How do I jettison styles and start over?

[Fabricator]

I am in a new job where I have inherited a huge amount of legac
documents in Word. They are used in long technical manuals, and rang
from 30-80 pages.

I find that in working with them, all kinds of manual changes have bee
made with respect to styles [bold, italics, returns, tabs, spaces]. Yo
can have five visually different styles that are revealed to be th
same style [manually changed] in the formatting palette. Numbering i
corrupted in many of them.

Also, there is little uniformity among these documents. So whateve
styles seem to be in one may not be present in others.

I would like to create a new document having the right styles, and the
bring them into the new document, discarding the old styles at the sam
time.

How can I do that? I admit to being weak in my understanding o
templates and how that could play a part in this.

Thank you...

 

[Graham Mayor]

Select the document (Ctrl+A) then CTRL+Q and CTRL+Space to remove the manual
formatting.

This will not remove the tabs or extra spaces. Those will have to be removed
by hand using the Replace function as an aide.

If you have created a template with the styles you require, you can attach
the template to the document and if you check the update styles check box
the styles in the document of the same name will be updated to match your
template. After that it is a matter of applying the correct styles to the
text. Again you can use the Replace function to replace one style with
another across the document.

It is always going to be a pain to reformat using styles someone else's
document that has been formatted without. Having done so ensure no-one else
messes with it while you have responsibility for it

You may find http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/CleanWebText.htm helpful.
--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Fabricator]

Thank you for your reply. You wrote: "If you have created a templat
with the styles you require, you can attach the template to th
document and if you check the update styles check box the styles in th
document of the same name will be updated to match your template."

Here is where my weakness in understanding templates emerges. What d
you mean by "attach the template?" How is that done? ....and are th
effects of a previous template remaining in place?

Select the document (Ctrl+A) then CTRL+Q and CTRL+Space to remove th
manual
formatting.

This will not remove the tabs or extra spaces. Those will have to b
removed
by hand using the Replace function as an aide.

If you have created a template with the styles you require, you ca
attach
the template to the document and if you check the update styles chec
box
the styles in the document of the same name will be updated to matc
your
template. After that it is a matter of applying the correct styles t
the
text. Again you can use the Replace function to replace one style wit

another across the document.

It is always going to be a pain to reformat using styles someone else'

document that has been formatted without. Having done so ensure no-on
else
messes with it while you have responsibility for it

You may find http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/CleanWebText.ht
helpful.
--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP





Fabricator wrote:-
I am in a new job where I have inherited a huge amount of legacy
documents in Word. They are used in long technical manuals, and range
from 30-80 pages.

I find that in working with them, all kinds of manual changes have
been made with respect to styles [bold, italics, returns, tabs,
spaces]. You can have five visually different styles that are
revealed to be the same style [manually changed] in the formatting
palette. Numbering is corrupted in many of them.

Also, there is little uniformity among these documents. So whatever
styles seem to be in one may not be present in others.

I would like to create a new document having the right styles, and
then bring them into the new document, discarding the old styles at
the same time.

How can I do that? I admit to being weak in my understanding of
templates and how that could play a part in this.

Thank you....

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If you're using Word 2003 or earlier, go to Tools | Templates and Add-Ins,
click Attach..., and browse to your desired template. Often a better
approach in this type of situation, however, is to create a new document
based on your new template and insert the existing file into it (first
removing any section breaks it may contain so that it does not bring any of
its section-level formatting with it).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Thank you for your reply. You wrote: "If you have created a template
with the styles you require, you can attach the template to the
document and if you check the update styles check box the styles in the
document of the same name will be updated to match your template."

Here is where my weakness in understanding templates emerges. What do
you mean by "attach the template?" How is that done? ....and are the
effects of a previous template remaining in place?

Select the document (Ctrl+A) then CTRL+Q and CTRL+Space to remove the
manual
formatting.

This will not remove the tabs or extra spaces. Those will have to be
removed
by hand using the Replace function as an aide.

If you have created a template with the styles you require, you can
attach
the template to the document and if you check the update styles check
box
the styles in the document of the same name will be updated to match
your
template. After that it is a matter of applying the correct styles to
the
text. Again you can use the Replace function to replace one style with

another across the document.

It is always going to be a pain to reformat using styles someone else's

document that has been formatted without. Having done so ensure no-one
else
messes with it while you have responsibility for it

You may find http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/CleanWebText.htm
helpful.
--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP





Fabricator wrote:-
I am in a new job where I have inherited a huge amount of legacy
documents in Word. They are used in long technical manuals, and range
from 30-80 pages.

I find that in working with them, all kinds of manual changes have
been made with respect to styles [bold, italics, returns, tabs,
spaces]. You can have five visually different styles that are
revealed to be the same style [manually changed] in the formatting
palette. Numbering is corrupted in many of them.

Also, there is little uniformity among these documents. So whatever
styles seem to be in one may not be present in others.

I would like to create a new document having the right styles, and
then bring them into the new document, discarding the old styles at
the same time.

How can I do that? I admit to being weak in my understanding of
templates and how that could play a part in this.

Thank you.... -