Best approach to customized styles

[PRR]

I have seen various installations of Word (2007, 2002, 2000) lose some
of the custom settings for styles I have assigned to them. I haven't
seen this mentioned before so I can only assume that I'm one of the
few that this is happening to. I primarily use Quote, Headings 1-5,
and Body Text. I suppose you can throw in footnote as well. Body text
seems to be fine, but I am continually having to reset my preferences
for the headings styles. THey will work for a few weeks but not after
that.

I would like to take a final stab at this--would I be better off
simply creating a new style to my tastes, than modifying a pre-
existing one?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You are saving the style modifications to Normal.dot(m)? Or some other
document templates? And you are seeing reversions in new documents based on
those templates? Note that modifications made to the Normal (or other
attached) template apply only to new documents, and of course changes that
are not made to the attached template apply only to the current document.

Or are you changing styles in specific documents and finding that they do
not "hold" when you reopen the documents? If so, make sure that
"Automatically update document styles" is not checked in Tools | Templates
and Add-ins (or the Word 2007 equivalent), as this will cause the styles to
revert to their definitions in the attached template.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[PRR]

I've done this so often, I always be sure to check the option to save
to the template. And yes, it is the normal template.

I am fairly positive that these changes are not just ones that I
naturally would not see in older documents (i.e., documents made
before I modified the styles). I'm sure that this fact would have been
noticed, but then again, maybe not.

Your second paragraph--about styles not "holding" in the same document-
is not what I was talking about. I was talking about opening up new
documents (or perhaps old?) and seeing the style modifications gone.
This typically involves changes to the color, font size, and font to
the heading styles. They seem to revert to the default settings.

OK just to be sure, I'll use word and then notice the next time this
happens, but I'm really suspeting that its not just that I've opened
up old docs and then seen the default style settings. Additionally, I
seem to have problems with macros (placed on a toolbar) getting lost,
and having to reconstruct them. I've tried 2007, 2003, 2000--and I
haven't noticed a whole lot of difference in this regard among the
versions. The macro issue suggests to me that its the normal template
that is the issue, but I'm not sure about that one.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I can't seem to reply to your other message, so I'll post my message in
reply to this one and see if that works:

No, macros can be in an add-in, but Word can use only the styles that are in
the attached template. All of this suggests that something may be preventing
the Normal template from being saved. You can force a save in Word 2003 and
earlier: press Shift while clicking on the File menu. This will force it to
display the Save All command. Click on that and Normal.dot will be among the
files saved (you can cancel saving for any new, not yet saved files you
don't want to save).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

I've done this so often, I always be sure to check the option to save
to the template. And yes, it is the normal template.

I am fairly positive that these changes are not just ones that I
naturally would not see in older documents (i.e., documents made
before I modified the styles). I'm sure that this fact would have been
noticed, but then again, maybe not.

Your second paragraph--about styles not "holding" in the same document-
is not what I was talking about. I was talking about opening up new
documents (or perhaps old?) and seeing the style modifications gone.
This typically involves changes to the color, font size, and font to
the heading styles. They seem to revert to the default settings.

OK just to be sure, I'll use word and then notice the next time this
happens, but I'm really suspeting that its not just that I've opened
up old docs and then seen the default style settings. Additionally, I
seem to have problems with macros (placed on a toolbar) getting lost,
and having to reconstruct them. I've tried 2007, 2003, 2000--and I
haven't noticed a whole lot of difference in this regard among the
versions. The macro issue suggests to me that its the normal template
that is the issue, but I'm not sure about that one.

 

[PRR]

Hmmm I do recall very often, Word asking me if I wanted to save the
changes to the normal template (making Word do this is one of the
first things I do w/ a new Office installation). Besides--this is the
very frustrating thing--I know that styles have retained their
modifications for a while, then just seem to disappear.

I hardly every use the Normal style, though I typically let my
headings to remain based on that...I dunno if changes to the normal
style (not template) might be doing this...

OK I got a new idea from another thread--cascading the heading styles,
so that heading 5 is based on 4, 4 is based on 3, and 1 is based on no
text/style. I'll see if that won't do it on my next installation of
2003 (or on 2007 if I go back to that).

 

[PRR]

The idea of the below paragraph, being that I am quite certain that
Word has been saving my modifications to the styles.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If you are changing the Normal style, and the headings are based on it, then
that could very well be the explanation.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

The idea of the below paragraph, being that I am quite certain that
Word has been saving my modifications to the styles.