Disappearing Format

  • Thread starter Thread starter St.John
  • Start date Start date
S

St.John

After formatting headers and footers, fixing page numbers, spacing
paragraphs, editing text, fixing a section break after each chapter, and
saving, I came back to the file and every thing had returned to its original
condition. Without wasting more time and patience on me than I have already
wasted on this document, can anyone make a suggestion as what I need to know
to perform simple word processing functions?
 
I believe what you have to do to prevent endless frustration in these matters
is (a) avoid using the Normal.dot template -- create your own; and (b) work
with "Styles" to format your paragraphs rather than formatting the paragraph
itself int he text. I'm a relative amateur myself so I can't talk you
through these processes but there are several posts here & on the Word MVP
Site that can help you. I just know that after wrestling with this for
months with Word resetting everything after I had diligently saved it, I
managed to reduce this problem greatly when I created my own template &
Styles, following instructions from an Article on the Word MVP Site. With
your own template, then you create your own Styles for various formatting
paragraphs, numbering systems etc. Then you have to make sure you save the
Styles to your new Template. The process is not foolproof, but a
self-created template does not seem to compulsively reset everything the way
the normal template does. Setting it up can be extremely tedious but seems
to be the only way to make Word manageable. Good luck.
 
Thank you. If I don't master this, I'll need a shrink! It is unlike any
other rational system of doing things that I have encountered. I need as
much help as I can get.
 
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