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Subject:Font-Point Size for Comments in MS Word? From:Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Sat, 09 Apr 2005 18:34:30 -0400
ptietjen -at- vt -dot- edu wondered: <<Is is possible to set a default font-point
size when using the "Insert Comment" feature? ... Problem: when
commenting on word files received from others, the font-point size
always varies in size (e.g., sometimes it's very small and barely
readable on screen). Specs: Word for Mac OS X>>
These tips should work for other Word versions/operating systems too,
but I haven't tried them. With that caveat:
There's no way that I've found to set the default, but there are two
tricks I've learned that may help. First and easiest (and least
intrusive), with the comments window open at the bottom of the
document, open the View menu, select Zoom, then pick an enlargement
that your eyes find comfortable. Word lets you use a different zoom
level for different windows or views, and this is very nice to know
sometimes. For example, it can let you enlarge the miniscule,
user-hostile text in the spellchecker window slightly--but only if you
zoom in on the text _before_ you launch the spellchecker. Weird.
Second, and more intrusive, edit the properties of the "Comment text"
style. (This is the default name of the style used in the comments, but
I've seen an occasional odd style name used here as a manual override
and because of this, you may need to edit a different style name.)
Simply pick a font size as large as you'd need to make the text
legible. If you remember the original font size the author used, reset
that font size later, before you return the document to the author.
The only common problem with this approach is that after editing the
style and applying it, you occasionally get an unpleasant surprise. For
example, my Chinese and Japanese clients often use the default font
(e.g., MS Mincho) for their styles, but manually override this by doing
a "select all", then applying a new font from the Format menu or
toolbar. When you update (reapply) the style to reflect the font size
change, all the other properties get reapplied too--so the text gets
set back to Mincho or whatever, the language of the spellchecker may
change too, etc. Not a big problem, but you need to be aware of it so
you can watch for it.
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