Hi Jackie:

When you paste in modern versions of Word, the default is to "Keep source
formatting". Most of us need "Adopt destination formatting". I guess they
had to choose one or the other, and they chose the default that is least
likely to confuse newbies.

Unfortunately, it confuses and frustrates the hell out of the rest of us,
because it's wrong nearly always.

Look up "Paste options" in the help, and turn on "Show paste options" if you
have turned it off.

Then, when pasting, choose "Keep text only". This will ensure that your
incoming text adopts the style of the destination document.

You will get less problem with this if you "treat" your source document
before importing from it:

1) Use ToolsTemplates and Add-ins to "Attach" the same template to the
source document as you used to generate the destination document. When you
do that, check the box that says "Automatically update styles...". When you
do THAT, Word will update all the styles in the source document to match
those of the destination document.

2) Next, select all of the text in the Source document and hit Control Q,
then Control + SpaceBar. That removes all manual formatting from the text,
leaving only the style formatting.

OK, this is not a perfect solution: you will lose your bold and italic if it
were not applied by a style. But you will have to do a lot "less" work.

Sorry: It's a bad design.

If you are going to have to do a lot of this, you can use the following
macro:

Sub oEditPaste()
On Error GoTo notAvailable

Selection.PasteSpecial Link:=False, datatype:=wdPasteText
End

notAvailable:
Selection.Paste

End Sub

If you remove the "o" from " Sub oEditPaste()" the macro will replace your
Paste command and paste as "Keep text only" always. Or, leave the macro the
way it is and assign a shortcut key to it using ToolsCustomise. I use the
Insert key for the purpose.

Actually, I name the above macro "EditPaste" and use that as my normal Paste
command, and assign this to the Insert key:

Sub PasteFormatted()

Selection.Paste

End Sub


Hope this helps

On 19/11/05 2:07 AM, in article
, "Jackie"
wrote:

I'm currently reformatting old documents into a new style. I'm doing
this by copying the old docs into a new blank doc template and applying
the paragraph styles. However in some cases where the font was
different in normal style, reapplying normal style in the new template
will not update the style. I have to go into format styles and modify
the normal style. Can anyone explain why this happens? I'm also
putting together a guide for users so need to be able to explain this
to them. thanks a lot.


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John McGhie
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410