Catalog of Word Overrides / Precedences

[Bill Gruener]

When I expect a behavior in Word 2007 and that behavior fails to happen, I
assume that an override must cause the unexpected behavior. I'm thinking that
if I had a list of overrides, I would be able to troubleshoot the unexpected
behavior.

My question to the community,

* How can I identify these overrides?
* Is there a list of overrides?

 

[Jay Freedman]

I don't know what you have in mind as the definition of an "override", but I
can assure you that in most cases it isn't that simple. What appears at any
point in a document is the result of many factors, ranging from the settings
(including defaults and your changes) in various options dialogs, to the
definitions of one or more styles, to the capabilities inherent in the
currently selected printer driver. A complete list and explanation of these
factors would amount to the complete specification for Word -- which does
exist but is Microsoft's proprietary information.

You would be better served by an understanding of how styles work
(http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styles/TipsOnStyles.html and
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/stylesms/index.html) and a study of the
settings in the Options dialog. If there's a specific behavior that you can
explain here, someone will probably be able to help.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Andrew Steavenson]

I was searching for the what word overides for myself and I found this very thread in several places. I eventually found the answer and hopefully it helps anyone else.

From my understanding what the term overrides in this context is what Microsoft calls "Replace Built-in Routines". It is the ability to replace word normal features such as file open with your new code.

For more details see <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa140279(v=office.10).aspx"> and look for the header Replace Built-in Routines

Hope this helps
Andy

 

[Jay Freedman]

Word certainly does allow users -- at least, those with some programming expertise -- to replace some of the built-in functionality with macros. Another article with more detail on this is
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/InterceptSavePrint.htm

However, if you have done this, I'd expect you to know which functions you've replaced. If you haven't done it yourself, you might have loaded an add-in that contains such code. That doesn't sound to
me like the sort of "unexpected behavior" Mr. Gruener was asking about.

In any event, there is no "list of overrides" for all Word installations that anyone could produce. In a factory-fresh installation, there are no overrides at all. If any overrides or add-ins have
been installed, those changes are specific to that copy of Word.