Hi,



My company has undergone a few mergers and I am now tasked with
standardizing our style sheets across offices. I'd like some advice on this.



The templates I have been using till now use "Normal" as body text rather
than a specific style called "Body Text" or similar. (One of our offices
uses "Body Text".) Most tech authors seem to advocate staying away from
Normal, but I don't see any problem with it as long as you follow these
simple rules:



i. You base any styles you don't want to change if Normal changes on "no
style" or another style.



ii. If more than one person will work on the same master document, you
EITHER give strict orders never to select "Automatically update document
styles" in the Templates dialog box OR you make sure that everyone in the
authoring team has the same definition of "Normal" in their "Normal"
template OR you attach the document to a template on a shared network folder
that you know will always be available, and in which the "Normal" style
matches that of the document.



I don't see any problem with copy/pasting from other documents or emails
that use Normal, particularly with the latest versions of Word where you get
a dropdown menu that allows you to choose whether to retain source or target
formatting when you paste. To me this is easier than reformatting imported
Normal text as Body Text. Even if somebody accidentally chooses "retain
source formatting" when pasting, as far as I can see you can easily tidy
this up by selecting "Automatically update document styles", saving, and
then clearing this setting (or by selecting the offending text and clicking
ctrl + space).



Does this make sense?



IMO, the arguments against using Normal are pretty weak. That said, I don't
think the arguments against Body Text are strong either; six of one and half
a dozen of the other.



In any case, is there any good reason to use "Body Text", but still base it
on "Normal"? I have seen this in some templates, but it just doesn't make
any sense to me.



Thanks,



Adrian