Styles changes in word 2003

[Gaurav Kumar]

In earlier versions of Word, once you defined a style sheet and applied it
to a document, the document was forced to take on the formatting
characteristics defined in the style sheet, and could not continue to have
its own styles. That no longer seems to be the case, however. I have
meticulously defined the styles I want in my document, and included these
styles as part of a master template. Nevertheless, the styles are
continually corrupted with unwanted styles which I am unable to delete.
Does anyone have any tips on how to prevent this from happening?

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Hi,

You are mistaken about the behavior changing in the way you describe. Word
has never locked documents from style changes, although I believe that
ability may exist in Word 2003. You don't say which version you are using.

In all versions of Word (at least since Word 97) attaching a template to a
document with update styles checked would change styles in the document that
had the same name as the styles in the template. Styles with different names
would not be changed (unless based on a changed style).

In Word 2003 (and possibly 2002), you will see things that look like styles
in your styles list if you've told Word to keep track of formatting. These
are not styles but are lists of formatting applied in your document mixed in
with the styles list. (i.e., normal + Bold). This lets you apply formatting
to a paragraph that is the same as that used elsewhere without using the
format painter or copying formatting. You can avoid this by doing all of
your formatting through different styles (although then you would be
creating more "unwanted" styles). Unchecking the option to keep track of
formatting will eliminate the non-styles being displayed in the styles list.
You can find this option under Tools => Options => Edit (tab).

Hope this helps,
--

Charles Kenyon

See the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
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