Delete and re-format all Styles?

[Guest]

I have inherited a document that began with a corporate template and has been
added on to and requires that more additions be pasted into it. I have been
working through the document in outline view and have read several MVP
articles on the use of styles and outines.

The problem is that there are some 48 different styles defines for the
document. Should I just delete all but what I want to use and if I do is
there a do-able way to reassign the styles? I would really just like to use
well defined Heading 1-9 and body text, but there are quite a few
multi-leveled lists.

Any thoughts of guidence for me will be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Stefan Blom]

Well, 48 styles is quite a lot, so it certainly sounds as if the
document needs to be cleaned up.

A partial cleanup could be done with Edit>Replace. Just search for
direct formatting (if there is any) and replace it with the proper
style. And replace the styles you don't want to keep with styles that
you do want to keep.

However, a better way to fix the document is probably to start fresh,
by removing all formatting and then reapplying it in properly
formatted styles. Of course, you'll need a printout of the original
document in order to correctly recreate the formatting. Pay special
attention to the outline-numbered lists; make sure that you define
their numbering as described at
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message
news:[email protected]...

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your feed-back. I am attempting that. Heading 1 on no style,
heading 2 based on heading 1 etc. Level 1 based on heading 1 etc. is this
the correct way?

 

[Stefan Blom]

I happen to be one of them who don't like to base headings on each
other, but that is rather a matter of taste. I find it easier to
create a "Heading Base" style to share properties between heading
styles or to leave the Normal style as a base style.

Anyway, the important message in the article is that each
outline-numbered list must be linked to paragraph styles, which means
that each level of the list should be associated with a unique style,
and that you have to set this up via the top-level style.

The article uses the built-in headings as an example, but the general
principle applies to any outline-numbered list. If you have several
lists, follow the instructions for each of them.

In other words, first decide which styles to use for a particular
outline-numbered list, and format them as desired. (For headings, you
should of course use the built-in Heading 1-9 styles.) Then apply
numbering (and indent settings) to all levels via the Modify Style
dialog box for the top-level style.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message

 

[Guest]

Thanks , I will try and work through it that way, it is difficult the way
everything is layered in WORD