Deleting an unused style hoses up tables

[Nellie Nobody]

I am dealing with every tech writer's nightmare scenario.

I am using Word 2003 to copyedit software specs edited by multiple authors
with limited Word skills. These specs are supposed to comply with a template
that is attached to the Agenda Wizard and that contains errors which appear
when I use Open and Repair. The authors based their specs directly on this
template or on similar docs originally based on this template. The authors
subsequently pasted large amounts of material from several other docs based
on other templates.

In my attempts to clean up these specs, I have tried to delete the hordes of
unused styles that have crept into them. However, deleting certain styles
hoses up all of the numerous tables in these specs, at best causing the
borders to disappear, at worst changing the styles within the tables to
bulleted, numbered, or heading styles. It's very difficult to reproduce this
problem as it occurs with any of the suspect styles and the results are
unpredictable.

I have tried everything I can think of to fix this problem. Can you point me
to any particular underlying issue? I'm not afraid to edit the RTF if I need
to.

 

[DeanH]

Try assigning the correct styles to the tables first, then delete the
superfluous styles.

 

[Nellie Nobody]

As I said below, I'm deleting styles that are unused. The tables already have
the correct styles.

 

[Nellie Nobody]

Could someone please respond to the following? Thanks! (I hope!)

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

It would appear to me that someone has. You should continue in that branch
of the thread.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Nellie Nobody]

DeanH suggested assigning the correct styles to the tables first, then
deleting the superfluous styles. I responded, "As I said below, I'm deleting
styles that are unused. The tables already have the correct styles."

I may not be a Word MVP, but I am far from a novice Word user. Yet I've
never seen this problem before. I have hundreds of these docs to copyedit and
clean up, have tried everything I can think of, and am desparate enough for
an answer to come here.

If you have any suggestions, I'd appreciate hearing them. But don't scold me
for starting a new branch when I did respond to the existing one.

 

[DeanH]

Quick question: have you tried Open & Repair? Did this pick up anything?
Maybe the only way to solve this is to convert the tables to text. assign a
neutral style (ie a non-table style) and then revert back to Table and format
to clear any problems that may be assigned to the old table styles that are
still affecting these tables somehow.
Hopefully the tables are not too complex.
I have come across the problem that a style is indicated to be "not in use"
but still seem to cause problems. If you save the file as HTML and then
search the source code for the style name(s) to see if they are in fact still
in the document.

All the best
DeanH

 

[Pamelia Caswell via OfficeKB.com]

I have encountered problems like yours many times when using Word 2003 and
before. They usually involve the presence of unlinked styles (often called
char styles because the styles appear in the list with a regular style name
plus ", char" after it. Styles break when you apply a linked style to part
of a paragraph or paste text of a different style into part of a paragraph.
(Their presence does not mean the document is corrupt, but leaving char
styles alone, as many suggest, for me has meant flaky behavior such as styles
changing appearance with or without changes in the settings, style names and
appearance changing (headers suddenly become index 2), auto numbers on
headings disappear, etc., and eventual corruption usually in the styles or
auto numbering. ) One of the first things I do to long multiauthored
documents is clean up the styles and remove char styles. An unlinked style
is still "linked" to its parent style and deleting it will delete the parent
(except for normal and headings 1-9). Unfortunately, one fix is what you are
doing: apply only your wanted styles consistently, remove unused styles and
char styles, and fix anything that breaks. Another is to apply only your
wanted styles and then copy all bu the last paragraph mark (or all but the
section break if you are copying by section) into a new document based on
your template (or normal.dot if necessary).

Another possible cause, even with no char styles present, is that the style
your table paragraph styles are based on may be "unused" in your document.
Deleting it could leave your table paragraph styles based on the normal
paragraph style and taking settings from it. To avoid this, find out what the
based on styles are and avoid deleting them.

You mentioned that the template is damaged. When you use open and repair,
where does Word say the errors were that it repaired. Word repairs errors
but may not repair the cause. These problems would show up in files based
on the template. So if the errors are in autonumbers, delete and rebuild the
numbering scheme. If in styles, try recreating your user-defined styles or
rebuilding the template based on a new, clean document based on normal. And
so on.


HTH,
Pam

DeanH suggested assigning the correct styles to the tables first, then
deleting the superfluous styles. I responded, "As I said below, I'm deleting
styles that are unused. The tables already have the correct styles."

I may not be a Word MVP, but I am far from a novice Word user. Yet I've
never seen this problem before. I have hundreds of these docs to copyedit and
clean up, have tried everything I can think of, and am desparate enough for
an answer to come here.

If you have any suggestions, I'd appreciate hearing them. But don't scold me
for starting a new branch when I did respond to the existing one.

It would appear to me that someone has. You should continue in that branch
of the thread.

[quoted text clipped - 32 lines]

 

[Nellie Nobody]

Yup. It repairs one or more unused numbered styles and occasionally displays
an "Internal Data Integrity (Type 4) 1" error for which I can find no
explanation. I have indeed did the table-to-text-to-table conversion.
Unfortunately, many of these tables have cells containing formatting such as
paragraph marks, manual line breaks, bullet lists, etc. I have converted
these docs to RTF to delete certain styles, but I haven't tried converting to
HTML.

 

[Nellie Nobody]

Yeah, I was wondering if linked/unlinked styles could be causing this, but
haven't seen any suspicious char styles.

Unfortunately, I have so many of these docs and some are so long, with so
many section breaks and so many tables that the copy-and-paste or the
table-to-text-to-table cures would take forever.

I have noticed that deleting the Table Grid style seems to clear up the
problem, although I then have to re-apply borders to all the tables. Also,
I've occasionally run into docs in which deleting Table Grid results in the
table text having no style at all, not even Normal.

As for Open and Repair, the Go To button doesn't go anywhere, just stays at
the top of the doc.

Weirdness!

I have encountered problems like yours many times when using Word 2003 and
before. They usually involve the presence of unlinked styles (often called
char styles because the styles appear in the list with a regular style name
plus ", char" after it. Styles break when you apply a linked style to part
of a paragraph or paste text of a different style into part of a paragraph.
(Their presence does not mean the document is corrupt, but leaving char
styles alone, as many suggest, for me has meant flaky behavior such as styles
changing appearance with or without changes in the settings, style names and
appearance changing (headers suddenly become index 2), auto numbers on
headings disappear, etc., and eventual corruption usually in the styles or
auto numbering. ) One of the first things I do to long multiauthored
documents is clean up the styles and remove char styles. An unlinked style
is still "linked" to its parent style and deleting it will delete the parent
(except for normal and headings 1-9). Unfortunately, one fix is what you are
doing: apply only your wanted styles consistently, remove unused styles and
char styles, and fix anything that breaks. Another is to apply only your
wanted styles and then copy all bu the last paragraph mark (or all but the
section break if you are copying by section) into a new document based on
your template (or normal.dot if necessary).

Another possible cause, even with no char styles present, is that the style
your table paragraph styles are based on may be "unused" in your document.
Deleting it could leave your table paragraph styles based on the normal
paragraph style and taking settings from it. To avoid this, find out what the
based on styles are and avoid deleting them.

You mentioned that the template is damaged. When you use open and repair,
where does Word say the errors were that it repaired. Word repairs errors
but may not repair the cause. These problems would show up in files based
on the template. So if the errors are in autonumbers, delete and rebuild the
numbering scheme. If in styles, try recreating your user-defined styles or
rebuilding the template based on a new, clean document based on normal. And
so on.


HTH,
Pam

DeanH suggested assigning the correct styles to the tables first, then
deleting the superfluous styles. I responded, "As I said below, I'm deleting
styles that are unused. The tables already have the correct styles."

I may not be a Word MVP, but I am far from a novice Word user. Yet I've
never seen this problem before. I have hundreds of these docs to copyedit and
clean up, have tried everything I can think of, and am desparate enough for
an answer to come here.

If you have any suggestions, I'd appreciate hearing them. But don't scold me
for starting a new branch when I did respond to the existing one.

It would appear to me that someone has. You should continue in that branch
of the thread.

[quoted text clipped - 32 lines]

need
to.

 

[Pamelia Caswell via OfficeKB.com]

As for Open and Repair, the Go To button doesn't go anywhere, just stays at

the top of the doc.

That has always been the behavior. But the message does tell you that the
errors were in tables, styles, numberings etc. That gives you a place (or
places to look).

I have noticed that deleting the Table Grid style seems to clear up the
problem, although I then have to re-apply borders to all the tables. Also,
I've occasionally run into docs in which deleting Table Grid results in the
table text having no style at all, not even Normal.

How does that clear up the problem? Do you mean that the table formatting
(font face, size, etc.) returns to what you want? If that's the case, then
you may have a table style issue. Are you using table styles? Or have your
table styles been modified?

Pam

Yeah, I was wondering if linked/unlinked styles could be causing this, but
haven't seen any suspicious char styles.


Unfortunately, I have so many of these docs and some are so long, with so
many section breaks and so many tables that the copy-and-paste or the
table-to-text-to-table cures would take forever.

Weirdness!

I have encountered problems like yours many times when using Word 2003 and
before. They usually involve the presence of unlinked styles (often called

[quoted text clipped - 50 lines]

 

[DeanH]

I have come across the "Internal Data Integrity (Type 4) 1" error message
before and it was connected to a badly corrupted document. This error has
been linked to a incompatibility between 2003 and 2002 (for Mac), and the
document needed a complete rebuild.
I have many tables that are complex (para/linebreaks/bullets/multi-styles)
and there are ways to deal with these and then do the Table/Text/Table
without to much trouble, but I see that your chat with Pamelia maybe finding
a solution so I will drop off now, but will look in to see if anything bears
fruit.
All the best to you
DeanH

 

[Nellie Nobody]

That's interesting! Do you know where Microsoft documents these error messages?

Unfortunately for me, the template on which these bloody arful docs are
based contains this corruption.

 

[Nellie Nobody]

The error message "Internal Data Integrity (Type 4) 1" says nothing to me
about what or where the error is and I can't find any documentation on this.

No, if I delete the Table Grid style, the tables retain their previous
appearance but the borders disappear. However, deleting the Table Grid style
before I delete the unused styles prevents these weird changes to the tables
that were my original issue in this thread.

As for Open and Repair, the Go To button doesn't go anywhere, just stays at
the top of the doc.

That has always been the behavior. But the message does tell you that the
errors were in tables, styles, numberings etc. That gives you a place (or
places to look).

I have noticed that deleting the Table Grid style seems to clear up the
problem, although I then have to re-apply borders to all the tables. Also,
I've occasionally run into docs in which deleting Table Grid results in the
table text having no style at all, not even Normal.

How does that clear up the problem? Do you mean that the table formatting
(font face, size, etc.) returns to what you want? If that's the case, then
you may have a table style issue. Are you using table styles? Or have your
table styles been modified?

Pam

Yeah, I was wondering if linked/unlinked styles could be causing this, but
haven't seen any suspicious char styles.


Unfortunately, I have so many of these docs and some are so long, with so
many section breaks and so many tables that the copy-and-paste or the
table-to-text-to-table cures would take forever.

Weirdness!

I have encountered problems like yours many times when using Word 2003 and
before. They usually involve the presence of unlinked styles (often called

[quoted text clipped - 50 lines]

need
to.

 

[Ancient Brit]

This is late in the day and probably no use to Nellie but it might help
others following the same track.

Microsoft give some brief details of the data integrity errors here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/286821

I've found that all sorts of documents seem to have integrity errors
according to the Repair function (I downloaded the Word 2003 RTF
Specification and ran the check on that - and it had three types of
irreparable errors!) so it may be a little tongue in cheek. Well, all right,
a lot.

In my case I found a combination of errors in a document - ten numbered
style errors (they weren't in use) and 8 OLE errors (they did exist and were
emphatically NOT in error - they are absolutely correct and functional).

The style errors were magically eradicated by simply selecting the entire
contents of the affected document, copying to the clipboard, and pasting into
a newly created blank document.

However, the supposed OLE errors persisted. In fact, they persisted even
after Word said it had repaired them - three times in fact. That means I
allowed Word to repair the OLE errors, saved the repaired document, opened it
for repair - it had the same errors - allowed repairs to occur, saved the
resulting document, opened it again - the same thing. My guess is they'll
never be "repaired" because they're not in need of it.

Further, I took another document that simply said "Internal Data Integrity
(Type 4) 1", allowed Word to repair it, saved the result and then compared
the two documents - pre and post. The file sizes appeared to be identical, so
I opened each one and saved it as RTF. Now there were size differences.

Examining the RTFs I found that minor changes had been made (deletion of s0
here and there) and I'm working on finding out exactly what those are and why
they're being made.

More to follow. This is not a dead issue as far as I'm concerned - I need to
find the cause of the problem (if there is one) and eradicate it.

Peter
--
This face intentionally blank...

The error message "Internal Data Integrity (Type 4) 1" says nothing to me
about what or where the error is and I can't find any documentation on this.

No, if I delete the Table Grid style, the tables retain their previous
appearance but the borders disappear. However, deleting the Table Grid style
before I delete the unused styles prevents these weird changes to the tables
that were my original issue in this thread.

As for Open and Repair, the Go To button doesn't go anywhere, just stays at
the top of the doc.

That has always been the behavior. But the message does tell you that the
errors were in tables, styles, numberings etc. That gives you a place (or
places to look).

I have noticed that deleting the Table Grid style seems to clear up the
problem, although I then have to re-apply borders to all the tables. Also,
I've occasionally run into docs in which deleting Table Grid results in the
table text having no style at all, not even Normal.

How does that clear up the problem? Do you mean that the table formatting
(font face, size, etc.) returns to what you want? If that's the case, then
you may have a table style issue. Are you using table styles? Or have your
table styles been modified?

Pam

Yeah, I was wondering if linked/unlinked styles could be causing this, but
haven't seen any suspicious char styles.


Unfortunately, I have so many of these docs and some are so long, with so
many section breaks and so many tables that the copy-and-paste or the
table-to-text-to-table cures would take forever.

Weirdness!

I have encountered problems like yours many times when using Word 2003 and
before. They usually involve the presence of unlinked styles (often called
[quoted text clipped - 50 lines]
need
to.