This is driving me insane.

I'll work on a document all day long and customize my tables using a
custom formatted Table Style. Things go better some days than others,
but ultimately, I'll save the document or email it to someone and when
I open it again or it's sent back to me, all my table formatting
disappears!

So I have to go through the entire document and reapply the formatting
to each table. Not difficult in some documents but I'm currently
combining 32 different documents into one and it will take me forever
to keep doing this over and over again.

Also frustrating is that sometimes I've applied additional shading
after the table style is set. This formatting will go away when I
reapply the style.

One more weird behavior with tables (I don't know if it's related or
not). Often, out of nowhere, all the text in my tables will change to
something weird. I found a way to fix this...If I go to "Reveal
Formatting." I see the table style has somehow changed to a paragraph
style (e.g., Section Heading). To fix it, I select everything that
already has that style and assign a new style, then delete the
original. By doing this, the table formatting goes back to normal.

I am using Word 2003 but had the same problem in the previous version.
I was hoping when I upgraded it would take care of it. Please help!
Jodi

Hi Jstammer,

I'll work on a document all day long and customize my tables using a
custom formatted Table Style. Things go better some days than others,
but ultimately, I'll save the document or email it to someone and
when
I open it again or it's sent back to me, all my table formatting
disappears!

did you create your own style, or modify a built-in one?

Also frustrating is that sometimes I've applied additional shading
after the table style is set. This formatting will go away when I
reapply the style.

This is to be expected.

One more weird behavior with tables (I don't know if it's related or
not). Often, out of nowhere, all the text in my tables will change to
something weird. I found a way to fix this...If I go to "Reveal
Formatting." I see the table style has somehow changed to a paragraph
style (e.g., Section Heading). To fix it, I select everything that
already has that style and assign a new style, then delete the
original. By doing this, the table formatting goes back to normal.

This, I would not expect. A table style cannot be linked to a paragraph
style. I would look for the problem elsewhere. Perhaps "char" styles
are being created in your document, for example, and the paragraph or
a character style that was used in your table has been linked
inadvertently to another style.

FWIW, a table will always reflect the paragraph style applied to the
current paragraph, when the table was created. If this is not the
NORMAL stlye, then the font formatting in the table style will not
appear. So, make sure you're always in a Normal paragraph before
creating a table and applying a style to it.

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

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question
or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)

The style was created from scratch.

Can you tell me more about the char styles? Sometimes when I'm finished
formatting a document and I send it back to my client, when I get it
back after they've edited it, the styles suddenly become char styles
and even the heading styles get crazy, long names.

Maybe that topic should be another thread. I didn't find anything on it
when I did a search.

Thanks for the advice, when I create tables I will try to make sure it
is first set to Normal. However, usually I'm doing more formatting and
clean-up than creation of Word documents. Hopefully that advice will
help the stability though.

Jodi

Hi Jodzeee,

The style was created from scratch.

Can you tell me more about the char styles? Sometimes when I'm finished
formatting a document and I send it back to my client, when I get it
back after they've edited it, the styles suddenly become char styles
and even the heading styles get crazy, long names.

It sounds like you're exchanging documents with people who don't use Word
2002 or 2003. Table styles were new in Word 2002, so if a document is
opened in an earlier version, all the table style information is lost.
That would also explain why the "char" is appearing when you get these
documents back. Word 2002/2003 will generate the "char", but not show it
to you (unless you go to Tools/Templates and Addins/Organizer and look at
the list of styles).

"Char" styles are generated when you select text - with no paragraph mark
included in the selection - and then apply a paragraph style. The program
assumes you want to apply the paragraph formatting to just some text, and
creates a character style, linked to the paragraph style, so that both
styles will always have the same font formatting.

When using styles, be careful to apply paragraph styles only to entire
paragraphs, or when no text is selected (then a paragraph style will
automatically be applied only to the one paragraph).

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

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or
reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)

Thank you, that makes sense about the char styles and helps a lot.

As far as the tables go though, the people I work with are all upgraded
to 2002 or 2003 so that's not the problem. The table styles will
sometimes disappear WHILE I'm working on the document. Sometimes I'll
just save it and when it's done, the tables all revert back or take on
some other formatting. It's really bizarre.

Jodi

Hi Jodzeee,

As far as the tables go though, the people I work with are all upgraded
to 2002 or 2003 so that's not the problem. The table styles will
sometimes disappear WHILE I'm working on the document. Sometimes I'll
just save it and when it's done, the tables all revert back or take on
some other formatting. It's really bizarre.

Yes, that does sound odd. Check in Tools/OPtions/Save whether you've
disabled commands that aren't available in earlier versions? Also check
the default file type to which you're saving - make sure it's as a Word
document, and not something else (such as Word 6/95).

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

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or
reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)