How do I stop creation of new styles with every format change?

[Nautical Lady]

I have a set list of styles created in an older version of MSWord that are
part of a template (.dot). I used to be able to manipulate an instance of a
style without Word automatically creating a new style (i.e., style named
"text" has 6pts of space before and after, but for one instance I change the
before spacing to 0 to squeeze something on the same page). This just
snowballs and I'm nervous about corruption issues sooner or later.

 

[Jay Freedman]

I have a set list of styles created in an older version of MSWord
that are part of a template (.dot). I used to be able to manipulate
an instance of a style without Word automatically creating a new
style (i.e., style named "text" has 6pts of space before and after,
but for one instance I change the before spacing to 0 to squeeze
something on the same page). This just snowballs and I'm nervous
about corruption issues sooner or later.

The short answer is to go to Tools > Options > Edit and turn off "Keep track
of formatting".

The longer answer is at item 4 in
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/sfpane/StylesAndFormattingPane.html -- what
you see isn't really a style at all.

 

[Barbara Nie]

Thank you very much ... the short answer was just what I was looking for!