Captions appear in Doc Map

[Matt LeBlanc]

recently I have been working on a pretty large doc, it is
a very "tree" structured hardware test document.
I use the Doc map and headings to keep things in
perspective.
Each page has several "Captions" (style) that are used to
segregate the parts of each test.
I gave the doc to a co-worker for some minor editing
changes, and a new doc template was applied(??), ever
since then when I open the doc, most of the captions from
the 500 or so pages appear in the doc map.
I have checked the style properties of the "new" captions,
and compared the settings to the original caption, and
they are identical.
If I re-select the style from the tool bar and try to re-
apply it to the "bad" captions that appear in the doc map
and say re-apply formatting and NOT update style, it is
removed from the doc map, with such a large doc this make
things a real pain.
So I spent a whole day reformatting the captions in my
doc, then "saved-as" up 1 rev, worked on that new doc the
whole next day (Friday) saved at the end of the day and
went home.
When I cam back on Monday, I tried to access my doc (it
was still open) and word shut down by itself, I re-opened
and the autosave doc did not open, nor was it in the
normal location that word uses to save it, so I opened the
copy I save on Friday and all the captions were back in
the map.
So I deleted "normal.dot" and tried to reopen, still there.
I deleted "normal.dot" and all the other templates that
were there, then went back to look at the autosave
directory and the file was there, so I opened that one (it
was NOT there before opening and closing word at least
once) and it was fine.
It's almost like the style from the "other" template is
infecting my documents.
Any help in why this is happening would be appreciated,
anything to help prevent this from happening again.

Thanks

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Matt

There may be several things going on here at once.

First issue: the Document Map. I find that Document Map works brilliantly and consistently -- but *only* if Word thinks that your
document is structured according to its rules. And that basically means using Word's built-in heading styles. Have a look at your
document using View > Outline. Choose Level 1, and you should see only your level 1 headings (generally, text formatted with the
Heading 1 style). Choose Level 2 and you should see the next level of headings. Document Map and Outline View present much the same
information. If you don't see something very structured in Outline View, then you will need to apply appropriate styles to the
headings in your document in order to use the Document Map.

Outline View and Document Map rely on the Outline Level characteristic of styles. You can see the Outline Level for a style by
examining it in the Styles and Formatting pane. You can see the Outline Level for a particular paragraph at Format > Paragraph.

You can use styles other than the built-in heading styles, but there are very good reasons for sticking to the built-in styles (See
How to create numbered headings or outline numbering in your Word Document at
http://www.ShaunaKelly.com/word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html).

For what it's worth, Caption style is usually used to format the captions below figures or tables. That is, for text that says
things like "Figure 1. A map of the world".

If Word can't easily see your structure (eg from built-in heading styles), then Document Map will improvize and display all kinds of
weird things. Although Caption style is, by default, a "Body Text" level style (and thus should not appear in Document Map), if Word
can't find any better things to show in Document Map, then Word will assume that the Captions are headings, allocate Level 1 to
those paragraphs, and display them in Document Map. This seems to be what you're experiencing.

Second issue: templates. If you send a document to a co-worker, Word will use the styles in the document *unless* you have ticked
the box at Tools > Templates and Add-ins > Automatically update document styles. If that box is ticked, and if the co-worker has a
template with the same name as the template on which the document was based, then Word will abandon your styles and update the
document with your co-worker's styles. Since this is almost never a good idea, make sure that the Automatically update box is not
ticked.

Once a document is created, there are only three ways that a template can affect the styles of a document:
(a) If you modify a style in the document, and tick the "Add to Template" box.
(b) If you do Tools > Templates and AddIns and tick the Automatically Update Styles box.
(c) If you use Tools > Templates and AddIns and use the Organizer to copy styles from a template to a document.

So, deleting templates isn't going to affect your document, or fix the problems you're experiencing.

Third issue: fixing up the problems you're experiencing. You can use Edit > Replace to find-and-replace styles. If the problem with
the problem Caption paragraphs is that they've aquired a Level 1 setting, then you could zap them all in one step. First, close the
Document Map. Now, in Edit > Replace, leave the search boxes empty, and click the More button. Put your cursor in the Find box.
Choose Format > Styles > Caption. Put the cursor in the Replace box and choose Format > Styles and choose Caption. Then, choose
Format > Paragraph and set Outline Level to "Body Text". Click Replace All.

That should remove any direct formatting about Levels that has been applied to the caption paragraphs.

Fourth issue (and maybe this should be the first thing you tackle). The problem of Word closing on opening might be due to a corrupt
document. Try creating a new, blank, document. Then copy everything in your problem document *except the last paragraph marker* into
the new document. Now, save it. Does that solve any problems?

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word
Melbourne, Australia