Who's good at formatting in Microsoft Word?

[johnsmith]

Alright... here's what I'm trying to do...
I need to make 12 assignment worksheets with exactly the same number of problems (at least 70, but less than 100) on each page. They need to be doable and easily readable (10-12 pt. font). I have several good online math worksheet generators to make the probelms for me, but when I copy/paste them into Word, I get all kinds of weird lines everywhere, and it looks terrible. I am absolutely about to explode right now trying to find a way to format these problems so that they appear in neat rows and colums while fitting on one page. Funny how I can understand one aspect of something so well, and get all tripped up on another part.

12 pages all together, with at least 70 problems on each page (however many there are, has to be the same number of problems on all pages), each page only covers one type of problem. Don't need an answer key. The 12 different types of problems (1 for each page) are:

Addition
1 digit plus 1 digit 0-9. (e.g. 0+9).
1 digit plus 2 digit without carrying.
3 digit plus 3 digit with carrying in the 1’s and 10’s column (e.g. 356 + 454).

Subtraction
1 digit minus 1 digit 0-9 without using negative numbers.
2 digit minus 1 digit without regrouping.
3 digit minus 3 digit with regrouping in the 100’s and 10’s column.

Multiplication
1 digit times 1 digit 0-9. (e.g. 0*9).
1 digit times 2 digit (carrying doesn’t matter).
3 digit times 2 digit with carrying.

Division
1 digit divided by 1 digit 0-9 no remainders.
2 digit divided by 1 digit with no remainders
3 digit divided by 2 digit with remainders

FYI, here's are some examples of the worksheet generators I'm copying and pasting from:
http://www.lizardpoint.com/math/mathsheet.html
http://www.lefthandlogic.com/htmdocs/tools/mathprobe/addsing.shtml

If there are any computer gurus or teachers out there that can give me a few tips on how you format things like this, I would be forever grateful.

John Smith

 

[johnsmith]

Forgot: All operations (excepting division) have to be vertical too.

As in:

*254
+689
The * is just to take up space so that they will line up in this post on the forum. I need to take a computer class I guess. Back to work...

 

[Matt_S]

I'm not an expert by any means, but I'd start by 1) using a fixed-width font like Courier New and 2) turning off ALL autoformatting. It drives me nuts sometimes the way Word changes things automatically as you type. Go to the Format menu, click "Autoformat...", click "Options" and uncheck EVERYTHING. At least that way you'll be fighting a fair fight.

 

[Tosh]

I regularly fight MS Word formatting (but lose). Have you thought of using Excel?

 

[johnsmith]

Update: I *may* have solved my own problem. I've got two sheets done, and they look pretty good. I can't really describe what I did, but I know how to repeat it. Tinkering skills to the rescue! Still, if anybody has any other tips, I could use them, no one over here knows what the #ell to do either. Using Courier New already. I tried copy/paste into Excel/SPSS before Word, but same sort of problems. In this instance, Word is easier to manipulate. If it was just a big chunk of data, I could do this in a second, but all these little doo-dads they use on the websites end up on the clipboard along with the numbers and/or they are spaced out wrong. Better keep on truckin... My heart goes out to whoever the guy was that is consolidating all the used oil analysis into a single format for this site!

 

[Matt_S]

To get rid of all the formatting from the web site, do one of two things: paste first into Notepad, then copy and paste from there into Word or do an "Edit -> Paste Special" and past as "Unformatted Text".