WD2000: Opening Text Only Files Changes Left and Right Margins (211247)

CAUSE

When Microsoft Word opens a text file, the native (built-in) text converter for .txt files converts the left and right default margins to 0.92 inches.

WORKAROUND

To work around this behavior, use either of the following methods.

Method 1: Adjust the Margins

To manually adjust the margins, follow these steps:

On the File menu, click Page Setup, and then click the Margins tab.
Modify the Left and Right margin settings to the size you want, and click OK.

Method 2: Use the File Command on the Insert Menu

Insert the text file into a new, blank Word document. To do this, follow these steps:

Create a new document.
On the Insert menu, click File.
Change the Files of type setting to Text Files (*.txt).
Locate and select the file, and click Insert.NOTE: Word may prompt you with the Confirm conversion at Open dialog box. Click to select Text Only and then click OK.

MORE INFORMATION

The Text Only import converter changes the margins to 0.92 inches to correctly preserve the line breaks in text documents. Unlike Microsoft Word, most other word processors use a default left and right margin of 1.00 inch (2.54 cm). When these programs convert their files to text only (.txt), some of them insert carriage returns prior to this 1.00 inch margin at the end of each line to preserve the layout.

Thus, when Microsoft Word opens the document, the text import converter sets the right and left margin setting to 0.92 inches to accommodate this setting.

Native (Built-in) Text Converters in Word

Word 2000 can directly import the following text formats:

MS-DOS Text
MS-DOS Text with Line Breaks
Text Only
Text with Line Breaks