Word keeps changing text outline level

P

Peter Ide

Working on a long doc in Word 2002. Almost every time I open file and
sometimes just out of the blue (switching Views is one trigger) Word decides
to "format" or "analyze" my document. Most of the time, it then decides that
many paragraphs I have previously assigned as Outline level Body Text really
deserve to be Level I and unceremoniously promotes them. Typical targets for
promotion include table and figure captions plus bolded, underlined or all
CAP one-line paragraphs, in other words, anything that looks like it could
possibly be a Heading (except that it's not). Tearing hair out searching web
and FAQs for anything, really desperate for any insight anyone might possibly
be able to offer and thanks in advance for consideration.

ps.
On Autocorrect/Autoformat tab all options are unchecked except Preserve Styles
On Autoformat as You Type tab all unchecked except first 4 items (quotes,
ordinals, fractions and hyphens)
 
S

Stefan Blom

Are you using the Document Map? This feature usually tries to "guess"
which paragraphs are headings. A simple work-around is to use the
Outline view instead. For more information, see:

Outline Levels and the Document Map
http://daiya.mvps.org/docmap.htm

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message
news:[email protected]...
 
D

Daiya Mitchell

That suggested link includes easy fixes to undo the changes Word already
made, as well as more information.
 
P

Peter Ide

Thank you very much, you're lifesavers, I wish I'd asked sooner. It's going
to take me awhile to get over the loss of Document Map, I'm addicted to it,
but I'll try. I find Outline view pretty clunky by comparison. Among the
inconveniences, it seems you have to jiggle the insertion point every time
you come back to normal/print in order to get the view to move to the new
location. Is the bug really gone from 2003? This alone could be enough to
make me upgrade.

Anyways, thanks again.

Peter
 
D

Daiya Mitchell

Well, you could keep using Doc Map and just run the macro every so often.
Your call. Assign the macro to a keyboard shortcut to make it easy to run.

I'm not sure if the bug is really gone from 2003 or not, as I don't have
Word 2003. I thought I had been told it was gone from Word 2002 and 2003,
but then I definitely heard reports it was still present in 2002, which I
don't recall hearing for 2003. But I'd put that macro that undos the
outline level on my toolbar and click it several times a day before I'd
upgrade based on that.
 
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