Best strategy for fixing headings, styles, and TOC

[GaryJaz]

Hello all, I have a large document with 3 levels of headings and tables
and figures. The document was cut and pasted together and the headings
and therefore the TOC are a bit messed up. I'm wondering what the
best strategy is for fixing this.

Should I clear the whole document of all styles and go through the
document and put in the correct ones, making sure everything is in
order? Is there a way to zap all styles with one stroke? Is there a
danger of losing anything by doing it this way?

Thanks!

-garyjaz

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I do generally take a tabula rasa ("scorched earth") approach to this sort
of problem. If you try to "fix" things, you'll probably end up spending a
lot more time (with less reliable results) than if you remove all formatting
and start from scratch. What I usually do is either print the document out
for reference or at least save the original. Then, on a copy, I remove all
formatting by applying the style that will be used the most in the document
(usually Body Text or Body Text First Indent) and then go back and apply the
headings and such.