Forum Discussion
Word Styles - Custom Styles setup & txt formatted but shows as 'Normal' style
Are you running Word for Windows or on some other platform?
In Word for Windows, double-check how the document looks in the preview at File > Print.
The document looks fine on print. It looks fine on screen, it's just the styles even though they are there are not linked to their text. ALL text is linked to Normal style, but it's all formatted to it's original custom style. I can't get it to go back to it's former style when hilighting text.
Not sure if I've explained myself correctly.
Let's say I have 3 paragraphs. Par 1 is styled Heading 1. Par 2 is styled Heading 2. Par 3 is styled Heading 3 (and lets assume those 3 styles are custom styles I created).
When I open the document later. All 3 paragraphs are formatted to styles Heading 1, 2 & 3, but if you select the paragraph, Par 1 now hilights the Normal style (not Heading 1), Par 2 also hilights Normal, and so does Par 3. But all 3 paragraphs are formatted correctly. They are NOT formatted as Normal.
If you then go and right click on either style Heading 1, 2 or 3, it shows as 'Select All: (No Data)'. If you right click Normal style it now shows 'Select All 3 instance(s)'.
I've never seen this before and I or my client can now no longer update the document correctly.
In other words, the appearance of each text paragraph is correct, but without the proper styles applied to text. It is as if someone has formatted each text paragraph one by one by applying the font, size, etc.? In Word terminology, this is called direct formatting (= formatting which is applied directly to text instead of being applied via one or more paragraph styles). Sometimes, you see this happening with content which has been pasted from external files/programs.
>>In other words, the appearance of each text paragraph is correct, but without the proper styles applied to text.
Correct.
>>It is as if someone has formatted each text paragraph one by one by applying the font, size, etc.? In Word terminology, this is called direct formatting (= formatting which is applied directly to text instead of being applied via one or more paragraph styles).
Correct again, but nobody has done any direct formatting. I setup and formatted the file with custom styles so information could be added and styled easily. As far as I'm aware, nobody has tried to reformat anything. They have cut and pasted things from other files or from websites, but not done any custom formatting. They send it back to me to reformat.
>> Sometimes, you see this happening with content which has been pasted from external files/programs.
I've been dealing with clients for over 20 years that send me docs like this where they cut and pasted from external files/programs, but this has NEVER happened before which is why it has me stumped.
CDFFAB ,
just what you typed confirms my suspicion. I've worked with Word since 1994 (Windows 3.11), just like you, and corrected many broken or unstyled documents - including some looking like the one you describe. Not an uncommon sight. I am nearly 100% sure that what you describe is due to users' improper use of Word's functions. I even have a suspicion someone might work on it using either a Word Perfect or Libre Office. It just strips the styles of their formatting.
Like you, we are left with fixing and restyling the documents again and again and again, just because people ignore some simple rules.
But, since you say the styles are still there, paragraphs are 'styled', but all the styles' attributes were stripped making them look like Normal, importing the styles from your original document should reapply the correct styles tributes to them.
You will be left with this work for as long as people will not adhere to a preferred way of working with MS Word and the template you created.
