Formatting

[Guest]

I'm guessing that when Word adds such things as "Char" to the end of a style it is keeping track of formatting rather than creating a new style. I want it to stop doing this. However, though both the "Define Styles Based on Your Formatting" and the "Keep Track of Formatting" buttons are NOT checked, Word continues to create these new "styles." Am I missing something? Is there some other button that should be checked or unchecked?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Brian

Word 2002 and 2003 both create Char styles. This is not affected by
"Define Styles Based on Your Formatting" or "Keep Track of Formatting".
Word creates a Char style (eg Body Text Char) when you select just part
of a paragraph and apply a style to it. You can prove this yourself
easily. Create a paragraph in style Normal. Select one Word and apply
style Body Text. Word will create Body Text Char. Char styles are the
way that Word keeps track of a paragraph style that has been applied to
only part of a paragraph.

You can, therefore, avoid them. When you apply a paragraph style, select
either the entire paragraph including its paragraph marker, or simply
click within the paragraph without selecting anything.

For what it's worth, these "char" styles don't hurt your document, and
there's nothing wrong with them. They just annoy we humans because we're
not used to seeing them in a list of styles. However, you can tell Word
not to display them in the Styles and Formatting pane.

The following page describes both how to control the Styles and
Formatting pane and describes what "Keep Track of Formatting" does:
How the Styles and Formatting pane works in Word 2002 and 2003
http://www.ShaunaKelly.com/word/sfpane/StylesAndFormattingPane.html

If you have Word 2002, make sure you have updated Word with SP-1 and
SP-2. See http://office.microsoft.com/officeupdate. When Word 2002 was
first released, it would create Body Text Char Char Char Char. These
updates prevent Word creating Char Char Char styles. But it won't
prevent just one Char.

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word
Melbourne, Australia

I'm guessing that when Word adds such things as "Char" to the end of a

style it is keeping track of formatting rather than creating a new
style. I want it to stop doing this. However, though both the "Define
Styles Based on Your Formatting" and the "Keep Track of Formatting"
buttons are NOT checked, Word continues to create these new "styles."
Am I missing something? Is there some other button that should be
checked or unchecked?