Restricting Formatting

[Shivers]

Hello

Is it possible to write a macro that would only show
specific styles in the taskpane and not allow manual
formatting? Apparently, this function has been added to
Word 2003, but my office runs on Word 2002. I've written a
report template with the styles they need, but they
frequently manually format which throws the styles in the
taskpane out.

Thanks in advance for any help

Shivers

 

[Jean-Guy Marcil]

Bonjour,

Dans son message, < Shivers > écrivait :
In this message, < Shivers > wrote:

|| Hello
||
|| Is it possible to write a macro that would only show
|| specific styles in the taskpane and not allow manual
|| formatting? Apparently, this function has been added to
|| Word 2003, but my office runs on Word 2002. I've written a
|| report template with the styles they need, but they
|| frequently manually format which throws the styles in the
|| taskpane out.
||

IMHO, this is a losing battle with users...
I often had to redo a template to actually remove all the styles because
users refused to use them (And the person in charge did not understand the
simple fact that using styles will save her/his employees many hours of
wasted time on the job). They are often convinced that it is easier and
faster to do things the way they have always done them, i.e. the wrong and
inefficient way, but familiar. They will not accept the fact that a few
hours of adaptation will pay off in the long run.

There isn't much you can do. The best you can do is make it as easy and
convenient as possible for the users to create documents by using your
styles...
Some ideas:
Make sure users have the "Follow up formatting" options turned off (Tools >
Options > Edit tab).
Create as as few styles as possible.
Create a toolbar with all the styles easily accessible at the touch of a
button.
Whenever possible, make sure that you use the Next style option in the style
definition to automatically generate paragraph already formatted in the
appropriate style.
--
Salut!
_______________________________________
Jean-Guy Marcil - Word MVP
(e-mail address removed)
Word MVP site: http://www.word.mvps.org

 

[Helmut Weber]

Hi Jean-Guy,
hi Shrivers,
so it is!
I have been working on this for a decade,
with some succes, I dare to say. You don't need one macro,
but a lot of them. But that is not the main point.

Create a toolbar with all the styles easily accessible
at the touch of a button.

That's it!
And remove other visible, easily accessible buttons or whatsoever.
Users will forget about other ways of formatting!
An additional, very strict measure would be, to remove all
direct formatting when saving.
Let us know if you need further assistance.

 

[Shivers]

Merci beaucoup and vielen danke for your help! I could
tear my hair out trying to get them to understand about
using styles!

Could you tell me how to remove direct formatting when
saving?

Thanks

Shivers

 

[Jean-Guy Marcil]

Bonjour,

Dans son message, < Shivers > écrivait :
In this message, < Shivers > wrote:

|| Merci beaucoup and vielen danke for your help! I could
|| tear my hair out trying to get them to understand about
|| using styles!
||
|| Could you tell me how to remove direct formatting when
|| saving?
||

Keep in mind that you might really upset some users who will be really
surprised when they open their document later and see that all their
formatting is gone. Also, ".Font.Reset" will remove all manual bold, italic,
underlining, etc.

If you go ahead and use that, be ready to run as they chase you down with
pitchforks!

You could compromise by using only ".Paragraphs.Reset" which will remove all
attempts at realigning and spacing. I have used the latter often without
much difficulty, but I have never use the first one... I value my life!

--
Salut!
_______________________________________
Jean-Guy Marcil - Word MVP
(e-mail address removed)
Word MVP site: http://www.word.mvps.org

 

[Shivers]

Hmmm...I can see myself having to tread carefully so as
not to lose the use of my limbs - I may tweak so I can do
style tidying by paragraph or something.

Thanks again for your help

Shivers

 

[Jean-Guy Marcil]

Bonjour,

Dans son message, < Shivers > écrivait :
In this message, < Shivers > wrote:

|| Hmmm...I can see myself having to tread carefully so as
|| not to lose the use of my limbs - I may tweak so I can do
|| style tidying by paragraph or something.
||

This is what I ended up doing in one case. I told the client that the only
way I could control the final look was to at least let me reset all
paragraphs that were formatted with numbering and bullet styles. So she told
her users not to modify the formatting in those styles because it would be
lost anyway at the end.

Everyone seemed happy with this compromise.

--
Salut!
_______________________________________
Jean-Guy Marcil - Word MVP
(e-mail address removed)
Word MVP site: http://www.word.mvps.org