auto update styles (Word 2003)

[jpeterson72]

I recently switched from Word 97 to Word 2003. Styles just don't seem to act the same way.

For instance, I created a few paragraph styles and turned on the box for Automatically Update on each one. I applied the styles to various paragraphs. Then I make a changes to those paragraphs. Some of the styles will update the other instances of that same style, and some won't. I can't figure out what I'm doing differently in those situatons. What might I be overlookng?

[HansV]

I think Word will only update the style if you apply a change to an entire paragraph. For example, if you make one or two words in a paragraph bold, this will not affect the underlying style, but if you select the entire paragraph and make it bold, the style definition will be updated to include bold.

[jpeterson72]

I HAVE been changng the entire paragraph. I highlight the entire paragraph by clicking at the left edge, so it is selecting the entire paragraph as well as the paragrap marker.

[HansV]

The feature appears to work correctly when I try it. I have never noticed problems with it because I never turn on Automatically Update for styles (except for testing just now) - I hate the feature.

Perhaps someone else will chime in.

[jpeterson72]

I was giving a test to my HS students on ths yesterday, and many of them had the same problem--they were set for auto update, yet it wouldn't. I spent a lot of time experimentng last night and this morning trying to figure out what we're doing wrong.

[jpeterson72]

For instance, I just made a new paragraph style, then applied it to a second paragraph. If I change the font color, both paragraphs change. If I center one of them, the other does NOT center. It seems as though it is a character vs paragraph formatting issue, although when I created this style, I changed the style type from Character to Paragraph. However, now when I go back to modify the style, the style type is listed as 'Paragraph and character'.

[Klaus Linke]

The new linked styles (= styles that are both "Paragraph and Character" styles at the same time) are a giant nuisance.

They are created automatically when you apply any paragraph style while you have only part of a paragraph selected (usually by acident).
In the new version 2007, many of the built-in styles will automatically be linked styles.

In versions up to 2003, you can get rid of them, though it is difficult to achieve without loosing some formatting. Maybe you can find macros to achieve that by searching the Lounge...
I'll paste the one I use (based on a macro by Cindy Meister) below.

Since in Word2007, you will no longer be able to get rid of them at all, it might not be worth the trouble to fight them.

There are loads of problems with linked styles. The one you have run in is that the two linked styles (one paragraph style and one character style sharing the same name) can have contradicting font formatting.
That is probably a bug.

I have for example just edited a document that had about half the paragraphs in style XY showing as 10 pt font size, the other half as 16 pt font size.
The paragraph style's font size was defined as 10 pt, but the linked character style (which does not show in the styles pane or styles control) had 16 pt.

The solution to fix that (without loosing a lot of other manually applied font formatting) was like this:
Change to the VBA editor (Alt+F11),
open the immediate window (Ctrl+G),
with some text selected that shows the weird formatting (the 16 pt font size in my example above), run the line
<pre>? Selection.Style</pre>


If there's a linked style applied as a character style, you'll get the styles name followed by "Char" (or by "Zchn" in the German version, "Car" in the Spanish ...).

If it is a char style, then to fix the problem, I run the line
Selection.Style.Font.Size=Selection.Paragraphs(1). Style.Font.Size
or alternatively
Selection.Style.Font.Size=Selection.Style.LinkStyl e.Font.Size
which set the size of the character style to that of the linked paragraph style.

Or corresponding code for other font formatting other than the size...

<img src=/S/cheers.gif border=0 alt=cheers width=30 height=16> Klaus

edited... had posted an old version by accident
<pre>Sub ShowLinkStylesUnlink()
' Based on one of Cindy Meister's macros
' (any bugs are mine)
Dim myStyle As Style
Dim myStyleLinkedStyle As Style
' On Error Resume Next
For Each myStyle In ActiveDocument.Styles
If myStyle.Type = wdStyleTypeCharacter Then
Set myStyleLinkedStyle = myStyle.LinkStyle
If myStyleLinkedStyle <> _
ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal) Then
If myStyleLinkedStyle.LinkStyle = myStyle Then
Select Case MsgBox("The " & _
StyleType(myStyle.NameLocal) & _
" " & Chr(34) & myStyle.NameLocal & Chr(34) & _
" is linked to " & StyleType(myStyle.LinkStyle) & _
" " & Chr(34) & myStyle.LinkStyle & Chr(34) & _
". " & vbCr _
& "Unlink?", _
vbYesNoCancel + vbInformation, "Styles linked:")
Case vbYes
myStyle.LinkStyle = ActiveDocument.Styles("Standard")
myStyleLinkedStyle.LinkStyle = ActiveDocument.Styles("Standard")
If myStyle.LinkStyle <> _
ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal) Or _
myStyleLinkedStyle.LinkStyle <> _
ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal) Then
MsgBox "Didn't work!", vbCritical
End If
Case vbNo
Case vbCancel
Exit Sub
End Select
End If
End If
End If
Next myStyle
End Sub</pre>