Changes in the way styles worked

[wls]

It used to be that you could select some text, go to the style drop
down on the tool bar, press Enter and Word would ask you if you wanted
to apply the current style to the paragraph, or update the existing
style based on the selected text. I Loved This.

I've been upgraded to Word 2003 and this behavior is either gone or
turned off, how to I get it back?

Help is, well, useless as it's always been -- I've found a Tools / Auto
Correct / AutoFormat As You Type / Define styles based on your
formatting, and that is NOT what I want. That just clutters up my
style name space with stuff I don't need. For example, if I have
MyStyle and want to make it bold, I do not want a new style called
"MyStyle + Bold".

I hate, hate, hate having to open up the styles and formatting box,
scrolling to find my style, select Modify, play games with it, and save
it. This is far too many clicks and keystrokes to do what used to be
possible with a single drag, click, Enter.

Any Word experts know a fast way to make this happen?

 

[LH]

Clear the checkbox for AutoFormat as you type -- you are correct to
want it gone. While you are at it consider clearing other checkboxes
here as well (auto bullets, auto numbers, auto headings, etc.)

Clear the checkbox for "Automatically update document styles" for your
template (see Tools, Templates & Add-ins). Another useless Microsoft
innovation

Select the entire paragraph when you want to apply styles -- selecting
some text will encourage Word to misbehave.