I am using Word 2002 and a later version of word. Both are on
Win XP machines, and both have the same problem. It's important that I find
a solution because it affects a lot of documents.

I am a teacher, working with other teachers; and I am making up
a homework book to be used by several teachers. The homework book has 2
basic styles: 1. "Numbered question" for the questions and, 2. "Lettered
answer" for the answer choices. There is hidden text at the end of both
styles with no carriage return separating the hidden text from the visible
text.

Sometimes the format gets messed up by me or one of the other
teachers, and I want to be able to just click on the appropriate style form
the styles window and fix it. That usually works, but there are some
paragraphs in both of these styles for which I have a common problem. The
problem is that while clicking on the appropriate style does reformat the
numbered question or the lettered answer, it also makes the hidden text
visible. I sometimes make changes to a large number of paragraphs at once,
so I can't even tell which ones are getting visible answers. The students
appreciate that because it shows them the answers, but I don't like it.

The paragraphs that are bad (show the hidden text whenever I
click on the style in the styles window) are consistently bad, and the
paragraphs that are good (fixable without showing hidden text) are
consistently good.

I have looked very hard to find a difference between the good
paragraphs and the bad ones. It seems that there must be a hidden control
character that is in one paragraph and not the other, but the only
difference I can see between good and bad paragraphs is the wording of the
questions and the point within the paragraph at which the answer begins and
the text becomes hidden.

I have compared the fonts at several places within the good and
bad paragraphs and found no settings that were different between the visible
text of one paragraph and the visible text of the other. Likewise, with the
hidden text.

I have used the "Reveal formatting" tool to make comparisons
between good paragraphs and bad paragraphs. The tool could find no
differences.

I have used the format painter to copy the formatting from a
good paragraph to a bad one, copying first the visible text then the hidden
text. That doesn't work either.

I now have many hundreds of pages, and I can't tell which
paragraphs are good and which ones are bad until I try to reformat them.
Then I have to read every question and every answer to find the problem
spots. If I find an answer to the basic problem, there might be something I
can use as a search criterion to find all the bad paragraphs.

Sorry this was so long, but it's a complicated problem. Any
help would be greatly appreciated!!!! This one is baffling me and everyone
I work with.


--
Gary Burton