I have several documents to which I want to apply one template. Currently
they are cobbled together from several different sources, and each contains
many different styles. I have created a simple template with a limited number
of styles that I want to apply to all the documents.

What is the best way to do this? I tried opening one of the documents and
clicking Tools, Templates and Add-Ins, Attach, and then selecting my new
template, but I still see all the old styles from the document. Do I have to
delete all these old styles manually? I'd rather just have the styles from my
new template displayed, and retag the whole document if necessary. Is there a
way to do this?

Thanks!

Your best bet is to first make a copy of each document and either remove the
styles from the text (perhaps by applying Normal or Body Text to every
paragraph) or rename the styles to the names used in your new template. Then
create a new document based on your new template, press Enter a couple of
times, and use Insert | File to insert the sanitized document. You can then
delete the empty paragraphs you created by pressing Enter (this is necessary
to force Word to insert the file without its final paragraph mark). If you
have renamed the styles, they should now be showing the format you defined
in your template (if not, Ctrl+A, then Ctrl+Q to bring them into line). If
you just removed the styles, you can go through the document applying the
new styles.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
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all may benefit.

"LisaH" wrote in message
...
I have several documents to which I want to apply one template. Currently
they are cobbled together from several different sources, and each
contains
many different styles. I have created a simple template with a limited
number
of styles that I want to apply to all the documents.

What is the best way to do this? I tried opening one of the documents and
clicking Tools, Templates and Add-Ins, Attach, and then selecting my new
template, but I still see all the old styles from the document. Do I have
to
delete all these old styles manually? I'd rather just have the styles from
my
new template displayed, and retag the whole document if necessary. Is
there a
way to do this?

Thanks!