style drop down "clear formatting" and "normal" don't reset font, color?

[lah532]

Word 2004 v 11.1, Mac OS X v. 10.4.2

Hello,

Selecting clear formatting or normal from the style pull down doesn'
reset my font back to the font and color of my normal style (I though
that was supposed to happen?)

Ie I am typing in normal style, insert a formatted piece of text fro
elsewhere, then want to go back to typing in normal style. When
select normal or clear formatting from the style pull-down, it doesn'
seem to have an effect - it's as if the pasted-in text's font and colo
have been taken up as the new normal? But looking if I go to modif
style normal it still shows it as font "(Default) Times New Roman." Th
color isn't specified in the list of attributes of normal, do I need t
tell it to use black?

Thank you very much for any help!
Lydi

 

[Elliott Roper]

Word 2004 v 11.1, Mac OS X v. 10.4.2

Hello,

Selecting clear formatting or normal from the style pull down doesn't
reset my font back to the font and color of my normal style (I thought
that was supposed to happen?)

Ie I am typing in normal style, insert a formatted piece of text from
elsewhere, then want to go back to typing in normal style. When I
select normal or clear formatting from the style pull-down, it doesn't
seem to have an effect - it's as if the pasted-in text's font and color
have been taken up as the new normal? But looking if I go to modify
style normal it still shows it as font "(Default) Times New Roman." The
color isn't specified in the list of attributes of normal, do I need to
tell it to use black?

Could it/you be getting confused between character style and paragraph
style? i.e is the whole paragraph stuck in the wrong colour?

Is the next fresh para in normal style also the new colour?

To test for the former conclusion/confusion, I think there is something
called 'ResetChar' which round here is bound to ctrl-space and is
described as "makes the selection the default character format of the
applied style"

I find that most useful when I forget to paste unformatted from someone
else's ransom note.

That said, when I do what I think you are doing via
edit->clear->formats, the colour does get set back to black, even in a
style where text colour is undefined all the way back to its ancestor.

If the next fresh para comes out in the wrong colour, then you have
been struck by Word's most brainless default feature where it updates
the style definition to the current formatting and stuffs up your whole
document. I think you turn that off in Tools->AutoCorrect->Autoformat
As You Type -> Automatically as you type -> Define styles based on your
formatting. It might be in another few places as well. It is in that
part of Word that reduces me to a gibbering wreck.

 

[lah532]

Thank you so much Elliott, and LOL good luck w the ransom notes etc
I didn't know about resetchar and I also had that default styl
updating on, so using / correcting that I now stay in / return to th
formatting I wanted.
Thank you! These forums are great!
Lydia

Could it/you be getting confused between character style and paragraph
style? i.e is the whole paragraph stuck in the wrong colour?

Is the next fresh para in normal style also the new colour?

To test for the former conclusion/confusion, I think there i
something
called 'ResetChar' which round here is bound to ctrl-space and is
described as "makes the selection the default character format of the
applied style"

I find that most useful when I forget to paste unformatted fro
someone
else's ransom note.

That said, when I do what I think you are doing via
edit->clear->formats, the colour does get set back to black, even in a
style where text colour is undefined all the way back to its ancestor.

If the next fresh para comes out in the wrong colour, then you have
been struck by Word's most brainless default feature where it updates
the style definition to the current formatting and stuffs up you
whole
document. I think you turn that off in Tools->AutoCorrect->Autoformat
As You Type -> Automatically as you type -> Define styles based o
your
formatting. It might be in another few places as well. It is in that
part of Word that reduces me to a gibbering wreck.[/COLOR

 

[Klaus Linke]

I usually don't show "Clear formatting"... As far as I was able to figure
out, that new command just applies the Normal paragraph style, so it's the
same as clicking on "Normal".

And, as always when you apply any paragraph style, both also remove manual
paragraph formatting.

Font formatting is removed except under the following conditions:

-- You have either one whole paragraph selected, or the cursor is an
insertion point.
-- Less than 50% of the paragraph has been formatted with the manual font
formatting.

Then the manual character formatting is kept.

In that special case, you also have to be aware that with formatting that
acts as a toggle (such as bold, italic, hidden, ...), it will be toggled:

If the original style was, say, bold, and you removed the bold from less
than 50% of the text, and then hit "Clear formatting", Normal style is
applied and the bold formatting is toggled (= what was not bold will become
bold).

With multiple types of manual formatting applied, the 50% rule applies to
them separately. So with 4 kinds of font formatting of which one spans more
than 50% of the characters, 3 would be kept while one is removed.

As far as I heard, that behaviour is "by design".

With any other paragraph style than "Normal", it might get even weirder,
because Word 2003 (not sure about other versions) will create and apply a
"Char" style behind your back if you apply the paragraph style to part of a
paragraph.

8-/ Klaus

 

[lah532]

thanks,
Lydi