Maybe learning a bit about styles would help? Most probably someone has defined an underlined style for the paragraph and then manually formatted the rest? In such cases working with WYSIWYG view is the worst option. To see WHY that happens switch to the "Show all tags, but do not show any formatting" view. Then you will see, where which formatting has been applied.

Should you by any chance understand German, register for this webinar to learn more about how formatting works: http://seminare.bdue.de/4476

Jerzy Czopik Thank you for that. I checked the original and it seems that the situation is even weirder: the original text (which looks completely plain) is defined as [default font] plus not bold no underline, and the underlined section is [default text] not bold (only). What made the writer use this is beyond me. Bottom line (if I understand you correctly) - I will have to decide whether I prefer inserting tags (in the view you suggested) or inserting actual formatting.

Jerzy Czopik Thank you for that. I checked the original and it seems that the situation is even weirder: the original text (which looks completely plain) is defined as [default font] plus not bold no underline, and the underlined section is [default text] not bold (only). What made the writer use this is beyond me. Bottom line (if I understand you correctly) - I will have to decide whether I prefer inserting tags (in the view you suggested) or inserting actual formatting.

Sorry, I do not really understand your bottom line. You are ALWAYS inserting tags, even if you do not see these. The WYSIWYG view just hides the formatting tags from your eyes, but this does not mean the tags do not exist. This is why I refuse to work with WYSIWYG - this would be only OK with perfectly formatted documents. Unfortunately, my experience shows, that about 95% of all Word documents are formatted that way, that using the tagged view makes my life easier.

In the mentioned webinar I will try to explain why this is so. Doing this via forum is far too complicated. But you can make a very simple test. Writhe this in your notepad and save as test.htm

This <b>word</b> is bolded.

When you open this very simple text in your web browser you will see:

This word is bolded.

In both cases you see the same file - in one case in tagged view, in other in WYSIWYG.

As I said - post some examples - using the display described by me and Jerzy! - and we can explain the particular case in details, instead of this rather unhelpful generic theorizing.

Shmuel Pfeifel

Shmuel Pfeifel said:

(which looks completely plain)

Perhaps you are simply hiding tags that are actually there? Maybe this is a little basic but there may be some important things you're omitting:

https://multifarious.filkin.com/2012/09/10/working_with_tags/

Sorry, I do not speak German so the webinar is not an option. However I did understand that the tags are always in place and are presented differently in each setting and hence the way you handle then in the editor is visually different according to the selected setting. As you and Paul note, the choice of setting, how to work, is a matter of personal choice and I will have to find mine.

My question was initially prompted by my own disbelief that an author of a document in Word would complicate a style so much, when all he had to do was use the most simple, default, style and formatting available in Word, and I attributed this unnecessary complication to Studio instead of the original author.

Thanks again!

Hi Paul

The "plain" refers to the appearance of the original text in Word, not the appearance in Studio. In actual fact, the author of that text used a very complex font formatting to achieve the most basic, default, font appearance in Word, which created a lot of weird tagging in Studio. This tagging is a result of the weird choices of the author in Word. I understand now why these tags appear in Studio in view of the unsound choices of the author of the document. It is not a Studio related issue.

Having said that, re-reading your article as well as Jerzy's advice were certainly useful. Sometimes a refresher is good.

Well, I am since 30 years in this business. You will not believe which kind of "formatting" I've seen in different file formats... Even columns in a Word document made using spaces...