Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 13, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365
In the process of doing some customizations to Word, Toya was looking through the list of commands that could be added to the Quick Access Toolbar. One of the commands is "Normalize Text." Toya can find next to nothing about this command, and hopes to understand more.
Good question, Toya. You are right that there is virtually nothing about this command available on the Web. So, we did a little detective work within Word itself to see if we could figure out more. We were able to come up with one other tidbit of information.
When you use the Customize dialog box (as you did), it is a great way to see all of the commands that are available within Word. It isn't terribly helpful on giving you information about what each command does, however. To do this, you need to pull up the Macros dialog box. Follow these steps:
In the Description box (just under the Macros In drop-down list) you should see a very terse description of what the NormalizeText command does: "Make text consistent with the rest." This is the only clue—anywhere—that we could find as to what this command does.
Exactly what effect the command has, we can't tell. We created some documents and applied various formatting to paragraphs and characters. We then selected the text and executed the NormalizeText command. There was nothing that happened to any of the formatting.
Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that the consistency referenced in the description has nothing to do with formatting. It could also be very possible that the command has no effect in English, but instead is used for text in other languages. (There are all sorts of internal commands that Word uses, for instance, to work with Asian languages and others that don't rely on the Roman alphabet.)
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11107) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Understanding the Normalize Text Command.
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2018-01-13 10:40:00
RC Stan
Access "Commands Not in the Ribbon" via the Customize dialog box. Under "Customize Keyboard" the "ClearFormatting" command appears. Assign shortcut key "Alt+C" to instantly convert any formatting back to Normal (the suggested key combination is unassigned).
Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.
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