Microsoft Word Equation Mis-alignment

buggaby · 05 May 2010

Every so often, while I'm working with equations in MS Word 2007, I get strange behaviour where the equations seem to be shifted. It's hard to explain, but if you look at the attached photo, one of the equations is selected (far right column). As you can see, the selection box is not where the equation is. I've tried reloading Word, looking at Print Preview, cutting and pasting into another equation, clearing the formatting... Even if I retype the equation within the body, it remains skewed. I have to retype it below for it to work... really annoying. Does anyone have an idea on how to fix this without manually retyping everything?

I'm running Office 2007 Ultimate with Windows 7 Home Premium 64

Thanks

johngalt · 05 May 2010

Hmm, ISTR something similar in Word 2007 when I was writing my proofs for Discrete and Foundations.

The only thing I could figure would be to either 1) write the whole thing as an equation, instead of entering the "z >" as text and then building the equation, or 2) doing the exact opposite of 1). I cannot recall *which* one would make it work, but one of those 2 *should* fix it.

I never actually tried the columnar approach except once for a formula sheet that our DE professor allowed us to have during a particularly brutal exam, but if I can find it on my jump drive I'll take a look and see which method I used in that instance, as that is the only time I ever used a multi-column layout. All my proofs for the other classes were normal 1.5 spaced paragraph-type proofs.

buggaby · 06 May 2010

I'm not exactly sure what you are suggesting. There is no normal text in this example. The "z >" is part of the equation object. I always use the shortcut "Alt =" or copy and paste to create the equation.

Also, I don't believe the column approach has anything to do with this error. I have seen this happen before with the paragraph-type formatting but only with a single equation, so it was easy to just retype. I've attached a photo of the same document with the paragraph format. The problem persists.

As I'm typing this, I seem to have resolved the issue, but I don't know how, exactly. I just played with the formatting (selecting the parts and changing the number of columns...) and eventually, it went back to normal. When I reset it to 3 columns and tried to insert column breaks... boom, bug fest again. It turns out that if I have a carriage return after the column break, it works fine. It doesn't seem to like it if I try to butt the equations up against the top of the column. So, it's not exactly a broad solution, but it works this one time. I guess Word is just buggy with equations and formatting. My previous paragraph seems to be incorrect, it does have something to do with the column approach... :)

Now, off to play Mass Effect :)

johngalt · 06 May 2010

What I was suggesting was that, since *all* of it was a part of the equation, then separate it out - using the z > as text *outside* of the equation (which is what 2) suggested - the opposite of 1), which is how you had done it originally.

However, now that you mention it, you're right - it was the paragraph formatting that was not being applied to the last entry in your last column as you were not hitting enter at the end - it makes (perverse) sense now, something similar happens some times when using bullets / outline and spanning across multiple pages.

At any rate, glad you got it figured out. Just having that last carriage return (enter) seems to fix it 99% of the time.

marking thread solved, and giving you kudos for the answer.