Suddenly captions and other text in document map and TOC

[Menl]

Hi,

I'm working on my thesis, which has now about 100 pages. Before I started I
read up on how to use word 2007 for large documents and so I first created
the general outline, seperated everything in appropriate sections, defined
custom styles. After this was OK I started editing the actual content making
sure everyting is formatted using styles and avoiding direct formatting as
much as I can. Everything worked as expected.

Until now...

Suddenly all kind of extra entries show up in the document map such as
captions of figures, and tables, but also some other styles I defined.
Strangely not all figures and tables are included, just some of them. They
also show up in the TOC.
I've read up on this "feature" and it could be related to direct formatting.

So I selected all the extra entries and redefined the correct style (which
it was allready showing to have). And sure enough the entry was removed. But
to my surprise, when I opened the document the next day, it had all the extra
entries again.

So if a MVP or other word user could explain what is going on here and how
to fix it it is greatly appreciated. I would even go as far as editing the
XML directly in the word zip-package, if I knew it would solve things.

Thanx in advance

Menl

 

[DeanH]

The Document Map requires the Outline Level of the styles to work.
Check that the styles of the captions, etc that should not be in the
Document Map do not have an Outline Level assigned, ie they should be
BodyText.
See http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/DocumentMap.htm for further information.

 

[Menl]

Thank you very much DeanH,

to fix the TOC entries, the document you linked to proposed removing the /u
in the field code, this fixed the TOC, but not yet the document map.

Here I tried the CTRL-Q on each entry to remove the direct formatting. The
styles allreayde had bodytext selected, so that wasn't the problem.

It is solved for now, hope it stays that way

Thank you very much

 

[DeanH]

Glad you got it solved, for now at least ;-)
All the best
DeanH

 

[Menl]

Part of the problem remains.

the TOC issue seems to be fixed.

The document map however not. I ran the macro that assigns to every
paragraph the outline level corresponding to the style. Sure enough the
document map got cleaned up.

However when I saved, closed down and reopened the file, the document map
got filed with the extra entries again.
Is it possible to prevent word 2007 from automatically doing this (as it is
indicated in the document you refered to to be a buggy feature of word, at
least the older versions)

 

[DeanH]

After reopen, the TOC is ok, do you refresh the TOC, does the incorrect
entries appear?
Check the styles (the specific ones that are being affected) in the template
of this document, do the styles have the Outline Level assigned?
If so, your settings in Word could be "Automatically update document styles"
is checked.
Sorry I don't have 2007 at work so cannot point you to where this setting is.

Hope this helps
DeanH

 

[Menl]

After reopen, the TOC is ok, do you refresh the TOC, does the incorrect
entries appear?

No TOC stays OK. Here I removed the /u field code option. This prevents the
TOC from including direct formatting entries of the document map from
appearing.

Check the styles (the specific ones that are being affected) in the template
of this document, do the styles have the Outline Level assigned?

No style has an outline level assigned, exept the heading styles

If so, your settings in Word could be "Automatically update document styles"
is checked.
Sorry I don't have 2007 at work so cannot point you to where this setting is.

I couldn't fine an overall setting like that, just per style, but googling
for it found something at the MVP site. This addressed that possibly the
nomal style was wrong and provided a way of not update automatically. This
didn't help.

Strangely not all captions that use the style that appears are included in
the document map, just some of them.

 

[DeanH]

hmm, is the document OK? I.e. it is not starting to corrupt.
Does Open and Repair do anything?
I don't tend to use Document Map on a regular basis and have never seen
this, or been able to replicate here.
DeanH

 

[Stefan Blom]

The problem with the Document Map is that it assigns outline levels to
paragraphs that looks like headings (short paragraphs such as captions are
often affected).

 

[DeanH]

Stefan, thanks for that, I was wondering if it was something like that, but I
cannot find anything to suggest a solution.
Thanks
DeanH

 

[Menl]

I looked a bit further into it and narrowed it down to the normal style.

When I open the document it introduces all the new entries. If I do the
following steps all unwanted entries are cleared
- select some text that uses the normal style
- In the stylepane select the normal style and tell word to update the style
to match the selection
- When I now look at the assigned outline level of style:normal it says
level 1
- I set this to body text and click OK
- All unwanted entries are now gone

So I reason that the affected styles are linked to normal and are cleaned as
soon as normal is clean again.

However, saving en reopening the file introduces the unwanted entries.


As stefan Blom says, it appears word applies the styles when opening the
file and looks for items to include. As not all items that use a particular
style are affected this makes sense.

So the basis question in order to solve this is how to prevent word from
doing this, if at all possible.

 

[Stefan Blom]

Instead of changing the Normal style, what you should be doing is selecting
the text and pressing Ctrl+Q, which resets paragraph formatting to that of
the underlying style. But as you have seen, the fix might be just temporary.

Clearing the "Define styles based on your formatting" option in the
AutoCorrect dialog box (AutoFormat As You Type tab) might improve the
situation.

However, since the Document Map itself is the problem, as explained at
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/DocumentMap.htm, you may have to stop
using it altogether and start using Outline view instead.

 

[Menl]

I think I have solved it now.

So what did I do

As I have understood from many webpages about this subject is that if word
does not find any style (exept the headings) that uses a outline level it
start to guess.

so...
I created a custom style that would attached to something useful I would not
mind being in the document map. I chose the style for the table of contents.
This style I gave the outline level 1.
This style is the only style that has an outline level besides the Heading
Styles.
Saving and reopening the document shows only the correct entries.

So I hope this is the end of this and it is permanently fixed now.

Thanx both of you for your help in this.


Regards MenL

 

[Menl]

I think I have solved this for real this time.

What I learned from countless websites on this subject is that when word
does not find any styles with an attached outline level (except the heading
styles) it start to guess by itself. And guesses wrong

So I created a single style that has an outline level attached. I chose the
style used for the table of contents. When reopening the document now, no
extra entries are visible, so word has stopped guessing.

Hope this will be of help to others as well

Thank you both for your advice in this

Regards MenL

 

[Stefan Blom]

I'm glad you've got it sorted.

Note, however, that if your TOC is based on styles with outline levels (such
as the built-in headings), you may get unwanted entries in your TOC after
the next update.

 

[alanmuskat]

Menl's solution works for me, but just to clarify, I used a style that, to my knowledge, I wasn't currently using, but I had to set it to Outline Level 1 (level 9 did not work for me). Then I created a first line to the document and applied that style to it (making it the last line in the document also did not work for me). I added a second line reminding me not to remove or alter the first line. You can probably set the format of these lines to be hidden text, but then you might erase them by accident.

I've suffered with this for years, so thanks to everyone for sharing your findings.