Is it possible to disable table styles in Word 2003?

No. But you can set a particular table style as the default.

FWIW, any paragraph style other than Normal should override table-style
specific formatting. But by the same token, you should always create the
table in a paragraph foramtted with the Normal style.

If I guessed that the tables exhibiting the "bizarre" behavior you
describe were created in paragraphs formatted with a different stlye, and
that this is the style that shows up when your paragraph styles change,
would I be on the right track?

I have my own hierarchies of paragraph and character styles that I want
to be able to use consistently and predictably both outside and inside
tables, without having to maintain a second set specifically for
tables.

The "consistently and predictably" bit is the problem. Sometimes the
font characteristics in my paragraph styles (used in tables) take
precedence; sometimes they are overridden by an unwanted table style.
Styles applied are often selectively and strangely removed from
paragraphs inside table cells when they are cut/copied and pasted
elsewhere too: sometimes the first paragraph in each cell loses its
paragraph style while others retain them; sometimes only the last
paragraph in each cell, sometimes the first and last but not
intervening paragraphs in each cell, and sometimes all paragraphs in
each cell. Occasionally all paragraphs retain their paragraph styles,
which is what I want, but this is by far the least common behaviour,
worse luck! This is all within the one document on the one machine, by
the way, and in case it's relevant, all the automatic formatting and
automatic resizing options I can find in the entire application are
disabled (I'm a control freak).


Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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