Hi Klaus

I've just tested this again to be absolutely sure - applying a paragraph
style over a paragraph with majority (even 100%) character style formatting
doesn't remove the character style on my system (Word 2003). I'm pretty
certain it has been like this since 97 or 2000, because I remember
explaining it to someone while working up some company templates at least 4
years ago.

Of course, if you only select part of a paragraph and apply the paragraph
style, you do override the character style with the paragraph-as-character
style (aka the built-in linked char style).

--
Margaret Aldis - Microsoft Word MVP
Syntagma partnership site: http://www.syntagma.co.uk
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.word.mvps.org


"Klaus Linke" wrote in message
...
Hi Margaret, Stu,

I don't think it works that way, unfortunately. You loose character styles
just as easily as manual character formatting :-(
If more than 50% of the characters are formatted (manually or with a
character style), the formatting will be removed by applying the paragraph
style. It's a terrible nuisance, and there should be an option to turn off
this AutoFormatting.

Word2003 has introduced link styles (also known as Char styles). But I hate
them, and usually try desperately to get rid of them.
The idea is to create a character style, and link that character style to a
paragraph style. The paragraph style's font formatting will be defined by
the character style, and the character style will no longer appear in the
list of styles. If you apply a paragraph style to a part of a paragraph,
Word will apply the linked character style behind the scenes.
Seems to me that this just complicates matters without any benefit at all.
I've never in 10 years (working with Word almost daily) felt the need to
apply a paragraph style to part of a paragraph, so it seems like a solution
to a problem that nobody has.

BTW, one stupid gotcha to look out if you try Alt+Shift+Left/Right: It won't
work on the very first paragraph, probably because Word wants to teach you
that yu can't have a level 2 paragraph without a level 1 paragraph above it.

Regards,
Klaus



"Margaret Aldis" wrote:
If you explicitly want to clear out all font formatting, then select the
whole para, apply the para style, and then press Ctrl-space (default
paragraph font). That will remove all direct font formatting and all
character style formatting.

The best way of stopping Word ever changing font formatting without your
asking is to use character styles rather than direct formatting - even if
you have the whole paragraph in Strong style, say, that won't be removed
(compare to when the whole para is in bold direct formatting - if you
select
the whole para the bold will be overwritten by the style font.)

You are also safe from Word being "smart" if you don't select any text
when
applying the style, and if you only use direct formatting for the odd word
or two - not for bolding whole paragraphs.

--
Margaret Aldis - Microsoft Word MVP
Syntagma partnership site: http://www.syntagma.co.uk
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.word.mvps.org


wrote in message
oups.com...
My main problem in doing it this way is that sometimes I WANT that
action to apply the styles real formatting in various parts of the para
(eg. if it started out in some other style), while othertimes I WANT
the existing formatting preserved (eg. bolded text). I think Word is
tyring to be smart in guessing what I'm wanting in each case, but I've
yet to be convinced.