Hi,

I have defined a set of custom styles to be shared among a number of users,
and saved them to a dedicated template. I tried using this in another
document in 2 ways:

1) Copy the text with these styles to a fresh document based on a normal
template that has none of these styles.

2) Use Format / Theme / Style Gallery to select the special template to
"import" the custom styles.

In both cases I see that some styles get changed, most commonly (I think)
bulleted and numbered lists. I thought maybe it was because these custom
styles were based on other styles, so I updated these styles so they were
based on "nothing", and replaced the template and tried again. No luck.

Can you help?

Thanks/Paul

See http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styl...xtChanges.html.

"Paul_at_Work" wrote:

Hi,

I have defined a set of custom styles to be shared among a number of users,
and saved them to a dedicated template. I tried using this in another
document in 2 ways:

1) Copy the text with these styles to a fresh document based on a normal
template that has none of these styles.

2) Use Format / Theme / Style Gallery to select the special template to
"import" the custom styles.

In both cases I see that some styles get changed, most commonly (I think)
bulleted and numbered lists. I thought maybe it was because these custom
styles were based on other styles, so I updated these styles so they were
based on "nothing", and replaced the template and tried again. No luck.

Can you help?

Thanks/Paul

Hi,

I reviewed the linked document, and it does not describe my situation. My
custom styles have unique names so they should not be changed when I
copy/import them into a fresh document. However this is what happens. When I
open the Bullets and Numbering gallery, my custom lists are there, but
different list formats are applied to my custom styles. Any other ideas?

Thanks/Paul

"garfield-n-odie" wrote:

See http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styl...xtChanges.html.

"Paul_at_Work" wrote:

Hi,

I have defined a set of custom styles to be shared among a number of users,
and saved them to a dedicated template. I tried using this in another
document in 2 ways:

1) Copy the text with these styles to a fresh document based on a normal
template that has none of these styles.

2) Use Format / Theme / Style Gallery to select the special template to
"import" the custom styles.

In both cases I see that some styles get changed, most commonly (I think)
bulleted and numbered lists. I thought maybe it was because these custom
styles were based on other styles, so I updated these styles so they were
based on "nothing", and replaced the template and tried again. No luck.

Can you help?

Thanks/Paul

Try using the Organizer (Tools Templates and Add-ins Organizer button),
select the styles, and Copy 3 times. This seems to work with styles set up
correctly as described in

http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numb...Numbering.html

From your description, I'm not sure you are going about this the right way,
however. The usual way to use a template is to create a new document from
it - that way you get not only the styles but also the page layout and any
document-specific properties and option settings. To apply to an existing
document, the safest way is to copy all but the last paragraph marker into a
fresh 'shell' made from the template, and then apply styles from the
template if necessary (i.e. if the pasted text did not use the same style
names, or contained direct formatting). For bullet and numbered styles, even
if the style names match, you will generally have to Ctrl-Q to reset to
style.

--
Margaret Aldis - Microsoft Word MVP
Syntagma partnership site: http://www.syntagma.co.uk
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.word.mvps.org

"Paul_at_Work" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I have defined a set of custom styles to be shared among a number of
users,
and saved them to a dedicated template. I tried using this in another
document in 2 ways:

1) Copy the text with these styles to a fresh document based on a normal
template that has none of these styles.

2) Use Format / Theme / Style Gallery to select the special template to
"import" the custom styles.

In both cases I see that some styles get changed, most commonly (I think)
bulleted and numbered lists. I thought maybe it was because these custom
styles were based on other styles, so I updated these styles so they were
based on "nothing", and replaced the template and tried again. No luck.

Can you help?

Thanks/Paul

Hi, Margaret, (et al),

Thanks for the suggestions. I read about setting up numbered lists, and
while it's interesting, it doesn't seem that applicable. Maybe I need to
described what I am trying to do. I get a document for review from
department A, and once I make updates/corrections, it get's incorporated in a
larger document by department B. We had 2 types of problems, the input from A
was all over the map in terms of formatting, and even after I cleaned it up,
B would end up changing it when they added it to the larger document because
their format definitions would override mine. It seemed the way to solve this
was to create a unique set of styles for A to use thus standardizing their
input to me, and making it "change-resistant" for B since I used unique names
for my custom styles. To make this work, it must be easy for A to use these
style while creating the original document for me. It seems that A can get
these styles into their document either by pasting the example
paragraphs/tables from my master document, or by importing these from a
template (dot) file that I provide using Format Theme Style Gallery to
select the template containing my custom styles. The problem is that bulleted
and numbered lists get changed. These are *simple* formats that have either
special alignments/indenting and tabs and/or spacing charcters [")" vs. "."]
after the list item numbers. What I see is:

- bullet lists lose the bullet character
- bullet lists changed to numbered lists
- numbered lists with formatting change, sometime even within the same list

I tried re-applying the custom style to the "corrupted" items, but this does
not work. When I look at my styles with Format/Styles, the definitions still
look "right", but when I look at them on the drop-down style list on the
formatting toolbar, they display as described in the list above. When I open
Format Tools Bullets and Numbering with the cursor on one of the
corrupted items, the gallery position is not what I had set when I defined
the style, and I can correct the problem by re-setting the style to B&N
gallery position I originally defined for it. These seems to be the root of
the problem (or at least the symptom), i.e., the B&N gallery position for my
custom style gets changed by Word when I copy the style.

I have not tried your suggestion about using copying 3 times in Tools
Templates and Add-ins Organizer, which seems really cumbersome to expect
department A to follow it. I have a question about this:

For bullet and numbered styles, even if the style names match, you will generally
have to Ctrl-Q to reset to style.

Where/when do I do the Ctrl-Q? It does not seem make any difference if I do
this while I highlight one of the corrupted items.

Thanks/Paul

First, numbering styles are special. See: How to create numbered headings or
outline numbering in your Word document
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numb...Numbering.html.

Second, when copying linked styles (cascading styles) using the Organizer
you need to copy them three times to maintain the links. I'm not sure if
this is true using copy and paste of stylized text, but I suspect that the
links may be broken there, as well.
http://addbalance.com/usersguide/styles.htm
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

"Paul_at_Work" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I have defined a set of custom styles to be shared among a number of
users,
and saved them to a dedicated template. I tried using this in another
document in 2 ways:

1) Copy the text with these styles to a fresh document based on a normal
template that has none of these styles.

2) Use Format / Theme / Style Gallery to select the special template to
"import" the custom styles.

In both cases I see that some styles get changed, most commonly (I think)
bulleted and numbered lists. I thought maybe it was because these custom
styles were based on other styles, so I updated these styles so they were
based on "nothing", and replaced the template and tried again. No luck.

Can you help?

Thanks/Paul

Hi Paul

No, you certainly don't want or need to ask your users to use the
Organizer - as I guessed there are better ways of skinning this cat, now we
know what you're trying to do :-).

The way to handle this is to set up your styles in a template (.dot file)
which you install for department A (either put a copy in the User Templates
folder, or if there are several machines you might want to share a copy in a
"Workgroup template folder" location). The template can also contain any
boiler plate for the regular document - replacing whatever model document
they use now.

A will then create the regular document each month by first creating a new
document from your template - if they don't know how to do that from Word,
or you want to make it really simple, put a shortcut to your template on the
desktop - double clicking will open a new document in your template. (If
they edit a previous month's version, they can still do that, once you've
moved the first version into a fresh document made from the template.)

You can help A use your styles by customizing the view they get in the
Styles and Formatting dropdown and/or putting common styles onto a toolbar.

On bullets and numbering, two points:

* make sure you set up the list formatting for the style correctly, working
from the top level style in any multi-level list, and leaving Format B&N
well alone. Read Shauna's instructions again if you have any doubts here.
(Actually, since you've obviously had to make a lot of visits to Format
Bullets and Numbering and will have built up a lot of list formats in your
template, you'd do well to start afresh - copy across your unnumbered styles
from work in progress, but recreate the numbered ones.)

* If you (or A) have to paste B&N items, you need to be aware that Word will
not always respect the destination style formatting. What happens is that
the list formatting gets applied as direct formatting. If you get numbers
disappearing or similar odd effects on pasting, selecting the paragraphs and
pressing Ctrl-Q will remove that direct formatting and return to the number
formatting of the style.

(Note that this last isn't the same as the problem you were getting with the
style copy - as you guessed Word is not bringing in the correct list format
linked to the style. The "Copy 3 times" in the Organizer is a trick which
corrects for this - you may yet need this advice when you are building up
your template.)

Hope this helps

--
Margaret Aldis - Microsoft Word MVP
Syntagma partnership site: http://www.syntagma.co.uk
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.word.mvps.org

"Paul_at_Work" wrote in message
...
Hi, Margaret, (et al),

Thanks for the suggestions. I read about setting up numbered lists, and
while it's interesting, it doesn't seem that applicable. Maybe I need to
described what I am trying to do. I get a document for review from
department A, and once I make updates/corrections, it get's incorporated
in a
larger document by department B. We had 2 types of problems, the input
from A
was all over the map in terms of formatting, and even after I cleaned it
up,
B would end up changing it when they added it to the larger document
because
their format definitions would override mine. It seemed the way to solve
this
was to create a unique set of styles for A to use thus standardizing their
input to me, and making it "change-resistant" for B since I used unique
names
for my custom styles. To make this work, it must be easy for A to use
these
style while creating the original document for me. It seems that A can get
these styles into their document either by pasting the example
paragraphs/tables from my master document, or by importing these from a
template (dot) file that I provide using Format Theme Style Gallery to
select the template containing my custom styles. The problem is that
bulleted
and numbered lists get changed. These are *simple* formats that have
either
special alignments/indenting and tabs and/or spacing charcters [")" vs.
"."]
after the list item numbers. What I see is:

- bullet lists lose the bullet character
- bullet lists changed to numbered lists
- numbered lists with formatting change, sometime even within the same
list

I tried re-applying the custom style to the "corrupted" items, but this
does
not work. When I look at my styles with Format/Styles, the definitions
still
look "right", but when I look at them on the drop-down style list on the
formatting toolbar, they display as described in the list above. When I
open
Format Tools Bullets and Numbering with the cursor on one of the
corrupted items, the gallery position is not what I had set when I defined
the style, and I can correct the problem by re-setting the style to B&N
gallery position I originally defined for it. These seems to be the root
of
the problem (or at least the symptom), i.e., the B&N gallery position for
my
custom style gets changed by Word when I copy the style.

I have not tried your suggestion about using copying 3 times in Tools
Templates and Add-ins Organizer, which seems really cumbersome to expect
department A to follow it. I have a question about this:

For bullet and numbered styles, even if the style names match, you will
generally
have to Ctrl-Q to reset to style.

Where/when do I do the Ctrl-Q? It does not seem make any difference if I
do
this while I highlight one of the corrupted items.

Thanks/Paul

Everything said about numbered styles applies to bullets as well.
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

"Paul_at_Work" wrote in message
...
Hi, Margaret, (et al),

Thanks for the suggestions. I read about setting up numbered lists, and
while it's interesting, it doesn't seem that applicable. Maybe I need to
described what I am trying to do. I get a document for review from
department A, and once I make updates/corrections, it get's incorporated
in a
larger document by department B. We had 2 types of problems, the input
from A
was all over the map in terms of formatting, and even after I cleaned it
up,
B would end up changing it when they added it to the larger document
because
their format definitions would override mine. It seemed the way to solve
this
was to create a unique set of styles for A to use thus standardizing their
input to me, and making it "change-resistant" for B since I used unique
names
for my custom styles. To make this work, it must be easy for A to use
these
style while creating the original document for me. It seems that A can get
these styles into their document either by pasting the example
paragraphs/tables from my master document, or by importing these from a
template (dot) file that I provide using Format Theme Style Gallery to
select the template containing my custom styles. The problem is that
bulleted
and numbered lists get changed. These are *simple* formats that have
either
special alignments/indenting and tabs and/or spacing charcters [")" vs.
"."]
after the list item numbers. What I see is:

- bullet lists lose the bullet character
- bullet lists changed to numbered lists
- numbered lists with formatting change, sometime even within the same
list

I tried re-applying the custom style to the "corrupted" items, but this
does
not work. When I look at my styles with Format/Styles, the definitions
still
look "right", but when I look at them on the drop-down style list on the
formatting toolbar, they display as described in the list above. When I
open
Format Tools Bullets and Numbering with the cursor on one of the
corrupted items, the gallery position is not what I had set when I defined
the style, and I can correct the problem by re-setting the style to B&N
gallery position I originally defined for it. These seems to be the root
of
the problem (or at least the symptom), i.e., the B&N gallery position for
my
custom style gets changed by Word when I copy the style.

I have not tried your suggestion about using copying 3 times in Tools
Templates and Add-ins Organizer, which seems really cumbersome to expect
department A to follow it. I have a question about this:

For bullet and numbered styles, even if the style names match, you will
generally
have to Ctrl-Q to reset to style.

Where/when do I do the Ctrl-Q? It does not seem make any difference if I
do
this while I highlight one of the corrupted items.

Thanks/Paul

Hi,

I browsed some of the resources, and have concluded that the "corruption" of
copied/imported syles for simple bulletted/numbered lists is inherent in the
way that Word manages Styles and their interaction with the B/N Style
Galleries. In:

MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word

I found a tantalizing hint to the effect that this can be solved using VBA,
but the link to the "how to fix it" is broken:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Numbering/...tNumbering.htm

I send in a request to have this fixed last week, but I am still waiting.
Does anyone here have access to this article, or know of another place to
find it?

Thanks/Paul

That article wasn't really an article but a series of links, most of which
are below in my boilerplate response about numbering:

See: How to create numbered headings or outline numbering in your Word
document
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numb...Numbering.html.

This is based on ...

Word's Numbering Explained
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Number...gExplained.htm

Additional information you may find useful or need is at:

How to Create a Template, Part II
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Custom...platePart2.htm

Legal Numbering
http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/numbering.htm

Seven Laws of Outline Numbering
http://www.microsystems.com/fra_seve...enumbering.htm

The following are some discussions on the Microsoft newsgroups on numbering:
Nightmare on ListNumbering Street URL:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&th=9e790fa7ed2886b3,18&i c=1
The Joy of Lists URL:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&th=811287ebce8fc203,15&i c=1
Relinking ListTemplates URL:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&th=2350746054c838e,12&ic =1
Outline numbering: restart doesn't restart URL:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&ic=1&th=2168093ed1c9eaed m#p
Format Doesn't "Hold" URL:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&ic=1&th=3a351382011420bf #p
(above list compiled by Dave Rado, Word MVP)

ListNumbering Street Revisited URL:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&safe=off&th=57df77857e4993ce

See the latest numbering discussion I've seen, especially post #4 which
contains Dave Rado's concise instructions for setting up heading numbering.
URL:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&ic=1&th=bce07d7714769f5c

--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

"Paul_at_Work" wrote in message
news
Hi,

I browsed some of the resources, and have concluded that the "corruption"
of
copied/imported syles for simple bulletted/numbered lists is inherent in
the
way that Word manages Styles and their interaction with the B/N Style
Galleries. In:

MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word

I found a tantalizing hint to the effect that this can be solved using
VBA,
but the link to the "how to fix it" is broken:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Numbering/...tNumbering.htm

I send in a request to have this fixed last week, but I am still waiting.
Does anyone here have access to this article, or know of another place to
find it?

Thanks/Paul

Hi Paul

The method described in the links does not fix the Organizer problem. It
*might* help with copying and pasting a styled paragraph, though I strongly
suspect there are now no differences between styles set up using this method
and those set up manually from the style (not from Format B&N) following
the order of work explained in

http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/numb...Numbering.html.

The FAQ linked to archived newsgroup threads that explain how to use VBA to
create a List Template and link it to styles - the following threads include
explanations and code samples:

Nightmare on ListNumbering Street
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...0cppssbb sa04

Format does not hold
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...0cpp ssbbsa05

Bear in mind that this method was developed first for Word 97, when it was
impossible to update styles from template reliably (and often to copy and
paste styled paragraphs or even open on another machine) unless the link had
been made in this way - only by avoiding the 'list gallery' altogether could
you escape the 'musical chairs' effect of styles relinking themselves to
different list formats. There appear to have been major changes in the way
numbering is handled 'under the hood' in recent versions of Word, and the
prime reason for the VBA method has gone away, although some of us still use
it for other reasons.

Provided the style has been set up correctly, the style-list template
linking now stays together when you update styles from template. The
style-list template link still doesn't stay together on a single Organizer
copy, but the workaround of copying 3 times seems to be effective (we assume
this is once to get the list template across, once to get the style
correctly linked, and once for luck g).

There are also apparently anti-musical chair kludges at work that mean that
pasted paragraphs often mysteriously acquire numbering as direct formatting,
which can cause problems further down the line. In particular, they may fail
to pick up the numbering format of the style as defined in the destination
document until 'Ctrl-Q'ed. In Word 2003, Protecting for Styles is an
effective cure for this one, but of course would not allow you to 'import' a
new style by pasting an example paragraph.


--
Margaret Aldis - Microsoft Word MVP
Syntagma partnership site: http://www.syntagma.co.uk
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.word.mvps.org


"Paul_at_Work" wrote in message
news
Hi,

I browsed some of the resources, and have concluded that the "corruption"
of
copied/imported syles for simple bulletted/numbered lists is inherent in
the
way that Word manages Styles and their interaction with the B/N Style
Galleries. In:

MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word

I found a tantalizing hint to the effect that this can be solved using
VBA,
but the link to the "how to fix it" is broken:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Numbering/...tNumbering.htm

I send in a request to have this fixed last week, but I am still waiting.
Does anyone here have access to this article, or know of another place to
find it?

Thanks/Paul