Auto Formating Problems

[xcelatit]

When I change a word or words to bold every thing else in the document
becomes bold, (or to what ever I did, i.e. underline, etc for formattting)
I have to press undo several times

If I change some text to be bulletted everything becomes bulleted.
I press undo and all my prior bullets are gone.

I finally went back to word 2003 because it doesnt have this problem.

I wasted 6 hours trying to do a doc in word 07 which took me 15 minutes in
word 03



----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...a205ec&dg=microsoft.public.word.docmanagement

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/WholeDocumentReformatted.htm

 

[xcelatit]

Nice but in word 2007 it does it for every style there are hundreds of them
per document there needs to be some global setting..
I'm going back the upgrade was a big waste of money and loss of productivity
and efficiency

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Word 2007 does *not* do this by default.

 

[xcelatit]

Okay maybe I am stupid,
I installed Office 2007,
I then started typing a document for work.
After I got the document typed
I began formating and 2007 did do this by default.
So I wasted money in the upgrade.
I can also re-create it by copying text from a text file in a new word 07 doc,
and start formating it does the same thing
Very frustrating when you have spend hours formating then
auto format redoes everything you did.
and then you cant get it back
I work for a large corporation of over 100,000 employees worldwide and I
don't have time for this, I recommended to our IT not to upgrade.
We are a fast paced industry that doesnt have time for nonsense like this.

 

[Beth Melton]

As Suzanne noted, Word does not do this by default (no version ever has).
Now, the ability to implement what you are seeing can be added but typically
it's not used the extreme in which you are seeing.

Some background:
Word utilizes styles for formatting. If you want certain portions of your
document to always be formatted exactly the same, such as heading
paragraphs, then you can set a style to automatically update. This means if
you change a format that same format will be applied to the other
paragraphs/characters in the document that have the same style definition
applied. It's actually a 'good' thing and saves time when used properly.
Additionally, when you copy/paste between documents the styles are also
copied -- along with the automatically update instruction -- which explains
why copying to a new document doesn't correct the issue.

If you are seeing the reformat occur throughout new documents then chances
are you are encountering one of two issues:

- Your Normal template (used to create new documents) contains styles with
the automatically update option added. To see if this is the case, locate
Normal.dotm and rename it to OldNormal.dom. Word will create a new one upon
restarting.

- If the above doesn't correct the issue then you could have a
malfunctioning add-in that is adding the automatically update option. To see
if this is the case, exit Word, hold your Ctrl key and start Word again.
Continue holding Ctrl until you are prompted to start in Safe Mode. If the
issue doesn't occur then post back and we'll provide you with information on
how to check for add-ins and disable them.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[xcelatit]

So you are saying that if I have normal style and add bullets, or I bold one
word everything in normal style is bolded and bulleted?
Thats what happens .
I disagree its a malfunction add-in or a normal.dot because word 2007 was
installed on two of my brand new hp laptops that didnt have anything
installed on them and both laptops do the same thing,

I didnt have time to diagnose a problem for microsoft. The product should
install clean and have no problems.

Now if microsoft wants to pay me a consultant fee per hour I would be happy
to assist them debuging there own failing product.

I already uninstalled office pro 2007 and installed office 2003 pro .

I don't have such an issue with 2003. I have noticed in word 2003 if I
don't have a 'return' when selecting a section then apply numbering, that
the whole paragraph applies and the style i have auto formating off,
so maybe this is more than auto formatting?

I would be happy to email a partial file.

 

[grammatim]

You appear not to have read what Beth wrote. The problem is likely
that you have "Automatically Update" checked on some or all of your
Styles. Uncheck that box, and it will stop doing it.

Don't be rude to the MVPs. They didn't write the software, they try to
figure out how to correct what Microsoft messed up.

 

[Beth Melton]

What I'm saying is, by default, what you are encountering should not happen
and you aren't encountering a bug in the product. I'm not saying it isn't a
bug -- I suspect the issue lies in an add-in or perhaps a document/template
that contains macros. All it takes is a single line of code to alter your
style properties. If you opened a previously created document, or a document
created by someone else, a macro stored in the document could have easily
modified your Normal template and altered a style or styles. The only way to
rule this out is to recreate your Normal template as I previously noted.

If your new laptops came preinstalled with any software at all (even the
operating system) then you can't rule out add-ins either. I encountered a
nasty bug on a new Dell laptop that should have had only the operating
system installed and the bug appeared after installing Office. Of course it
wasn't what you are encountering but it was indeed caused by an add-in and
many others, also using Dell laptops, encountered the same bug. However, if
it doesn't occur on the same laptop with Word 2003 installed then that may
not be the case.

You can send me a sample file if you'd like -- I'd be happy to take a look
at it -- but I'm fairly certain I'd find a style has been set to Update
Automatically. It won't tell me the underlying cause but, as previously
noted, I suspect the problem is in your Normal.dotm since it also occurred
on new documents. Note that Word 2003 uses Normal.dot which might explain
why you aren't encountering the same problem in that version.

If you'd like us to help you with this issue we're happy to help. Do note
this is a peer-to-peer newsgroup and we don't work for Microsoft. We're
simply folks like you, voluntarily here to learn about Word and share what
we know with others.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[JGT]

Super big thanks for this article. This has been driving me nuts for months.
At last I have a solution!