Styles in Word 2007

[Guest]

In earlier versions of Word, any style name used was displayed at the top
left of the screen. Now, I see a few styles shown at the top right of the
screen, but, if I'm in a style that's not one of those shown, where do I know
what style it is? Yes, I can right-click and see what it is, but, that's kind
of silly. Why isn't there any easy way to know what style you're in? I work
for a publishing company and we get hundreds of Word documents from the
outside world, and, I need to determine their structure to some degree. It's
frustrating to not be able to see the styles used.
Thanks.

 

[Jay Freedman]

In earlier versions of Word, any style name used was displayed at the top
left of the screen. Now, I see a few styles shown at the top right of the
screen, but, if I'm in a style that's not one of those shown, where do I know
what style it is? Yes, I can right-click and see what it is, but, that's kind
of silly. Why isn't there any easy way to know what style you're in? I work
for a publishing company and we get hundreds of Word documents from the
outside world, and, I need to determine their structure to some degree. It's
frustrating to not be able to see the styles used.
Thanks.

There are several solutions to this, but here's the one I think is the
most elegant: The style dropdown that was on the Formatting toolbar in
earlier versions of Word is still available and can be put on the
Quick Access Toolbar (QAT).

Right-click the QAT and choose Customize. In the dialog, set the
"Choose commands from" box to "Commands not in the Ribbon". Select the
command that says "Style" and has a dropdown icon on the right side.
Click the Add button and click OK.

The toolbar will always show the style at the current insertion point,
and you can use the dropdown to apply another style. To determine what
styles appear in the list and in what order, open the Styles task pane
(Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S) and click the Manage Styles button at the bottom.

You might also like the little floating dialog you get by pressing
Ctrl+Shift+S.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
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newsgroup so all may benefit.

 

[Guest]

There are several solutions to this, but here's the one I think is the
most elegant: The style dropdown that was on the Formatting toolbar in
earlier versions of Word is still available and can be put on the
Quick Access Toolbar (QAT).

Right-click the QAT and choose Customize. In the dialog, set the
"Choose commands from" box to "Commands not in the Ribbon". Select the
command that says "Style" and has a dropdown icon on the right side.
Click the Add button and click OK.

The toolbar will always show the style at the current insertion point,
and you can use the dropdown to apply another style. To determine what
styles appear in the list and in what order, open the Styles task pane
(Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S) and click the Manage Styles button at the bottom.

You might also like the little floating dialog you get by pressing
Ctrl+Shift+S.

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

Wow! Thanks, Jay. Yes, that's what I need. Now, why isn't that there by
default? Oh well. Both your suggestions are brilliant.

 

[Greg Maxey]

Jay,

Have your heard of any action being taken to resolve the bug where
Word throws and error if you are scanning the QuickStyle pane with
"Live Preview" enabled and mouse over the current applied style?

 

[Beth Melton]

I'm not Jay, but if you're referring to the oddity of having "Prompt to
Update Style", the message box stating "Word encountered an error", and then
switching to Draft view, I haven't heard anything but I reported it.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Co-author of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hmm, that's a good one. I hadn't seen it before, but I can reproduce
it here. Maybe I should file a report, too?

 

[Beth Melton]

I thought you did, I could have sworn you were part of the previous
discussion about this...

If you'd like to file a bug on it too, it definitely couldn't hurt.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Co-author of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

I can't seem to reproduce that error. I think I did what was described, but
I get only correct/expected behavior, no error, and no switch to draft.

 

[Beth Melton]

Sorry Herb, I wasn't trying to provide exact repro steps, just enough info
to see if that's what Greg was referring to. Here you go:

- Create a new document
- In Word Options make sure "Prompt to update style is turned on"
- Switch to Print Layout view if necessary
-Type =rand() and press Enter
- Select the first paragraph
- From the Quick Styles gallery apply "No Spacing"
- From the Quick Styles gallery apply "Heading 1"
- Hover over "No Spacing" in the gallery
- Then hover over "Heading 1" in the gallery

You may need to repeat the hovering back and forth a few times before you
encounter the error. Turn off "Prompt to update" and the error no longer
occurs.

Note it can occur with any two styles - I just pick two next to each other
to make the repro steps easy.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Co-author of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Yep. I see it now... even happens with the /a switch. Cute.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

 

[Beth Melton]

Since the "Prompt to Update Styles" option is off by default how are you
reproducing it when you use the /a switch to start Word?

Personally, I leave the Prompt To Update Styles turned off since styles are
so easy to update these days.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Co-author of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

I started Word with the /a switch, turned Prompt to Update on, then
proceeded. In Safe mode, which is different, you can't access the Advanced
settings, so it's impossible to test the bug in Safe mode.

I usually keep Prompt to Update turned off. For updating styles, I've had
RedefineStyle assigned to Ctrl+Shift+D ever since that command was
introduced back around WinWord 97 (I think... but I don't recall). The nice
thing about it is that it even works on Normal. It's a real time saver when
designing templates.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

 

[Beth Melton]

Okay....I guess I'm not following why you expected the issue to not occur
when you started Word using the /a switch and then selected the Prompt to
Update Style option. After all, that's what is causing the error to occur
and if it's enabled you'll encounter the bug.

Perhaps you're trying to figure out the logic behind the issue? The
underlying cause is since Live Preview does change the format of the text in
the document. and when you hover over various styles, Word "thinks" the
format for the paragraph changed, but then discovers it doesn't and throws
the error.

(FWIW, this bug was filed with all of the details quite some time ago.)

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Co-author of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

I started Word with the /a switch, turned Prompt to Update on, then
proceeded. In Safe mode, which is different, you can't access the Advanced
settings, so it's impossible to test the bug in Safe mode.

I usually keep Prompt to Update turned off. For updating styles, I've had
RedefineStyle assigned to Ctrl+Shift+D ever since that command was
introduced back around WinWord 97 (I think... but I don't recall). The
nice thing about it is that it even works on Normal. It's a real time
saver when designing templates.

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

I had no such expectation, per se. But, my first impulse when replicating an
error is to strip away as much of my own settings as I can to see if the
error still occurs. It's part of my normal routine when testing Word errors
of any kind. <shrug>

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

 

[Tony Jollans]

What I get when I do that is that it throws me out of Word - no error
message, no nothing, just leaves Word running as it was and switches to
another application (whatever Alt+Tab would have given me). I had the same
thing happen yesterday in a different situation (but I shouldn't really
hijack the thread).

--
Enjoy,

Tony Jollans
Microsoft Word MVP

 

[Greg Maxey]

Beth,

Yes that is what I was referring to. The Google Groups here on my PC
wasn't working for two days. That is why I didn't see any or repond
to replies. Thanks.

Greg

 

[Beth Melton]

Gotcha! Makes perfect sense now.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Co-author of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Beth Melton]

That *is* odd. Do you also have Word 2003 installed? I kept encountering odd
errors, similar to what you described, when I had Office 2003 and Office
2007 installed. It was never enough that I could pinpoint the issue. I don't
know if it was caused by Office 2003 or if there were some stray bits from
one of the beta versions but when I wiped it all and installed only the RTM
version of Office 2007 I don't encounter the oddities anymore.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Co-author of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Tony Jollans]

Interesting. I do have both 2003 and 2007 installed but this machine has
never been near a beta.

 

[Beth Melton]

Then it may have been Word 2003 - or it could have been reformatting too.
;-)

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Co-author of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/