Hi Eric:
Sure, I have a suggestion: Use a Style to apply your bullets. It won't
totally stop this happening, but it means you can fix it with a couple of
clicks. If you use styles, it happens a lot less often. What has happened
is that all of your bullets have an internal format, called a list template.
The list template determines the appearance of every list in the document to
which it is applied. At some point, you have done some formatting which has
changed the formatting of the list template that you are using for your
bullets. To fix it:
If you are in Word 2004:
1) Click in one of the bulleted paragraphs
2) Bring up the Formatting Palette
3) Drop down the Styles section of the palette
4) Click the Select All button
5) Re-apply the correct bullets
If you are in an earlier version of Word, sorry, that's a new function in
Word 2004. You need to do it the hard way:
1) Select one of the bad bulleted paragraphs
2) Choose Format>Style>"List Bullet" and "Apply"
3) Now use Format>Style>Modify to change the thing as you like
4) Now select each group of bullets and apply the style List Bullet
Using a style "tags" each paragraph with the name of a bunch of formatting.
Every paragraph with that tag will use the exact same formatting. This is
actually what Word 2004 does: these steps have been automated in the new
feature. All formatting in Word 2004 is a "style": if you don't assign a
name, Word 2004 assigns a default name and hides it from you: but all
formatting is "actually" a style behind the scenes.
List Bullet is one of Word's pre-defined built-in styles. It has (or should
have!!) bullets already defined to be part of it. You can change it as you
wish. (You can make up your own styles, and many people do. But those of us
who have spent years with Word would suggest that it's a seriously better
idea to use the built-in styles if you can find one that fits your purpose.)
Much more importantly, since every paragraph with List Bullet applied is
using exactly the same formatting, if it goes wrong, you change it only in
one place, using Format>Style. And changes you make using Format>Style will
apply to every paragraph in the document with that tag.
While you are in Format>Style, look for a button labelled "Add to Template".
Check that to add your preferred formatting of that style to your template.
It will then be available for every other document you edit.
Using styles is a bit of a learning curve. It might take you as much as an
hour to get the hang of it... After that, you will never go back!
Start by looking up "Styles" in the Help.
Hope this helps
All of a sudden all of the bullets in my documents have been turned
into "shamrock" bullets. My resume, papers, outlines, etc, that
contained bullets have all been turned into tiny shamrocks. Has this
happened to anyone else, it is really strange and very tedious to fix
as I have to manually change each one back. Any suggestions?
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Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.
John McGhie <
[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410
