George from AZ asks:
How do I get fractions to appear in their small size instead of 1/2 or 3/4 when I type in Microsoft Word or Windows Live Mail?
Hi, George. I’m glad you asked. Your question actually gave me the opportunity to look up autocorrect options on Word 2010, to which I am still fairly new.
What you’re talking about here is called replacing fractions with a fraction character. In Word 2010, click on the “File” tab and then “Options”, like so:
When the options screen opens, click on “proofing” and then “AutoCorrect Options” thusly:
Finally, in the resulting Window, click on the “AutoFormat as You Type” tab, and then check the box labelled “Replace Fractions With Fraction Characters” and you’re all done.
In my Word 2010, this option was selected by default.
Windows Live Mail seems to be a little trickier. I don’t use the program, myself, but used Outlook once upon a time. I know that in Outlook there was an option to use Word as your text editor, and when you enabled that, all of your Word options automatically came into play when you typed an e-mail. I searched Windows Live Mail and the internet and found no reference to it. There’s a place to put entries into a custom dictionary, but seems to have no option for inserting fraction characters. So I’m stymied on answering this for Windows Live Mail. If anyone else knows, please drop the answer into the comments.
Hope that this helps.
~Randal Schaffer
Try going to Character Map and copy and paste the fraction into the Live Mail message
Do a google search for “Fraction Font”. Plenty of good info in there! Like this: http://word.mvps.org/faqs/formatting/CreateFraction.htm
i use my character map.
For a character only, and not actualy text that can be used in a spread sheet, I use ‘Alt 171 = ½’,’Alt 172 = ¼’,’Alt 0190 = ¾’. Note use font size to control height.
PS: Hey George, Say Hello to the London Bridge and don’t forget to feed the Sea Gulls for us.
Too bad this does not work on Mac Word
Thank you for the tips.
I have often wondered about the fraction replacement too.
It is helpful to see other suggestions, and other fraction applications.
Now I know more.
If you use the alt plus number keys like I do, you need to make sure your Num Lock key is on. Hold your alt key and type ON THE NUMBER KEY PAD: 155=¢, 0188=¼, 0189=½, 0190=¾ 248=°
Unfortunately this only works for ¼ ½ & ¾, it does not work for any other fractions.