Click Style box to confirm formatting

[camlad]

I am accustomed to changing the formatting of a style, other than Normal, by
changing one paragraph and then clicking in the Style box. This brought up a
dialog box asking if the change to be confirmed or to revert back to the
previous formatting.

I have just installed 2003 on a new computer and this does not happen – I
cannot find where to change the default setting so it does – please help.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

On the Edit tab of Tools | Options, check the box for "Prompt to update
style." Also, note that if you have the Styles and Formatting task pane
open, you can modify a paragraph and then click the arrow beside the style
name and choose Update to Match Selection.

This is a more powerful tool than you might imagine. Say you have created
formatting that you now realize you would like to use for Heading 1. You can
select the paragraph that you have formatted and then choose Update to Match
Selection for the Heading 1 style instead of the style of the selected
paragraph, and Heading 1 will be updated to match your formatted paragraph.

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

 

[camlad]

Gosh - that was quick. I am in UK and had closed down when I realised I did
not say 'Return' after clicking in the Style box. I found your answer but it
does not do what I was used to. Nowadays Word picks up the change and shows
two styles, Heading 1 and Heading 1 + Before: 9pts.

What happened in the past is that the dialog box default was to keep the
changes and so all one did was to change one paragraph and the click in the
Style box and press Return twice and all paragraphs of that style were
changed.

I prefer not to have the space wasting Formatting task pane open.

Where am I going wrong please.

Thans and good night at 1130hrs

Camlad

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

On the Edit tab of Tools | Options, clear the check box for "Keep track of
formatting," and you won't get that "Heading 1 + Before: 9pts" nonsense.

I don't ordinarily use the S&F task pane, but it is incredibly useful when
you're going through a document style-tagging a lot of text because it stays
open. Especially if you have a limited number of styles in use (so that they
can all be displayed without scrolling), this is much easier than having to
continually drop down the Styles list. You can select which styles you want
visible by using the dialog that opens when you choose Custom for Show: in
the tax pane.

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

 

[camlad]

Thanks for:

I don't ordinarily use the S&F task pane, but it is incredibly useful when
you're going through a document style-tagging a lot of text because it stays
open. Especially if you have a limited number of styles in use (so that they
can all be displayed without scrolling)

What I really want is to to be able to do what I could before:

Make a change to a paragraph.
Click in the Style box and press 'Return' which brought up a 'Modify style'
dialog box with 'Update the style to reflect the changes' as the default.
Clicking Return confirmed the change and all similar paragraphs were
automatically changed.

That still happens on my old desktop running 2000 and the Mac with 2008 but
not with this laptop and 2003!

Very frustrating - apologies for being tedious, but do you have any ideas?

Camlad

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

What you are describing is exactly the result I get with the "Prompt to
update style" box checked on the Edit tab of Tools | Options. I don't know
why you're not seeing that.

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