Word 2007 loses table styles when saving to Word 2003 format

[TimvG]

It appears that Word 2007 loses all table styles when saving a file to
Word 2003 format.
When you re-open the file, the tables *look* exactly the same, but the
table style is "Table Normal". It appears that the formatting of the
table style has been replicated in lower-level formatting e.g. cell
formatting.
This loss of table styles occurs even when the table styles were
originally applied in Word 2003.

I stumbled across this problem using one computer, and "confirmed" it
on another computer. After an hour or two of searching I couldn't
find any discussion of this problem, let alone a fix for it.

Any suggestions as to how I can get Word 2007 to save table styles
when saving to Word 2003?

If I can't convince Word 2007 to play nicely in this respect, I'll
have to stop using table styles in my current project and do all table
formatting "manually" with macros.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

This does seem like a serious bug, and AFAIK it has not previously been
noted. Wrt use of table styles (in earlier versions), see
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/tablestyles/index.html

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[TimvG]

Just a clarification of the apparent bug when table styles are lost
when saving 2007 files to 2003 (document or template): The table style
*definitions* are not lost. They survive in the 2003 file. The
problem, rather, is that the tables lose their connection to the table
style. They retain the formatting of the table style, but they now
believe that they are Table Normal style with extra formatting applied
on top.