style issue

S

Stephanie Stowe

Hi. We recently upgraded Word from 97 to 2002. Phew. About time.

Anyway, there is a behavior that I had grown accustomed to which seems to be
different now. I am a heavy user of styles to format my document logically.
I have a style called "Flow" which is used when I list steps in a flow. It
is a numbered list style. So I have typed the first paragraph in the list. I
apply the Flow style to the paragraph. I hit enter. I want this new
paragraph to also be the Flow style, but it is not. It is normal.

So I go to Format, Styles and Formatting and modify the style. Under "Style
for following paragraph" it says "Flow." IN Word 97 this would have caused
the paragraph I create after a Flow paragraph to also be Flow. But this is
not occuring in my document.

Is this an expected behavior that I am unaware of? Is my Word broken?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

S
 
C

Charles Kenyon

In Word 2002+ (I think) it is possible to apply a paragraph style to part of
a paragraph, in which case you end up with a new character style, with all
the font formatting of the paragraph style, but without the link for a
following paragraph.

If you put your insertion point in a paragraph and select a paragraph style
from the styles menu, it will change the paragraph's style to the one you
select. If you have anything other than the entire paragraph, including the
paragraph mark at the end, selected, it will create the new style.

Could this be your problem?
--

Charles Kenyon

See the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Charles's suggestion sounds worth investigating, but another thing to check
is the setting of the WordPerfect options on the General tab of Tools |
Options. Having them enabled often causes a change in style on pressing
Enter.
 
C

Charles Kenyon

You made my day! I learned something new. Thanks.

It's been so long since I had those items checked that this is one I hadn't
heard about.

What, exactly, if anyone knows, would be the problem with either getting rid
of those options or burying them as deep as Word buries some truly useful
options?
--

Charles Kenyon

See the MVP FAQ: <URL: http://www.mvps.org/word/> which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Lord knows I wish they'd take them out--along with whatever updates or
patches or add-ins somehow check them behind users' backs. But after I sent
that message I began to have doubts about the truth of it. I'm not sure it
actually changes styles--just reverts formatting. For example, if you've
added an indent (left or hanging) to a paragraph as direct formatting, I
think pressing Enter resets the paragraph to its default formatting (like
Ctrl+Q), which of course is not what you expect in Word but very much what
(frustratingly) happens in WP, IIRC.
 
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