Comments on: MS Word music hack: Automatic sharps, flats, and naturals

By: Rachel

Rachel — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:50:44 +0000

Hi Bret, I tried switching it to the font you listed above, which is on my version of Word, and it displayed the flat sign in the Preview window, but didn’t stick when I pressed OK, nor did any other font displaying the flat sign. Possibly some sort of default setting on my Word, but not sure what!

By: Bret

Bret — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:49:52 +0000

Hi Rachel – Not all fonts have the sharp, flat, and natural symbols. If you are trying to use fonts that don’t, Word may be “fixing” it for you by switching back to a default font that has those symbols. If MS Gothic is the only one that sticks, it may the only font you have that contains those symbols.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:11:37 +0000

This is a great shortcut, however, I am having trouble during Step 3 selecting a different font – when I select another font, it simply returns to the original font (MS Gothic). I am running Word 2010 on Windows 7 64bit – if anyone has encountered and solved this problem, I’d love to hear about it! Looking forward to using it!

By: Brad Hayashi

Brad Hayashi — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 21:47:04 +0000

As far as the spacing issue if you choose Paragraph, Indents and Spacing, under Line Spacing choose “exactly” and the number of points (usually the same number of points as your font size, or doubled if you are doing double-spacing. That way you can use whatever font you want for accidentals and have your lines spaced evenly.

By: Timothy Owen

Timothy Owen — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 12:50:16 +0000

I initially had a problem with AutoCorrect adding an end-of-line code. I worked around this by typing a space after I created the accidental sign. Then I was able to select just the sign without capturing the EOL, and just continued on with defining the AutoCorrect text. Thanks, Bret, for this great little nugget.

Tim Owen
BYU ’99

By: Jeremy Starr

Jeremy Starr — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 04:01:55 +0000

Thanks for the very helpful tips for help with my DMA essay, Bret – great to see you doing so well and congrats on your doctorate!

Jeremy Starr
BYU ’03

By: Rikki

Rikki — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:24:14 +0000

Thanks so much – Brilliant – knew about Character Map, but not these shortcuts!

By: Jessie

Jessie — Sun, 31 May 2009 01:50:27 +0000

Thanx for that it helped alot :)

By: Oliver McCallion

Oliver McCallion — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 19:49:31 +0000

Fantastic! :)
That’ll save me so much time!

Incidentally, you can type 266e (or whichever) straight into the autocorrect dialogue box and then press Alt-x… which saves a little time

Thankyou though! :)