Doc Map levels issue - puzzling Microsoft's techs too

N

NJ Smith

I apologize in advance for the long note. It includes the problem and
several possible sloutions I have tried that did not work. The problem
is long-standing (years, not months) so there's a lot to summarize.

This is a problem wiht Word, in the Office X for Mac. I'm running Mac
OS X 10.2.6. However, this happens on my PC as well, and on the PC of
someone who lives down the block from me.

I'd say this happens about 1/3 of the time.
I use styles and templates heavily, and have done so for 10 years,
approximately.

The issue is that when I open some documents, the document map does
not reflect the paragraph level of the styles.
When I check the actual style (Format/Style), it says that style is as
it's supposed to be. (Including the Paragraph level I originally
assigned.)

This issue is NOT restricted to any particular template. It happens
with the Normal template as well as the templates I have developed
myself. I thought when I started using the Mac (acquired in Dec
2002), the problem would go away. (Brand new machine, brand new
software...) It hasn't.

I have been to the Microsoft web site to make sure I'm up to date on
all the patches, etc.


To try to be clear, here's a example of what I did to check to see
what happened to the paragraph levels.
When I opened a document, then look at the document map, every style
and heading is displayed as if it were at level 1. That is, far left,
no indentation.
Then, I go to the document and click on a paragraph. Then I go to
format/styles - modify, and check the paragraph formatting. It still
has the original paragraph level I gave it.

This is true for all the styles throughout.
So no style was excepted - they all were at the left margin of the
document map. And when looking at the Styles (using the modify view)
the paragraph levels were correct.

I spent ages looking for a solution. First on the PC side. Then when I
started on the Mac, and it happened on the Mac as well, I searched
again.

By "ages" I mean off and on for 3-4 years. Sometimes intensely,
sometimes just cruising BBoards to see if comes up.

What I ended up doing was to create a macro that searches the document
for each style and replaces that style with itself. So, find
formatting style "Comment" - Replace with formatting style "Comment."
The macro does this for all the styles I generally use in a document.

Once the macro has run, the document map reflects the styles and their
paragraph level properly. Without any other action. It just pops into
the correct indentation display. I do not go into the style and
reassign the paragraph level. Just find and replace each style with
itself. That's it.

At this point I have tried saving the document right away before I
make any changes.
Close it, open it, and the problem is back.
Then I've tried "save as" with a new name. Close it. Open the doc w/
new name. Same problem.
I've tried cutting and pasting into a clean new docuement made from
the same template. No go.

This is not a problem of templates, or at least of one particular
template. Some docs made from a particular template have this problem,
some don't.
This problem happens in most templtes I use - the Normal (which I
don't really change, after selecting my preferred font for Normal
style) and the self-made ones.

Possibly helpful info: I do alter templates sometimes, and resave
them. That is, I alter the document, Word asks 'save changes to
template' and I say "yes."


While it has not been predictable to me which documents will end up
with this problem, one thing has been consistent. Once a document has
this problem, it continues to have the problem no matter how many
times it is saved with a different name, or if I cut and paste it into
a new, clean document.
Changing the document template hasn't helped either. (That is,
Tools-Templates and Add Ins- Attach).


This problem has happened to me on several computers. 3 PCs - running
XP Home, Windows 2000 Professional, and Millenium Edition.
This has happened on my Mac PowerBook G4 running OS X 10.2.6. (It
also happened on other 10.2 versions, and on the 10.1.5 version).

This has happened to a friend down the street running Windows 2000
(not Professional). (She was glad she wasn't the only one. - But it
could have been a document I sent her, I don't know.)

I don't know how to reproduce this intentionally.

I have been in touch with Microsoft (having a recently purchased
retail version I qualified for access to tech support) and they have
not been able to figure it out yet. (Almost a month's worth of email
every couple of days - business days.)


I thought I'd try the wide world of users -

First - Have any of you had this problem? Or am I jinxed?
Second - anyone have any ideas?


Many thanks for any ideas,
Neva
 
J

John McGhie [MVP - Word]

Hi Neva:

Well, I don't have this problem, because I do not permit Document Map to be
used on my professional documents. You have now discovered *why* I do not
permit it :)

I may be able to add some information:

1) The Styles whose names begin with the Word "Heading..." are a special
case. Their LEVEL property cannot be changed. This is by design, and
applies only to those built-in styles.

2) If all of your headings are formatted with Heading styles, then Document
Map can't cause a lot of damage; because it is not permitted to change any
levels.

3) If you have any form of AutoFormat operating, or any of the options
enabled in Tools>AutoCorrect>Automatically while you type enabled, you can
expect weird things to be going on. The "Apply styles based on your
formatting" and "Format beginning of list item like the one before it"
options are particularly destructive, but the others are nearly as bad.
Most of us turn off everything except Smart Quotes.

4) Even with all of that stuff off, when you go into Document Map, it will
guess where your headings are and alter the Level property of the styles it
finds to suit its guess. That's why I don't use it.

I always use Outline View. It's fast, stable, and enables structural
editing by drag-and-drop, a facility Document Map can;t offer.

I suggest that you turn Document Map off and leave it off :)

Cheers

This responds to microsoft.public.mac.office.word on 18 Jul 2003 05:39:05
-0700, (e-mail address removed) (NJ Smith):
I apologize in advance for the long note. It includes the problem and
several possible sloutions I have tried that did not work. The problem
is long-standing (years, not months) so there's a lot to summarize.

This is a problem wiht Word, in the Office X for Mac. I'm running Mac
OS X 10.2.6. However, this happens on my PC as well, and on the PC of
someone who lives down the block from me.

I'd say this happens about 1/3 of the time.
I use styles and templates heavily, and have done so for 10 years,
approximately.

The issue is that when I open some documents, the document map does
not reflect the paragraph level of the styles.
When I check the actual style (Format/Style), it says that style is as
it's supposed to be. (Including the Paragraph level I originally
assigned.)

This issue is NOT restricted to any particular template. It happens
with the Normal template as well as the templates I have developed
myself. I thought when I started using the Mac (acquired in Dec
2002), the problem would go away. (Brand new machine, brand new
software...) It hasn't.

I have been to the Microsoft web site to make sure I'm up to date on
all the patches, etc.


To try to be clear, here's a example of what I did to check to see
what happened to the paragraph levels.
When I opened a document, then look at the document map, every style
and heading is displayed as if it were at level 1. That is, far left,
no indentation.
Then, I go to the document and click on a paragraph. Then I go to
format/styles - modify, and check the paragraph formatting. It still
has the original paragraph level I gave it.

This is true for all the styles throughout.
So no style was excepted - they all were at the left margin of the
document map. And when looking at the Styles (using the modify view)
the paragraph levels were correct.

I spent ages looking for a solution. First on the PC side. Then when I
started on the Mac, and it happened on the Mac as well, I searched
again.

By "ages" I mean off and on for 3-4 years. Sometimes intensely,
sometimes just cruising BBoards to see if comes up.

What I ended up doing was to create a macro that searches the document
for each style and replaces that style with itself. So, find
formatting style "Comment" - Replace with formatting style "Comment."
The macro does this for all the styles I generally use in a document.

Once the macro has run, the document map reflects the styles and their
paragraph level properly. Without any other action. It just pops into
the correct indentation display. I do not go into the style and
reassign the paragraph level. Just find and replace each style with
itself. That's it.

At this point I have tried saving the document right away before I
make any changes.
Close it, open it, and the problem is back.
Then I've tried "save as" with a new name. Close it. Open the doc w/
new name. Same problem.
I've tried cutting and pasting into a clean new docuement made from
the same template. No go.

This is not a problem of templates, or at least of one particular
template. Some docs made from a particular template have this problem,
some don't.
This problem happens in most templtes I use - the Normal (which I
don't really change, after selecting my preferred font for Normal
style) and the self-made ones.

Possibly helpful info: I do alter templates sometimes, and resave
them. That is, I alter the document, Word asks 'save changes to
template' and I say "yes."


While it has not been predictable to me which documents will end up
with this problem, one thing has been consistent. Once a document has
this problem, it continues to have the problem no matter how many
times it is saved with a different name, or if I cut and paste it into
a new, clean document.
Changing the document template hasn't helped either. (That is,
Tools-Templates and Add Ins- Attach).


This problem has happened to me on several computers. 3 PCs - running
XP Home, Windows 2000 Professional, and Millenium Edition.
This has happened on my Mac PowerBook G4 running OS X 10.2.6. (It
also happened on other 10.2 versions, and on the 10.1.5 version).

This has happened to a friend down the street running Windows 2000
(not Professional). (She was glad she wasn't the only one. - But it
could have been a document I sent her, I don't know.)

I don't know how to reproduce this intentionally.

I have been in touch with Microsoft (having a recently purchased
retail version I qualified for access to tech support) and they have
not been able to figure it out yet. (Almost a month's worth of email
every couple of days - business days.)


I thought I'd try the wide world of users -

First - Have any of you had this problem? Or am I jinxed?
Second - anyone have any ideas?


Many thanks for any ideas,
Neva

Please post all comments to the newsgroup to maintain the thread.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:john@mcghie-information.com.au
 
M

Martha Bowes

I always use Outline View. It's fast, stable, and enables structural
editing by drag-and-drop, a facility Document Map can;t offer.

John, is there any advantage to using outline view over page layout? I
prefer the latter because I can see exactly what things look like. Is
outline faster and more stable than page layout? If so, perhaps I should
switch and adjust.

Martha
 
B

Beth Rosengard

Hi Martha,

Page Layout and Outline views serve different purposes. If you need a
WYSIWYG view, then you have to use Page Layout which not only shows all
graphics, etc., but also gives you true pagination. Because of this, it is
definitely slower, but not less stable.

John was comparing Outline view to Document Map, not Page Layout, when he
commented about Outline view's greater stability and speed. I think you'll
get a better feel for the differences in views if you read the descriptions
in the Word Help.

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/WordMac/index.html>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top