issues. In some cases, videos were posted about how to correct certain issues.

 

[AxelAnnie]

When you open and or save the document, doesn't it tell you it is going to be opened in the latest version of Word? Mine do. I have the Office Professional Suite 2013. It also says that some of the formatting will / may be affected............but I have not noticed any problem that affects the integrity of what is written.

You can also save the documents into a chosen format. I don't know how many documents you are talking about, but I would get them all into one version, and stick with that.

 

[Artemis@BC]

I have 3 different versions of Word on my computer, and although I've experienced some weirdness when moving a file from one version to another, I can't say I've ever experienced that.

However I just googled it and apparently it's a known glitch. There's a patch you can download to fix it:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2633585