Styles is going rogue

[kddidit]

Version: 2004 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel This is a problem I've been having for awhile, but it is now out of control. My initial problem was selecting text and attempting to apply a style. Word ignores my attempts.

Now, "Normal" text suddenly appears with 24pt bold when it should be 12pt normal. When I "clear formatting" on the "Normal" style, it jumps over to "Title".

What's goin' on???

 

[John_McGhie_[MVP]]

Reveal your paragraph marks, so you can see what you are doing.

I think you are a victim of the extraordinarily silly "Linked Styles" design
bug.

If you do not select the paragraph mark when applying a style, Word applies
the "Character" part of that style only. If you clear formatting, you come
back to the underlying paragraph style.

You may have a corrupt document there... Or you may have inadvertently
switched on "Automatically Update" on one or more styles.

See here:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/WholeDocumentReformatted.htm

Hope this helps

Version: 2004 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel
This is a problem I've been having for awhile, but it is now out of control.
My initial problem was selecting text and attempting to apply a style. Word
ignores my attempts.

Now, "Normal" text suddenly appears with 24pt bold when it should be 12pt
normal. When I "clear formatting" on the "Normal" style, it jumps over to
"Title".

What's goin' on???

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[kddidit]

No, I HATE automatically update. I always uncheck it.

I've been through my doc with the paragraph marks showing. I've taken out a few extra spaces but other than that I don't know how to tell if I have included the paragraph marks???

 

[John_McGhie_[MVP]]

There's no way you can TELL (not in 2008, which won't SHOW you Linked
Styles, even though it produces them...)

What you can do is:

1) Select the offending passage of text

2) Hit Control + SpaceBar (which is ResetChar)

3) Hit Command + Option + q (which is ResetPara).

ResetChar clears out any unwanted character formatting, ResetPara clears out
any unwanted Paragraph formatting.

The result is that you see only the formatting of the applied styles. So
then you can see at a glance which style is wrong.

This is different from the Edit>Clear>Clear Formatting command, which clears
off all the styles back to Normal style.

Now you can see exactly what the styles are doing.

When you format styles, check to see which style each one is "Based On".
All of the formatting will come from the Based On style until you change it.
It's often good to break the link to "Normal Style".

Hope this helps

No, I HATE automatically update. I always uncheck it.

I've been through my doc with the paragraph marks showing. I've taken out a
few extra spaces but other than that I don't know how to tell if I have
included the paragraph marks???

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[kddidit]

Thanks! I hope it helps too. Naturally all my naughty examples are no longer showing up...Murphy's Law reigns!

 

[kddidit]

See, if you accept that it won't happen, it will.

I keep applying a style. In the Formatting palette it says that my before para is 0 and after para is 12.

When I try to modify the style to reflect that I want 3 & 3, I find that the style is already set for 3 & 3. So I do the CTRL+spacebar and then COMMAND+OptioN+q. The text does its little shivery thing. With no results. No changes. The style is based on Table Normal which I can't find in the styles.

 

[John_McGhie_[MVP]]

Right. Almost certainly a corrupt document.

Maggie it...

The Maggie:

1. Create a new blank document
2. Carefully select all of the text in the bad document EXCEPT the last
paragraph mark
3. Copy it.
4. Paste in the new document.
5. Save under a new file name and close all, then re-open.

This technique for de-corrupting is known as "Doing a 'Maggie'", after
Margaret Secara from the TECHWR-L mailing list, who first publicised the
technique.

Hope this helps

See, if you accept that it won't happen, it will.

I keep applying a style. In the Formatting palette it says that my before
para is 0 and after para is 12.

When I try to modify the style to reflect that I want 3 & 3, I find that the
style is already set for 3 & 3. So I do the CTRL+spacebar and then
COMMAND+OptioN+q. The text does its little shivery thing. With no results.
No changes. The style is based on Table Normal which I can't find in the
styles.

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[kddidit]

Two questions.

You say to not choose the last paragraph mark. Is that the mark that comes after the paragraph or the pre-paragraph paragraph mark of the last paragraph.

2. This is a 200-page document. Is it the last paragraph mark of every paragraph or just the very, very last one?

 

[CyberTaz]

I'm not sure what you mean by "pre-paragraph paragraph mark"... There's
either a ¶ or there isn't If you're saying that there is a ¶ at the end
of the last paragraph followed by another ¶ on the line below it, it simply
means that the return key has been pressed one too many times. What you have
is an 'empty' paragraph at the end of the document. There's no legitimate
need for it to be there. Put the insertion point in that empty paragraph &
press the backspace/delete key.

When typing a document each press of the return key denotes both the end of
a paragraph *and* the start of a new one. In a well-constructed document
there's no reason for there to be multiple successive ¶s like this.¶
¶

To do as John suggested is a simple 5 keystroke process:

Command+A = 'select all'
Shift+Left Arrow = 'deselect last ¶'
Command+C = 'copy'
Command+N = 'create a new blank document'
Command+V = 'paste'

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[kddidit]

I'm working on this but I've just encountered a hiccup. I'm finally properly applying list and table styles---I've been lazy. This last table, I have it selected and keep selecting the Table style and it just laughs at me. The table includes various colors and a bit of bolded text and what style offers me is Normal + Bold. Even if I clear formatting...it stays Normal + Bold completely ignoring the fact that I'm madly clicking away on Table. Does this mean the doc is already corrupted again?

 

[John_McGhie_[MVP]]

Not the whole document, just the table...

Select the Table and do the old Table>Convert>Table to Text thing...

Then, without moving the selection, Table>Convert>Text to Table...

That rebuilds the entire table, and it should then respond correctly to the
formatting.

Hope this helps

I'm working on this but I've just encountered a hiccup. I'm finally properly
applying list and table styles---I've been lazy. This last table, I have it
selected and keep selecting the Table style and it just laughs at me. The
table includes various colors and a bit of bolded text and what style offers
me is Normal + Bold. Even if I clear formatting...it stays Normal + Bold
completely ignoring the fact that I'm madly clicking away on Table. Does this
mean the doc is already corrupted again?

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]