Bend Word to your Will tweaks and questions

[Jeff Wiseman]

I've been going through the most excellant collection of Word
thingie notes "Bend Word to your will" and I had a few
observations that the author may feel useful to eventually
incorporate into it. Also I had some related questions (These all
relate to the version of the document dated last spring I believe):



- 3rd to last paragraph in section titled "Formatting Toolbar":
The crossreference from the text "Modifications via menus" is
correct but it's associated reference page number is not (i.e.,
it is pointing to a different place).



- Last sentence in 3rd paragraph of section titled "Adding to
personal Formatting toolbar": The sentence says to "drop to the
left of the 'Reveal formatting' button just installed". There
doesn't seem to be any directives in the text prior to this that
make any references to installing a 'Reveal formatting' button.



- The section titled "Avoiding Broken numbering sequences"
suggests not using any styles based on Normal. The "Word notes
template" distributed with the "Bend Word to your will" document
contains many styles (e.g., Heading 7, 8, & 9) that are all based
on the Normal style. I assume that these are likely due to the
template being a "work in progress". However, are any of these
actually intentional and, if so, why? Since the template is
referenced from the "Bend Word" document, it would be useful if
the answer to this question should be included somewhere in "Bend
Word". (is one supposed to only use the styles included in the
extra toolbar?)



- Last sentence and footnote in the last paragraph of the section
titled "Three alternatives to prevent over-riding": This throws
me as it seems to contradict other sections suggesting not using
styles based on the Normal style and the contents of the footnote
itself. The statement that "it's not worthwhile to design unique
heading styles" implies that you should use the default built-in
heading styles. Those styles, of course, are ALL based on the
Normal style (e.g., Heading 1). I was further confused when
reading the related footnote where it states that you should
"modify the defaults to meet your requirements". This seems to
imply that default heading styles which have been modified (i.e.,
are now unique) would not be included in the set of "unique
heading styles" as referred to in the last sentence of that last
paragraph (i.e., those you would NOT want to use). I'm still
confused about this although I THINK it's trying to say the
following:

1) Using unique styles solves many/most problems of over-riding
(where "unique" styles have their own unique names and can be
copied from template to template).
2) Heading styles are an exception to "1)" in that you can lose
or create instabilities in some useful features such as outline
numbering. The necessary evil is then to just modify the default
headings instead of replacing them with new uniquly named ones
(this means they will now have the attribute that they cannot
easily be moved around from template to template and are subject
to being overridden by a recipient's Normal template).

If the above is true then the following should probably be done:
a) The last paragraph and footnote's wording could be upgraded to
be a tad less ambiguous when using the term "unique". E.g., For
anyone that thinks a modification to the default style would now
constitute a custom or "unique" style, the paragraph currently
would be interpreted by them as saying "it's not worthwhile to
modify default (i.e., create unique) heading styles".
b) The ramifications of the statement needs to be included. I.e.,
the use of modified default Heading styles eliminates item #3 in
that section as a choice and is an exception to the first
sentence in the last paragraph of that section.



- These are more general questions about Heading styles that are
perhaps related to my current misunderstanding about the above
mentioned issue. Answers to these may possibly be useful
somewhere in "Bend Word" as well:

1) In order to keep the outline numbering and other issues safe,
when you modify a default heading style, do you have to change
it's name also? Or will changing it's name eliminate the benifits
of using the default in the first place? What is the most
effective thing to do here?

2) In the Word notes template, all the original default heading
styles are gone (e.g., Heading 1, Heading 2) although there are
new ones ("Heading 1,1", "Heading 2,2", etc.). Are the new ones
simply the defaults with their names changed, or are they newly
created styles? I'm trying to understand how these fit in with
the issues of the last paragraph and footnote of the section
titled "Three alternatives to prevent over-riding" as discussed
above.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Jeff:

Having just shared a most excellent dinner courtesy of one C. Huggan, allow
me to try to save him some time...

- The section titled "Avoiding Broken numbering sequences"
suggests not using any styles based on Normal. The "Word notes
template" distributed with the "Bend Word to your will" document
contains many styles (e.g., Heading 7, 8, & 9) that are all based
on the Normal style.

I assume that these are likely due to the
template being a "work in progress".

Nah: It's a stuff-up, and I think it was mine... I think when I uploaded
that template I had to do something with it, and I forgot to correct those
style.

We should probably think more carefully about our treatment of this whole
subject. We used to have to be very careful "never" to base anything on
Normal because "Automatic update" was on by default in one version of Word,
consequently the unsuspecting user could screw up their entire document
instantly with one careless click.

Now Automatically Update is OFF by default, we could usefully spend more
time on the topic of "Managing Style Inheritance." One reason is that it is
damned useful when it works right. Another reason is that the next version
of Office introduces Cascading Style Sheets, which means user have to become
very much more aware of property precedence and inheritance

The statement that "it's not worthwhile to design unique
heading styles" implies that you should use the default built-in
heading styles. Those styles, of course, are ALL based on the
Normal style (e.g., Heading 1).

Yeah, well the whole point is to teach users how to RESET the inheritance to
serve their purposes. Forgive me, I haven't closely studied all 180 pages
of BWTYW for a while. But last time, I am pretty sure there was a lump in
there advising users how to set their styles up into "collections" and to
set the collections up as hierarchies, with each style based upon the one
above. So the entire heading series needs to be corrected for this purpose.
I have a macro kicking around here somewhere that does just that...

If that bit has been dropped from BWTYW, I am sure Clive and I will be happy
to add it

I was further confused when
reading the related footnote where it states that you should
"modify the defaults to meet your requirements". This seems to
imply that default heading styles which have been modified (i.e.,
are now unique) would not be included in the set of "unique
heading styles" as referred to in the last sentence of that last
paragraph (i.e., those you would NOT want to use). I'm still
confused about this

For the perfectionists amongst us, we should probably be using the terms
"Built-in" and "User-created" styles. Of course, it is not possible to have
"non-unique" styles in Word, since the style name is the key field to the
style database.

1) Using unique styles solves many/most problems of over-riding
(where "unique" styles have their own unique names and can be
copied from template to template).

Changes to Word since that was written have obviated most of the crises that
were produced by style overriding. It is now rare to have text copied from
anywhere "overriding" styles in a document. Text copied in will adopt the
style definition of the target document. Text formatted with styles that do
not exist in the target document will bring its styles with it.

Much of the overriding was caused by attaching a Template with
"Automatically update styles on open" set ON. That setting can no longer be
set for the Normal template (you can turn it on, and this will override the
styles in the document and update their definitions to match those in the
Normal template. But Word has been changed so that setting does not
persist: it should be cleared the next time the file is opened).

My advice to users now is to use the built-in styles as far as possible, and
to customise those styles to your purposes. This will not only save the
user a lot of time, it will mean they have far less trouble collaborating
with other users.

People who do a lot of document sharing in Word these days "expect" various
built-in styles to be used in a predictable and uniform manner. If as a
user you follow these "conventions" you and the people you collaborate with
will have a lot less trouble

2) Heading styles are an exception to "1)" in that you can lose
or create instabilities in some useful features such as outline
numbering. The necessary evil is then to just modify the default
headings instead of replacing them with new uniquly named ones
(this means they will now have the attribute that they cannot
easily be moved around from template to template and are subject
to being overridden by a recipient's Normal template).

That's no longer true in the latest versions of Word. The document should
never be set to "Automatically update styles on open." Even if it is, that
setting will not persist for the Normal template. So the only time
overriding is going to happen is if the user forces it, and presumably,
desires it

If the above is true then the following should probably be done:
a) The last paragraph and footnote's wording could be upgraded to
be a tad less ambiguous when using the term "unique". E.g., For
anyone that thinks a modification to the default style would now
constitute a custom or "unique" style, the paragraph currently
would be interpreted by them as saying "it's not worthwhile to
modify default (i.e., create unique) heading styles".
b) The ramifications of the statement needs to be included. I.e.,
the use of modified default Heading styles eliminates item #3 in
that section as a choice and is an exception to the first
sentence in the last paragraph of that section.

We should probably do a little editing of that section. Of course, all
styles will remain "Unique", you can't have any other kind of styles. These
styles will now become "Custom" styles. It is very definitely worthwhile to
modify the default Heading styles, and that's what users should do.

We need to make it clear that the default Heading styles have special
properties that are hard-coded into them. These properties cannot be
changed or removed. That makes any numbering attached to Heading styles
rock-solid, because the special properties the numbering depends upon for
its operation cannot be munged

So: Users intending to use Heading numbering, Paragraph numbering, or add a
Table of Contents should now be advised to always use the built-in Heading
styles exclusively. Because the default formatting of those styles is not
appropriate for most purposes, the users MUST customise those styles before
use.

Advanced users who have complete knowledge of both styles and of numbering,
and very special and specific requirements "can" create custom styles with
the same special properties as the built-in Heading series. If they do, and
they get them perfect, they will work and be stable, just as the built-in
styles are.

However, such users need to have a complete understanding of the entire
subject before they embark on this. If they get it wrong, there is a high
chance of setting up circular references within the document. This will
corrupt the file, which may then require the document to be saved out to
plain text and completely reformatted to remove the damage.

In the past 20 years as a professional technical writer, I can think of only
one occasion upon which I found I really needed to do this. I haven't
needed to do it in the past five or ten years: it's a very rare set of
circumstances where the document requires TWO sets of headings with more
than five levels in each set, and the sets must number independently

1) In order to keep the outline numbering and other issues safe,
when you modify a default heading style, do you have to change
it's name also? Or will changing it's name eliminate the benifits
of using the default in the first place? What is the most
effective thing to do here?

You do not "have" to change the name of the style. If you really get down
into the engine room of Word, you find that each document can contain three
classes of styles: Built-In, Default, and Custom. Word will not allow you
to change the name of a Built-in style. You can add an alias to the name of
the style, and refer to the style by that name. But the original name of
the built-in style will remain. This is particularly noticeable in the
Heading, List, and Normal series of styles. Again, because the name of the
style is the index field for the style database in the document, certain
styles cannot be renamed or deleted because they are required members of the
document's binary structure.

2) In the Word notes template, all the original default heading
styles are gone (e.g., Heading 1, Heading 2) although there are
new ones ("Heading 1,1", "Heading 2,2", etc.). Are the new ones
simply the defaults with their names changed, or are they newly
created styles? I'm trying to understand how these fit in with
the issues of the last paragraph and footnote of the section
titled "Three alternatives to prevent over-riding" as discussed
above.

Those are built-in styles with aliases. Any style name can have one or more
aliases added. If you attempt to rename a built-in style, the new name will
be added as an alias. The aliases will be separated by commas. In the case
of the built-in styles, the first name that appears is the default name and
cannot be changed. There is a bug in Word 2002 that continues to add
aliases to style names: I have seen a Heading 2 style with 47 aliases on its
name

Hope this helps

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Clive Huggan]

Jeff,

Thanks for your questions and comments (I've skimmed through John's comments
too). It's always good to get feedback, especially on text in "Bend Word to
Your Will" that may not be so relevant if a more recent version of Word has
fixed a problem. Given that my practices have solved the problem, I don't
notice if the practices that used to result in problems are now safe ­ so
your comments are all the more valuable.

I'll have a careful read of both your and John's comments as soon as I can ­
but it may be at the weekend ­ and will get back to you.

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
=============

 

[Clive Huggan]

Since John has kindly responded first, I'll put my comments inline.

Jeff, I have fixed the glitches you pointed out at the beginning of your
post (not repeated below). I'm *most* grateful for your observations! No
amount of staring at what I've written can replace the benefit of looking at
the notes afresh with the benefit of your viewpoint.

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
==============

Hi Jeff:

Having just shared a most excellent dinner courtesy of one C. Huggan, allow
me to try to save him some time...




Nah: It's a stuff-up, and I think it was mine... I think when I uploaded
that template I had to do something with it, and I forgot to correct those
style.

No! I insist! The stuff-up was mine! I absolutely refuse to go below
level 6 in document hierarchies, and have not used 7, 8 and 9 for e.g.
appendix headings for a very long time. Thanks for pointing this out, Jeff.
("Bend Word to Your Will" continues the cascading; the omission is on the
template only. I have to confess that the template hasn't kept up with the
main document, "Bend Word to Your Will". And I'm not likely to have the time
to update it for a while.)

We should probably think more carefully about our treatment of this whole
subject. We used to have to be very careful "never" to base anything on
Normal because "Automatic update" was on by default in one version of Word,
consequently the unsuspecting user could screw up their entire document
instantly with one careless click.

Now Automatically Update is OFF by default, we could usefully spend more
time on the topic of "Managing Style Inheritance." One reason is that it is
damned useful when it works right. Another reason is that the next version
of Office introduces Cascading Style Sheets, which means user have to become
very much more aware of property precedence and inheritance

I do it because I prefer to manage style inheritance. I have many visual
variants of my styles, depending on the client, but the underlying structure
is the same; I want to quickly redefine styles and having the inheritance
right means it's a breeze to make the changes.

[I should perhaps explain that John and I work in contexts with different
working limitations: in general, John has control over humongously large
technical documents that he prepares; I control the "master" copy ­ meaning
"original", not <gasp> Word's "Master Document" feature ­ of typically
200-page strategic plans in which I have to manage the contributory material
of as many as 50 collaborators. That produces subtle differences in approach
between John and me, not least being those caused by the willingness and
abilities of my colleagues to "do the right thing" ­ whereas John holds his
documents by the short-and-curlies and therefore has much less of a problem
in that regard.]
I base mine on my body text style, "bt"; the default properties remain.

Yeah, well the whole point is to teach users how to RESET the inheritance to
serve their purposes. Forgive me, I haven't closely studied all 180 pages
of BWTYW for a while. But last time, I am pretty sure there was a lump in
there advising users how to set their styles up into "collections" and to
set the collections up as hierarchies, with each style based upon the one
above. So the entire heading series needs to be corrected for this purpose.
I have a macro kicking around here somewhere that does just that...

If that bit has been dropped from BWTYW, I am sure Clive and I will be happy
to add it

I was referring to, for example, changing the font, font size, font colour
etc in Word's default heading styles, which as indicated above do not have
to be based on Normal to take advantage of the "bells and whistles".
(Thanks, Jeff ­ have amended the footnote.)

[For anyone else watching this thread: to make sense of this you'll need to
read footnote 52 ­ it will be 60 in the version to be available soon at
http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/Bend/BendWord.htm).]

For the perfectionists amongst us, we should probably be using the terms
"Built-in" and "User-created" styles. Of course, it is not possible to have
"non-unique" styles in Word, since the style name is the key field to the
style database.

Thanks, John. I have amended the lead-in to the footnote reference to "I¹ve
concluded it¹s not worthwhile to design heading styles that do not take
advantage of the characteristics of Word¹s built-in heading styles.[fn]"
Correct. Some of my colleagues have older versions of Word (most on the
PC), so John's comments below have not come into my thinking (yet).

Changes to Word since that was written have obviated most of the crises that
were produced by style overriding. It is now rare to have text copied from
anywhere "overriding" styles in a document. Text copied in will adopt the
style definition of the target document. Text formatted with styles that do
not exist in the target document will bring its styles with it.

Much of the overriding was caused by attaching a Template with
"Automatically update styles on open" set ON. That setting can no longer be
set for the Normal template (you can turn it on, and this will override the
styles in the document and update their definitions to match those in the
Normal template. But Word has been changed so that setting does not
persist: it should be cleared the next time the file is opened).

My advice to users now is to use the built-in styles as far as possible, and
to customise those styles to your purposes. This will not only save the
user a lot of time, it will mean they have far less trouble collaborating
with other users.

People who do a lot of document sharing in Word these days "expect" various
built-in styles to be used in a predictable and uniform manner. If as a
user you follow these "conventions" you and the people you collaborate with
will have a lot less trouble

The problem there is that there is a huge range of interpretation of Word's
"conventions", and there are so few who know anything about styles. In my
operating environment, working with senior people who don't have time to
ponder Word's depths, I find the most successful way to bring their
practices into a narrower band is to provide a toolbar (Mac users would
think of it as a palette, since it is rectangular, to the right of the
document, and for Windows users has to fit within the confines of the
document ­ i.e., to the left of the vertical scroll bars ­ not anywhere
outside as on the Mac). It takes 10-20 minutes, once off, to demonstrate
styles and to persuade them to use the toolbar only, in the interests of not
corrupting the long document. In a further iteration of "Bend Word to Your
Will" in 2006, I expect to be writing this up.
Precisely. I get my colleagues to let me know if they see anything
different from what's on my computer (they get a PDF from me anyway, which I
pressure them to use when printing etc). Lately I haven't had any
discrepancies reported, perhaps for reasons John mentioned above ­ who
knows? ­ we are all focused on development of the document's content, and
time is of the essence, so I know not...

That's no longer true in the latest versions of Word. The document should
never be set to "Automatically update styles on open." Even if it is, that
setting will not persist for the Normal template. So the only time
overriding is going to happen is if the user forces it, and presumably,
desires it

Desires it?? That surely occurs only in 2% of glitches... ;-)
I think I've now fixed this (see above), but if not, further comment would
be welcome.

Jeff, I had thought I had done that with the paragraph that follows item #3,
namely: "I should add a rider to that: I¹ve concluded it¹s not worthwhile to
design heading styles that do not take advantage of the characteristics of
Word¹s built-in heading styles." Could you give me a more specific wording
to consider if the discussion we've had here hasn't made some of it
redundant?

We should probably do a little editing of that section. Of course, all
styles will remain "Unique", you can't have any other kind of styles. These
styles will now become "Custom" styles. It is very definitely worthwhile to
modify the default Heading styles, and that's what users should do.

Thanks to Jeff's comments, the references to "unique" have now gone. For
example, in item #3 I now have: "If the document regularly goes to more than
one person: use styles that you create, which have different names from
Word's default names, so that there are no defaults on their computer to
take over as described."

We need to make it clear that the default Heading styles have special
properties that are hard-coded into them. These properties cannot be
changed or removed. That makes any numbering attached to Heading styles
rock-solid, because the special properties the numbering depends upon for
its operation cannot be munged

So: Users intending to use Heading numbering, Paragraph numbering, or add a
Table of Contents should now be advised to always use the built-in Heading
styles exclusively. Because the default formatting of those styles is not
appropriate for most purposes, the users MUST customise those styles before
use.

Advanced users who have complete knowledge of both styles and of numbering,
and very special and specific requirements "can" create custom styles with
the same special properties as the built-in Heading series. If they do, and
they get them perfect, they will work and be stable, just as the built-in
styles are.

However, such users need to have a complete understanding of the entire
subject before they embark on this. If they get it wrong, there is a high
chance of setting up circular references within the document. This will
corrupt the file, which may then require the document to be saved out to
plain text and completely reformatted to remove the damage.

In the past 20 years as a professional technical writer, I can think of only
one occasion upon which I found I really needed to do this. I haven't
needed to do it in the past five or ten years: it's a very rare set of
circumstances where the document requires TWO sets of headings with more
than five levels in each set, and the sets must number independently


You do not "have" to change the name of the style. If you really get down
into the engine room of Word, you find that each document can contain three
classes of styles: Built-In, Default, and Custom. Word will not allow you
to change the name of a Built-in style. You can add an alias to the name of
the style, and refer to the style by that name.

As in "Heading2,2", which allows you to key using only the alias via
Command-Shift-s -> 2 -> Return.

But the original name of
the built-in style will remain. This is particularly noticeable in the
Heading, List, and Normal series of styles. Again, because the name of the
style is the index field for the style database in the document, certain
styles cannot be renamed or deleted because they are required members of the
document's binary structure.

They are modifications to Word's defaults, as described in the table on page
87 of "Bend Word to Your Will". I started with Heading 1, based it on my
style "bt", added the ",1" alias, then modified for font etc etc etc. (This
was back in Word 4, BTW, so I'm taxing my memory here.)

Please post back if you want to discuss further, Jeff ­ or if you have
opinions that could modify/improve mine. "Bend Word to Your Will" has been
expanded somewhat for others to use, but its base is literally a set of
notes for my personal use -- which I need because my memory is not that
good, and my zeal for inconsistent, convoluted albeit powerful software is
even more limited. Therefore, I have never had much feedback on the notes
themselves. So your comments are very welcome indeed.

If you want a copy of the next edition of "Bend Word to Your Will" sent to
you so you can see the changes I've made before considering your further
comments, e-mail me with "FROM JEFF WISEMAN 523" (note the upper case) in
the subject line.

CH
==

 

[Jeff Wiseman]

Nah: It's a stuff-up, and I think it was mine... I think when I uploaded
that template I had to do something with it, and I forgot to correct those
style.

Ah! so it WAS a work in progress

Trust me, I DO know how tricky it is getting a template (not
necessarily Word templates) that is "Totally complete" and
consistant handed off.

We should probably think more carefully about our treatment of this whole
subject. We used to have to be very careful "never" to base anything on
Normal because "Automatic update" was on by default in one version of Word,

It does seem though that once a person gets to the point of using
styles effectively and having gone through and made some updates
to their Normal template to support this, having a few custom and
uniquely named styles to avoid such problems would be relatively
easy to produce and still much more secure then risking those
"public domain" styles in Normal. The suggestions made in Bending
word on this subject still seems to hold significant weight IMHO.

consequently the unsuspecting user could screw up their entire document
instantly with one careless click.

Actually, It's not JUST the unsuspecting user screwing up their
document, it's the unsuspecting user screwing up someone ELSE's
document. This was actually the driving reason I became active
watching this group several months ago in the first case! I was
sending out resumes to find a job and EVERYONE insisted on using
Word files. So the first secretary to receive your resume has
this silly automatic update turned on and totally trashes the
hours of formatting work the poor schmuck put into it to make it
look real nice and presentable. The fact was, my resume wasn't
safe in such a scenario and I'm still learning how to make it so.

Even with the default now changed, the risk can still be there
(and a configuration with the term "automatic" in it always
SOUNDS like it should be good...)

Yeah, well the whole point is to teach users how to RESET the inheritance to
serve their purposes. Forgive me, I haven't closely studied all 180 pages
of BWTYW for a while. But last time, I am pretty sure there was a lump in
there advising users how to set their styles up into "collections" and to
set the collections up as hierarchies, with each style based upon the one
above. So the entire heading series needs to be corrected for this purpose.
I have a macro kicking around here somewhere that does just that...

If that bit has been dropped from BWTYW, I am sure Clive and I will be happy
to add it

I actually did read through nearly the whole BWTYW as I had
finally gotten the time and it does touch on those things
although a separate white paper on the phylosophy of using
inheritances effectively could be useful. If it turned out that
it could be coverd in a short amount of text, including it in
BWTYW would be appropriate.

My problem, however, deals more with understanding exactly how
these modifications work in relation to the Normal template,
addon templates, and stationary type templates, etc. This
information will be more suitable in another thread which I will
likely start once I understand better what even my questions
should be

For the perfectionists amongst us, we should probably be using the terms
"Built-in" and "User-created" styles. Of course, it is not possible to have
"non-unique" styles in Word, since the style name is the key field to the
style database.

I see. So there are 3 styles: Build-in default, Build-in
modified, and User-created, right? Also I assume that your
statement about "not possible to have non-unique styles" is based
on the fact that each style definition is a unique and separate
entity in the database. If so, I guess I should have referred to
"custom" (i.e., user-created and built-in modified) and "default"
(i.e., built-in default/unmodified) instead of using the term
"unique".

Part of my confusion (again, better for me to ask about in a
different thread) is what happens relative to the Normal template
when you modify a built-in. It is still vague to me how making
changes to styles effects just the Normal template, the document
itself, or an attached template. I need to better formulate how
to structure my questions. (Also, i've only started to search the
available resources on template construction)

We need to make it clear that the default Heading styles have special
properties that are hard-coded into them. These properties cannot be
changed or removed. That makes any numbering attached to Heading styles
rock-solid, because the special properties the numbering depends upon for
its operation cannot be munged

So: Users intending to use Heading numbering, Paragraph numbering, or add a
Table of Contents should now be advised to always use the built-in Heading
styles exclusively. Because the default formatting of those styles is not
appropriate for most purposes, the users MUST customise those styles before
use.

You are still talking about Heading 1-9 and any of their aliases,
Right?

Advanced users who have complete knowledge of both styles and of numbering,
and very special and specific requirements "can" create custom styles with
the same special properties as the built-in Heading series. If they do, and
they get them perfect, they will work and be stable, just as the built-in
styles are.

But since in general, it's better to have a straight forward set
of styles than a huge "do it all" collection, it is considered
better to just customize the built-ins than creating all sorts of
custom styles, correct?

In the past 20 years as a professional technical writer, I can think of only
one occasion upon which I found I really needed to do this. I haven't
needed to do it in the past five or ten years: it's a very rare set of
circumstances where the document requires TWO sets of headings with more
than five levels in each set, and the sets must number independently

In engineering I find that frequently there are needs for
multiple level autonumbered lists (e.g., procedure and
sub-sub-procedure steps) where many crossreferences need to be
made to specific number items at all levels. Multiple numbering
streams are needed (e.g., a numbered list inside a heading
numbered list may contain the need for a numbered list of a
different kind). Many procedures are required to be monolithic
(i.e., they must exist in their entirety in a given section of a
document file) and can require a lot of redundant number sections
within them and some numbering streams that may nest 5 or 6
levels deep. Also, you occasionally see figure and table
numbering that is required to span headings without identifying
heading areas in the figure numbering. Framemaker and Interleaf
handle these stuctures 100% solid on nothing but a whim, I need
to make sure I know how to safely build styles to support these
types of structures in Word, since I DO see stuff like that all
of the time. Hence my interests here.

You do not "have" to change the name of the style. If you really get down
into the engine room of Word, you find that each document can contain three
classes of styles: Built-In, Default, and Custom.

Again, by "Built-in" and "Default", do you mean "modified
built-in" and "unmodified built-in" or something else. I'm still
trying to grasp the significance of these three style types and
what they are exactly.

Word will not allow you
to change the name of a Built-in style. You can add an alias to the name of
the style, and refer to the style by that name. But the original name of
the built-in style will remain. This is particularly noticeable in the
Heading, List, and Normal series of styles. Again, because the name of the
style is the index field for the style database in the document, certain
styles cannot be renamed or deleted because they are required members of the
document's binary structure.

Ah-HA! So THAT is what those suckers are. We have a customer that
has some merging capabilites where they put multiple documents
together and they typically come in with huge style name lists,
all comma separated. Can these aliases exist on ANY style or do
they tend to only occur on the built-ins?

Those are built-in styles with aliases. Any style name can have one or more
aliases added. If you attempt to rename a built-in style, the new name will
be added as an alias. The aliases will be separated by commas. In the case
of the built-in styles, the first name that appears is the default name and
cannot be changed. There is a bug in Word 2002 that continues to add
aliases to style names: I have seen a Heading 2 style with 47 aliases on its
name

This seems to enforce my assumption that aliases only exist for
built-ins (i.e., if you create a custom user defined style, you
cannot add aliases to it). Is this true?

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Jeff:

Ah! so it WAS a work in progress

No. It was a stuff-up -- mine Bend Will remains a work in constant
progress. But that one I seem to recall was something I meant to fix after
I Maggied the template and forgot

Clive produces BWTYW entirely on his own, it's not a joint effort. However,
I have a dim recollection that I uploaded the template, and in doing so, I
had to do something to it. I can't even remember what... Repair a bad list
template, I think. I seem to remember I Maggied the template, which would
have produced that effect.

This all happened a couple of years ago, before Beth took over the Mac Word
section of the website. Now, Clive does the whole of Bend Word himself, and
Beth publishes it. I never touch it.

It does seem though that once a person gets to the point of using
styles effectively and having gone through and made some updates
to their Normal template to support this, having a few custom and
uniquely named styles to avoid such problems would be relatively
easy to produce and still much more secure then risking those
"public domain" styles in Normal. The suggestions made in Bending
word on this subject still seems to hold significant weight IMHO.

Yes, Clive would agree strongly with you on that point. That's why he does
it, and that's why he makes that recommendation.

I have a different working style, and my recommendation is different. I
deal with lots of imported text done by unskilled users using the built-in
styles. So I have adjusted my methods to adopt the built-ins. Clive works
with far more professionals and likes to quarantine his styles from the
effects of external documents, so he uses dedicated styles.

Actually, It's not JUST the unsuspecting user screwing up their
document, it's the unsuspecting user screwing up someone ELSE's
document. This was actually the driving reason I became active
watching this group several months ago in the first case! I was
sending out resumes to find a job and EVERYONE insisted on using
Word files. So the first secretary to receive your resume has
this silly automatic update turned on and totally trashes the
hours of formatting work the poor schmuck put into it to make it
look real nice and presentable. The fact was, my resume wasn't
safe in such a scenario and I'm still learning how to make it so.

The setting of "Automatically update styles on open" is a per-document
setting. If it's OFF when the document leaves you, it will remain off on
any other computer, unless the recipient explicitly turns it on. If they do
turn it on, they are quite highly skilled in formatting and intending to
reformat the document. There's nothing you can do to prevent that.

Most commonly these days, head-hunters parse resumes into a data-mining
application. Content identified as "relevant" is extracted into plain ASCII
text. It is then compiled into what the head hunter imagines is a "resume"
and formatted according to their preferences at that point.

Having seen the results of a few of these crossing my desk, I can assure you
that the average head-hunter's idea of document composition certainly makes
the case for hiring a documentation professional

Even with the default now changed, the risk can still be there
(and a configuration with the term "automatic" in it always
SOUNDS like it should be good...)

No, it can't. Automatic update is a property stored in the document. If
you turn it off, it will stay that way until you turn it on again. It's off
by default.

I actually did read through nearly the whole BWTYW as I had
finally gotten the time and it does touch on those things
although a separate white paper on the phylosophy of using
inheritances effectively could be useful. If it turned out that
it could be coverd in a short amount of text, including it in
BWTYW would be appropriate.

I suspect that if it could be covered in a short amount of text, Clive might
have added it to BWTYW It's a big subject. Unless the reader is
familiar with Structured Programming and Object oriented Programming, the
topic is a book in itself

My problem, however, deals more with understanding exactly how
these modifications work in relation to the Normal template,
addon templates, and stationary type templates, etc. This
information will be more suitable in another thread which I will
likely start once I understand better what even my questions
should be

You are looking for information on "Customisation context"

Start with the following Word Help topic:
"About templates"
Follow all the links...

Then fire up the Visual Basic Editor, and in the help there look up the
topic "Understanding objects, properties, and methods"

It's a concept similar to cascading style sheets. Consider the list:
World
Computer
Operating System
Application (Word)
Normal Template
Global Template
Attached Template
Document
Section
Paragraph
Text

Whatever you do in Word causes Word to look backwards up that list until it
finds whatever it is you have asked for. Be it a style, a numbered list, a
font, a language... The first object with the correct name that is found
will be used.

Assume you fire a macro named "MyMacro". Word looks backwards up the list:
a macro can't be in the text, paragraph or section, so it looks first in the
Document.

Let's assume you have a macro named "EditPaste" in each of the document, the
attached template, a global add-in, and the normal template. Word will use
the one in the document and STOP LOOKING. None of the other copies will
run.

If EditPaste is in the Normal Template, that's the one that will be used.
If none of them contain the macro EditPaste, Word's in-built command of the
same name will be used. That's how we get the Paste command to do different
things at different times.

I always want to discard other people's formatting and use my own, so I have
EditPaste stored in the Normal template. It pastes only text and no
formatting. When I send my document to someone else, EditPaste is not in
their Normal template, so whenever they paste in the document, "Paste"
executes the normal Word command.

On the other hand, if I produce a document that contains numbering, I may
not want unskilled users stuffing up the numbering with careless pasting.
So I may include a macro named EditPaste in the document before I send it
out. The user can do whatever they like, in any document except mine. In
my document, their Paste command never pastes formatting (and they would
have no idea why...). I actually avoid this technique, because users get
emotional when they find that one particular document causes Word to behave
strangely

The point is that inheritance and customisation context work together to
ensure that I can have a style or macro or font or whatever that has effect
only in a specific document, only in documents to which a particular
template is attached, or all documents. It depends where in the hierarchy I
choose to make the customisation (the "context").

For example: I want the Bullets command to use "Table Bullet" style only in
Tables, and "List Bullet" style in ordinary text. I can customise the
ApplyListBullet command, by creating a macro of that name. Or: I can
remove that command from the toolbars and tell the users it's only available
on the right-click. On the right-click, the menu that appears is
context-sensitive: I can customise the one that appears only if the
selection is in a table, to apply a different style when the same button is
pressed.

I see. So there are 3 styles: Build-in default, Build-in
modified, and User-created, right?

No: Only "One". "Style". Styles have a lage number of properties. One of
those properties is called "Built-In". If this property is "True", the
style is a required part of the document structure. It is protected from
Deletion or renaming. It may also have other hard-wired properties.

Also I assume that your
statement about "not possible to have non-unique styles" is based
on the fact that each style definition is a unique and separate
entity in the database. If so, I guess I should have referred to
"custom" (i.e., user-created and built-in modified) and "default"
(i.e., built-in default/unmodified) instead of using the term
"unique".

Yeah. Think of a structure looking like an Excel spreadsheet at the bottom
of the document. This is the "Formatting" Table. Each row represents a
style. The first column contains the "Name" of that style. You can't have
duplicates in that column.

Now: This is a very simplistic treatment of the topic, so let's skip
lightly over the fact that ALL of the formatting in the document is in that
table. Names beginning with an underscore are hidden from the user, and are
probably random hexadecimal numbers. This is what the user sees as "Direct
formatting". In later versions of Word, they're in fact styles: it's just
that the names Word uses for them are hidden. And let's also skip lightly
over the fact that styles form collections: they can be "linked" to each
other, and they may "Inherit" from each other.

Part of my confusion (again, better for me to ask about in a
different thread) is what happens relative to the Normal template
when you modify a built-in. It is still vague to me how making
changes to styles effects just the Normal template, the document
itself, or an attached template. I need to better formulate how
to structure my questions. (Also, i've only started to search the
available resources on template construction)

Fixing this confusion is a frequently-requested feature. Watch this
space... Currently:

1) A document has an Attached template

2) You change a style in the document

At this point, the only change occurs in the local document.

3) You check "Add to template"

At this point, nothing happens

4) You use Tools>Templates and Add-ins to attach the Normal template
(effectively removing the attached template).

5) Now you click Save

The document is saved, with its changed styles.

6) Now close the document.

At this point, ALL styles in the document are written back to the
previously-attached template, overwriting any styles that already existed in
the template.

Normal template is unchanged.

Now: Let's try it again in a document that does NOT have an attached
template.

2) You change a style in the document

At this point, the only change occurs in the local document.

3) You check "Add to template"

At this point, nothing happens

4) Now you click Save

The document is saved, with its changed styles. Word may prompt you to save
the Normal template. If you say Yes, or close the document:

At this point, ALL styles in the document are written back to the Normal
template, overwriting any styles that already existed in the template.

As you can see, there's a bug here. "Add to template" appears on the Modify
Style dialog, and appears to add only the changed style to the template
attached at the time (the Normal template if there is no template attached).
In fact, it applies globally to the entire styles collection, which all
overwrites the settings in the target template.

If, instead you wish to change a toolbar, the mechanism is slightly
different. There, the Customise dialog asks you which template you want to
Save In. If there is more than one template attached to the document, their
names are listed: otherwise the choices are Normal template or the Document
itself.

Are you beginning to see why I suggested that this topic was a book in
itself?

You are still talking about Heading 1-9 and any of their aliases,
Right?

I am talking about Headings 1 to 9. The aliases are not "styles", they are
different names for the same styles.

But since in general, it's better to have a straight forward set
of styles than a huge "do it all" collection, it is considered
better to just customize the built-ins than creating all sorts of
custom styles, correct?

If you are working for Clive, you use Clive's styles, because his entire
documentation workflow is designed around keeping the "official" styles
separate from the "Word" styles.

If you are working for me, then yes, you would use the Word styles and
customise those. Because I have a different workflow based on accepting
text created by corporate users who are accustomed to using (or not
using...) the built-in styles

In engineering I find that frequently there are needs for
multiple level autonumbered lists (e.g., procedure and
sub-sub-procedure steps) where many crossreferences need to be
made to specific number items at all levels. Multiple numbering
streams are needed (e.g., a numbered list inside a heading
numbered list may contain the need for a numbered list of a
different kind). Many procedures are required to be monolithic
(i.e., they must exist in their entirety in a given section of a
document file) and can require a lot of redundant number sections
within them and some numbering streams that may nest 5 or 6
levels deep. Also, you occasionally see figure and table
numbering that is required to span headings without identifying
heading areas in the figure numbering. Framemaker and Interleaf
handle these stuctures 100% solid on nothing but a whim, I need
to make sure I know how to safely build styles to support these
types of structures in Word, since I DO see stuff like that all
of the time. Hence my interests here.

Yep. In My shop, you would use Heading 1 to 9 for most of these. Some of
those "heading" styles would be reformatted to look like body text, and used
as such. That way, you an get up to nine levels of nesting in your numbers
and have them all reset each time the level above increments.

For others, you would use Headings 1 to 5 as Headings, Headings 6 to 9 as
Appendix headings, and List Number 1 to 9 for your numbering.

Now: This is where it gets hairy: You may have more than one "sequence"
running throughout the book. Let's say you have three sub-procedures
interlaced in a single process. The person who designed such a book ought
to be shot, but since quite like it was the military, they have a bad habit
of shooting back, so they persist...

Let's assume we want to replace a part in an aircraft. In this case you
would adopt Clive's method (often referred to as the Margaret Aldis Method).
You would define three sets of styles:

List Airframe
List Avionics
List Engines

Each of these three lists would have nine styles.

List Airframe 0 through 8, List Avionics 0 through 8, and List Engines 0
through 8.

In the Margaret Aldis method, you apply List 0 as the first style BEFORE the
numbering starts. It has no numbering. Its sole purpose is to reset the
numbering of List 1, which is set to Restart on Higher. This means you can
copy and paste between documents at will, provided you always copy the lead
paragraph.

Both of these types of numbering are solid and stable provided you know
exactly what you are doing. Word's built-in numbering is deliciously simple
to use, but it is fragile, and because it is hidden from users, they break
it frequently.

If you wish, you can investigate ListNum fields and SEQ fields in the Word
Help. Both are designed to construct numbering that is independent of text
formatting (but can be linked to the styles applied to the text). ListNum
fields are easier to use. SEQ fields enable you to roll your own numbering
just the same as FrameMaker does.

Again, by "Built-in" and "Default", do you mean "modified
built-in" and "unmodified built-in" or something else. I'm still
trying to grasp the significance of these three style types and
what they are exactly.

Custom is a style that a user creates.

Built-in is a style pre-defined in Word.

Default styles are a subset of the built-in styles: they cannot be deleted
or renamed, and may have special properties. List Number through List
Number 4 are Default, List Number through List Number 9 are Built-in

Ah-HA! So THAT is what those suckers are. We have a customer that
has some merging capabilites where they put multiple documents
together and they typically come in with huge style name lists,
all comma separated. Can these aliases exist on ANY style or do
they tend to only occur on the built-ins?

They can exist on any style, but are more commonly seen on the Heading
styles when documents are processed by Intranet applications such as HTML
Transit.

Word 2002 had a bug that created them.

That's when we discovered that there is an absolute limit to the style name
field internally, and once that length has been exceeded, the style table,
and thus the document, is corrupt. I haven't yet discovered what the limit
is: it's around a thousand characters.

This seems to enforce my assumption that aliases only exist for
built-ins (i.e., if you create a custom user defined style, you
cannot add aliases to it). Is this true?

No. You can add an alias to any style name: simply type a comma followed by
the additional name. But why would you? Style name aliases are usually a
sign of danger ahead in a documentation project Generally, I would
advise people never to alias styles.

I seem to remember that Clive suggests attaching one- or two-letter mnemonic
aliases to his style names to enable the simple operation of Command + Shift
+ S. I put all of my working styles on toolbars and never use Command +
Shift + S.

Again: different working flows and methods. Clive is more of a Mac user
than I. I am more of a PC user than Clive. Clive "tends" to produce
shorter documents with much higher production values. I specialise in vast
petrified forests where speed and quantity are the watch-words

Cheers
--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Elliott Roper]

Hi Jeff:

On 4/12/05 11:05 AM, in article OuyJ6ZG#[email protected], "Jeff
Wiseman" <[email protected]> wrot
e:

....a 21st Century Socratic dialog.

Thanks Jeff , for triggering McGhie into that outburst. I have safely
squirreled it away.

This newsgroup really is one of the most useful and civilised places on
the whole internet.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Jeff,

I think I can clarify a couple of these issues and John or Clive can jump in
on the rest.

I see. So there are 3 styles: Build-in default, Build-in modified, and
User-created, right?

Ummm, not really . There are built-in styles (which can be modified or
user-defined) and there are custom styles (which are user-created but can be
based on built-in styles). This gets tricky to explain, especially because
there are several ways in which you can use the word "default." And it's
also important to distinguish between "default" and "built-in"; they are not
necessarily the same thing.

In regard to the Normal template, there are default styles which are built
in. However you can modify a built-in style so that it is no longer in its
original "factory-default" state.

If you modify the built-in style in the Normal template itself, then your
modification becomes the new default for all documents based on Normal. The
style is still a built-in style but you have changed its default state from
the factory setting to a custom setting.

But if you modify the built-in style in a *document* based on Normal, the
modified style will pertain only to that document; the next document you
open will display the factory defaults (unless you have modified Normal as
explained above).

If so, I guess I should have referred to "custom" (i.e., user-created and
built-in modified) and "default" (i.e., built-in default/unmodified) instead
of using the term "unique".

There's a problem with terms here. You need to define what you're applying
the terms "default" and "built-in" to; they are not the same thing. In
other words, there are built-in *styles* (which may or may not be in their
factory-default states depending on whether you've re-defined them in the
Normal template) and there are custom *styles* which you create and name
(though they may or may not have been based on built-in styles originally).

Here's another way of saying it: There are certain styles which are built
in by default (Body Text styles, Heading styles, etc.) You cannot alter
what they are called nor can you delete them. But you *can* modify them and
you can base a modified, differently-named style (a.k.a., a custom style) on
them. Whether or not a modified, built-in style becomes a default depends
on whether you make the modification in the Normal template or in an
ordinary document. (Custom *templates* ­ a.k.a., Global templates, Document
templates, Add-ins ­ are another issue but work similarly.)

"Default" (at least as far as Word's Normal template is concerned) depends
on your modifications to Normal. Perhaps we need to distinguish between
"default" and "factory default" as I did up above. If you modify styles
(whether built-in or not) in Normal, you change their default to something
other than their virgin, factory-default state.

The main reason we advise creating Custom *templates* rather than changing
the factory defaults in Normal is that Normal is prone to corruption and
Custom templates are not. If you have to trash a corrupt Normal, when Word
creates a new virgin Normal, it will contain the factory defaults and your
own user-defined settings will be lost (except for those that can be copied
over using the Organizer).

Part of my confusion (again, better for me to ask about in a
different thread) is what happens relative to the Normal template
when you modify a built-in. It is still vague to me how making
changes to styles effects just the Normal template, the document
itself, or an attached template.

I hope I addressed this above instead of clouding the issue even further
.

But since in general, it's better to have a straight forward set
of styles than a huge "do it all" collection, it is considered
better to just customize the built-ins than creating all sorts of
custom styles, correct?

It isn't a matter of "better" but of personal preference. John believes
that customizing the built-in styles whenever possible is more robust and
leads to greater cross-platform compatibility. Clive believes the opposite.
Both have very cogent arguments for their points of view. For your own
purposes, I suggest choosing whichever method makes the most sense to you!

I hope this helps a little .

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice ­ or use another browser.)
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Son of a gun! John went and changed the name of the thread and I didn't
notice until after I wrote this . Nevertheless some of this may still be
helpful although John's construct ­ ONE style with various properties ­ is
superior to mine by far!

Beth

 

[Jeff Wiseman]

Ummm, not really . There are built-in styles (which can be modified or
user-defined) and there are custom styles (which are user-created but can be
based on built-in styles). This gets tricky to explain, especially because
there are several ways in which you can use the word "default." And it's
also important to distinguish between "default" and "built-in"; they are not
necessarily the same thing.

My intent was to use the term "default" as meaning "factory
default" but you've pointed something out just below that this
assumption didn't cover...

In regard to the Normal template, there are default styles which are built
in. However you can modify a built-in style so that it is no longer in its
original "factory-default" state.

If you modify the built-in style in the Normal template itself, then your
modification becomes the new default for all documents based on Normal. The
style is still a built-in style but you have changed its default state from
the factory setting to a custom setting.

But if you modify the built-in style in a *document* based on Normal, the
modified style will pertain only to that document; the next document you
open will display the factory defaults (unless you have modified Normal as
explained above).

This was the variation I wasn't thinking of. The terms for styles
in the document itself. So if I was to revise my initial
description it might go something like:

For a given Normal template-- There are built-in factory default
styles, Built-in modified by user styles, and User-created/added
to the template styles.

For a document "based on" (I believe that you mean this the same
as "created from") a Normal template-- There are the three types
of Normal template styles (just mentioned above) which are all
inherited by the document, and there are the 3 user-modified
versions of each of those that are specific to the document
itself (i.e., overrides of the styles that were originally
inherited by the document from Normal when it was created.

This sound closer?

The main reason we advise creating Custom *templates* rather than changing
the factory defaults in Normal is that Normal is prone to corruption and
Custom templates are not. If you have to trash a corrupt Normal, when Word
creates a new virgin Normal, it will contain the factory defaults and your
own user-defined settings will be lost (except for those that can be copied
over using the Organizer).

So you either create a fully custom template (a la Clive), or
customize your Normal template and make sure it's backed up (a la
John). Obviously there's room for overlap.

I hope I addressed this above instead of clouding the issue even further

No it's helped and I think I can ask questions on it a bit better
now (see below).

It isn't a matter of "better" but of personal preference. John believes
that customizing the built-in styles whenever possible is more robust and
leads to greater cross-platform compatibility. Clive believes the opposite.
Both have very cogent arguments for their points of view. For your own
purposes, I suggest choosing whichever method makes the most sense to you!

I am seeing the definite merits of both at this time

I hope this helps a little .

It has, and now I would like to ask the following: In trying to
learn about configuring various things in Word, I had been
confused as to when the Normal template is modified and when only
the document itself is modified. This had led me to the sense
that usually a change in preferences of any sort tends to go into
the Normal template which in some cases is obviously not correct.
I have been a little paranoid as I never really knew when changes
I thought I was making to just a document are going to become
changes to Normal instead. Please identify flaws in the following
statement if any:

---It appears that when you create a new blank document from the
Normal template, the document creates and stores a copy of (or
references to, I don't know which) all the style definitions in
the Normal template. Any time you modify a style, you are only
modifying the style instantiations in the document itself
(although you are given the option to apply the modification to
the Normal template as well if you choose the "add to template"
box during the modify)---


I would like to believe that as long as you never checked the
"add to template" type boxes that any and all configurations that
a person might make to Word would not affect the Normal template,
but somehow I'm not sure that is true.

 

[Jeff Wiseman]

The last note here plus Beth's in a parallel thread has helped a
lot, thanks!

Hi Jeff:




Yes, Clive would agree strongly with you on that point. That's why he does
it, and that's why he makes that recommendation.

I have a different working style, and my recommendation is different. I
deal with lots of imported text done by unskilled users using the built-in
styles. So I have adjusted my methods to adopt the built-ins. Clive works
with far more professionals and likes to quarantine his styles from the
effects of external documents, so he uses dedicated styles.

I am seeing the merits of both. In my situation, I will likely
look at the built-in approach (although knowing what I do now,
I'd likely use Clive's approach for resumes now

The setting of "Automatically update styles on open" is a per-document
setting. If it's OFF when the document leaves you, it will remain off on
any other computer, unless the recipient explicitly turns it on. If they do

Ok, so that one is not as weird as I initially thought...

No, it can't. Automatic update is a property stored in the document. If
you turn it off, it will stay that way until you turn it on again. It's off
by default.

Again, it's a document specific property now so it's not as bad
as I thought originally.

I suspect that if it could be covered in a short amount of text, Clive might
have added it to BWTYW It's a big subject. Unless the reader is
familiar with Structured Programming and Object oriented Programming, the
topic is a book in itself

Understood, however, a brief overview might still be good, even
if it only dealt with a single concept such as font or margin
inheritance. Something like that might be covered in only 1-3
pages...

You are looking for information on "Customisation context"

Start with the following Word Help topic:
"About templates"
Follow all the links...

Actually started to do that last Friday...

Fixing this confusion is a frequently-requested feature. Watch this
space... Currently:

1) A document has an Attached template

2) You change a style in the document

At this point, the only change occurs in the local document.

3) You check "Add to template"

At this point, nothing happens

4) You use Tools>Templates and Add-ins to attach the Normal template
(effectively removing the attached template).

5) Now you click Save

The document is saved, with its changed styles.

6) Now close the document.

At this point, ALL styles in the document are written back to the
previously-attached template, overwriting any styles that already existed in
the template.

Normal template is unchanged.

Now: Let's try it again in a document that does NOT have an attached
template.

2) You change a style in the document

At this point, the only change occurs in the local document.

3) You check "Add to template"

At this point, nothing happens

4) Now you click Save

The document is saved, with its changed styles. Word may prompt you to save
the Normal template. If you say Yes, or close the document:

At this point, ALL styles in the document are written back to the Normal
template, overwriting any styles that already existed in the template.

As you can see, there's a bug here. "Add to template" appears on the Modify
Style dialog, and appears to add only the changed style to the template
attached at the time (the Normal template if there is no template attached).
In fact, it applies globally to the entire styles collection, which all
overwrites the settings in the target template.

Fer cryin' out loud! They've buried a bloody global control
inside a single object modification dialog. That's not a "bug",
that's just plain idiotic user interface design!

If, instead you wish to change a toolbar, the mechanism is slightly
different. There, the Customise dialog asks you which template you want to
Save In. If there is more than one template attached to the document, their
names are listed: otherwise the choices are Normal template or the Document
itself.

Obviously designed by a different department at a different time...

They can exist on any style, but are more commonly seen on the Heading
styles when documents are processed by Intranet applications such as HTML
Transit.

Word 2002 had a bug that created them.

That's when we discovered that there is an absolute limit to the style name
field internally, and once that length has been exceeded, the style table,
and thus the document, is corrupt. I haven't yet discovered what the limit
is: it's around a thousand characters.

This is real useful info as it may explain issues that have
existed around the place that I work.

No. You can add an alias to any style name: simply type a comma followed by
the additional name. But why would you? Style name aliases are usually a
sign of danger ahead in a documentation project Generally, I would
advise people never to alias styles.

Something that would be real useful to me is if I could find an
actual document that describes what each of the builtin styles
that comes with Word are intended to be used for. There are all
of those styles and yet Microsoft seems to assume that the name
of each is adaquate to describe its design and intended use. Is
there a description of these suckers anywhere?

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Jeff,

This was the variation I wasn't thinking of. The terms for styles
in the document itself. So if I was to revise my initial
description it might go something like:

For a given Normal template-- There are built-in factory default
styles, Built-in modified by user styles, and User-created/added
to the template styles.

Using John's model, it would be more accurate to say it this way:

In regard to the Normal template, there are styles which are built-in. They
cannot be deleted nor can their names be changed, but they can have various
properties.

These built-in styles may be in a factory-default state or they may have
been modified by the user to produce a user-defined default.

There may also be user-named and created styles ("custom styles") that have
been added to the template.

For a document "based on" (I believe that you mean this the same
as "created from")
Yes.

a Normal template-- There are the three types
of Normal template styles (just mentioned above) which are all
inherited by the document, and there are the 3 user-modified
versions of each of those that are specific to the document
itself (i.e., overrides of the styles that were originally
inherited by the document from Normal when it was created.

This sound closer?

I don't think trying to define a quantity of types of styles is helpful.
I'm starting to find it confusing, myself . Again, harkening back to
John's more accurate model:

There are styles. These styles can have various properties as you've noted.
You can think of it as three (or whatever) types of styles, but as far as
Word is concerned, there's only one.

So you either create a fully custom template (a la Clive), or
customize your Normal template and make sure it's backed up (a la
John). Obviously there's room for overlap.

I think you've misunderstood John. He *does* use custom templates for
various purposes. So do I. On the other hand, I use Normal for short
documents which don't require special formatting and I customize as I go. I
have only two modifications to Normal (that I can remember): I've changed
the default font to Arial and I've changed the default text display to 125%
(aging eyes .

However I do not customize Word's built-in toolbars (since they would be
lost if I had to trash Normal ­ and I have!). I've created my own custom
toolbar which contains buttons for the functions I use most often. It lives
in its own custom template.

However (again), I *do* back up Normal because I'm lazy and it's easier to
restore from a backup than to reset even a few defaults.

In trying to learn about configuring various things in Word, I had been
confused as to when the Normal template is modified and when only the document
itself is modified. This had led me to the sense that usually a change in
preferences of any sort tends to go into the Normal template which in some
cases is obviously not correct.

What do you mean by a "change in preferences"? If you mean the preferences
accessed via Word>Preferences, then you *are* correct. Those preferences
*will* pertain to the Normal template.

I have been a little paranoid as I never really knew when changes
I thought I was making to just a document are going to become
changes to Normal instead. Please identify flaws in the following
statement if any:

---It appears that when you create a new blank document from the
Normal template, the document creates and stores a copy of (or
references to, I don't know which) all the style definitions in
the Normal template.

It would be more accurate to say that a document created from Normal is
*identical* to Normal in every way, except that it's a .doc instead of a
..dot. There's no need for such a document to store references to or copies
of attributes in Normal: if an attribute lives in Normal, then it lives in
the document. They're the same thing.

Any time you modify a style, you are only modifying the style instantiations
in the document itself (although you are given the option to apply the
modification to the Normal template as well if you choose the "add to
template" box during the modify)---
Correct.

I would like to believe that as long as you never checked the
"add to template" type boxes that any and all configurations that
a person might make to Word would not affect the Normal template,
but somehow I'm not sure that is true.

No. Not "any and all". As I said above, you can affect Normal by resetting
some of Word's preferences. Other than that, however, the only way to
affect Normal is by changing it, either directly or by one of the methods
you've mentioned above .

HTH,

Beth

 

[Jeff Wiseman]

Hi Jeff,




What do you mean by a "change in preferences"? If you mean the preferences
accessed via Word>Preferences, then you *are* correct. Those preferences
*will* pertain to the Normal template.

Word's user interface is so inconsistent it defies any attempt at
developing any trust in its structure. If you were to bring up a
dialog box from the "Application->Preferences" menu, you would
expect it to provide the global settings that control the
application, right? What about a "File->Preferences" type dialog
box? That would be where you might set preferences on the actual
file you had open.

Well, under Word->Preferences in the General option, most of the
stuff there would seem to be related to regular application
controls. However, under the Security Option, it appears to be
all security control settings that are SPECIFIC to a given file.
Whoops, not ALL, as the Macros security seems to be more
application oriented. The User Information option is not only
application specific, but controls aspects of OTHER applications
as well (i.e., all Office applications). So is the Save options
specific to a file or to all files? What about the View
settings--Those all look like things that could be Normal
specific. After all, the settings in the View menu are controlled
to some extent by Normal or the document itself, right?

The point is that the application(ie Word)->preferences dialog
box does NOT handle just application preferences. It appears to
be a total menagerie of settings, many of which should be there
and others that should be elsewhere--at least that's how it
appears to me. Assuming that you are setting just application
wide configurations from the application configuration menu will
surprise you. I hate surprises because they confuse me.

And while I'm on the issues of user interfaces...

Every other application that I've ever used has had an intuitive
way of modifying "things". Say, for example, if I wanted to
change or modify an existing cross reference, or index, or field,
or whatever, I would simply select the item in question, and
bring up a contextual dialog where I could select "edit" or
"modify". In Word, however, this is totally wrong. Oh no! In
order to modify an EXISTING item, you have to go to the
**INSERT** menu as though you were creating a new one! Who comes
up with these things!?!

It would be more accurate to say that a document created from Normal is
*identical* to Normal in every way, except that it's a .doc instead of a
.dot. There's no need for such a document to store references to or copies
of attributes in Normal: if an attribute lives in Normal, then it lives in
the document. They're the same thing.

Ok so Word basically replicates the full essence of Normal as a
document file and names it documentN.doc. The new document is
totally self-contained.

When it does this, does the Normal template in any way remain
"attached" to the document in some way? Or has it just acted like
the old "stationary" files we used to have where once the new
document is formed and open it has already done its job and the
new document stands alone?

Note that I am using the term "attached" very loosely here since
I know there is a concept of "attaching" a template to a document
which I have not finished reading up on. I am just wondering if
after the new document is created, launched, and running, if
Normal is still exerting some type of control over it.

Correct.

Cool, I got one right!

No. Not "any and all". As I said above, you can affect Normal by resetting
some of Word's preferences. Other than that, however, the only way to
affect Normal is by changing it, either directly or by one of the methods
you've mentioned above .

Again, as I pointed out previously, I have so little confidence
in what is modified when I change a preference of any sort
(including style settings) that it will take me a while before I
sense what works and what doesn't. In the meantime, I will leave
the "Prompt to Save Normal Template" box checked so I can tell if
I've accidentally changed something for Normal.

I'm sure that this makes me worried about things that don't ever
happen, but until I get a feel for these things, my confidence is
still really low and when I don't have the time to explore
certain capabilities I just won't use them yet.

 

[AndyO]

This is along the lines of the "Bend Word to Your Will" subjects.

When running in Outline Mode I want to have numbering restart at each
demoted section. It should look like this:

1. xxxxxx
1. xxxxxxx
2. xxxxxxx
3. xxxxxxx
2. xxxxxxx
1. xxxxxxx
2. xxxxxxx
1. xxxxxxx
2. xxxxxxx
3. xxxxxxx
4. xxxxxxx
3. xxxxxxx

After creating this kind of outline structure, I want to be able to
modify the Heading Styles and update style sheets for consistency.

This doesn't look too complicated to me but I swear it's impossible in
Word unless you manually select each and every section and set Restart
Numbering from the Bullets and Numbering dialogue box. Even then it
gets dicey with Word wanting to randomly renumber or modify indents.

I did have a little better success by switching the style basis for
each Heading style from Normal to No Style but it still seems to change
every style back to its original default if you change any one of them.

Andy

 

[Jeff Wiseman]

This is along the lines of the "Bend Word to Your Will" subjects.

When running in Outline Mode I want to have numbering restart at each
demoted section. It should look like this:

1. xxxxxx
1. xxxxxxx
2. xxxxxxx
3. xxxxxxx
2. xxxxxxx
1. xxxxxxx
2. xxxxxxx
1. xxxxxxx
2. xxxxxxx
3. xxxxxxx
4. xxxxxxx
3. xxxxxxx

After creating this kind of outline structure, I want to be able to
modify the Heading Styles and update style sheets for consistency.

This doesn't look too complicated to me but I swear it's impossible in
Word unless you manually select each and every section and set Restart
Numbering from the Bullets and Numbering dialogue box. Even then it
gets dicey with Word wanting to randomly renumber or modify indents.

I did have a little better success by switching the style basis for
each Heading style from Normal to No Style but it still seems to change
every style back to its original default if you change any one of them.

This is possible but there are tricks (restarting the numbering
on each style is NOT one of them). I'm new to this but I think
some of the tricks involve only adjusting the numbering control
from the first instance of the highest level heading. I think
that you have to base each heading on the next higher one.
Somewhere here I recently read how--it may have been in Clive's
Bend Word to your Will document but I cannot remember.

Again, it's possible but I'll leave it up to the experts here to
explain how. There are several ways that logically would appear
to work but only one does.

 

[Michel Bintener]

This is possible but there are tricks (restarting the numbering
on each style is NOT one of them). I'm new to this but I think
some of the tricks involve only adjusting the numbering control
from the first instance of the highest level heading. I think
that you have to base each heading on the next higher one.
Somewhere here I recently read how--it may have been in Clive's
Bend Word to your Will document but I cannot remember.

Again, it's possible but I'll leave it up to the experts here to
explain how. There are several ways that logically would appear
to work but only one does.

To the OP: Did you apply automatic numbering through the Formatting Palette?
I have just tried what you were trying to do, and it works for me, but *not*
with automatic formatting; try to avoid that except for very basic
documents. To get what you want, you'll have to apply an outline style to
your different headings, just as Jeff said. In other words, select
Format>Style, then go to Heading 1, and click on Modify. From the dropdown
menu in the lower left corner, select Numbering. In the new window that
shows up, select the Outline Numbered tab, then pick one of the styles that
are available. You can then customise it for the different levels (in your
case, that would mean setting all the numbered indicators to numbers
followed by a full stop, and maybe change the indent, if you want). Now make
your way back into the Style dialogue (click OK to apply your modifications
in the preceding dialogues), then select Heading 2, and, again, apply
the outlined numbering style to it. There's no need to change the numbering
again, you've done that for Heading 1 already, and Heading 2 is
automatically set to Level 2. So just select the outlining style you
specified for Heading 1, then go back to the Style menu and repeat it for
all the headings until you've covered all those you need. You should now be
able to get what you described in your post. If anything's unclear, post
back.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Damn! Sorry about that -- I should have left a pointer here. Sorry -- late
at night...

Son of a gun! John went and changed the name of the thread and I didn't
notice until after I wrote this . Nevertheless some of this may still be
helpful although John's construct ­ ONE style with various properties ­ is
superior to mine by far!

Beth

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410