Thats for both your posts (sorry for the delayed reply - been away on hol).
Im using print view but when i switch to any view the formatting stays the
same. The formatting changes im getting are things like specified stlye that
i have created have changed from Arial to Times New Roman, and headings ive
created are now not numbered or underlined. It doesnt seem to be any of the
things that you mentioned in the links Suzanne. i am using a new machine
which has been upgraded to XP recently, however I still have the same
printers attached etc as last time. Its almost as if my normal.dot is
corrupted somehow, but surely if this was the case then when I emailed this
doc to someone who's never had my perosnalised styles in their normal.dot,
when they open the doc they should see it in the same "wrong" way that i do
not the proper original format? I have also checked and I do not have the
update styles from the template box checked.
Do you know how templates work? When you add a style it is only saved in the
normal.dot that is associated with that particular doc? Because if i create a
new doc from scratch, the personalised styles i have created are not in the
styles and formatting section, as you'd expect if a style had been
permanantly saved in the normal.dot.

hope that makes sense

many thanks