How do I set Tab Stops for only 1 section of a Word doc?

[BC7]

How do I set the tab stops for only one section of a Word document, without
affecting the tab stops for the other sections of the document? I have a
200+ page document with all the tab stops and formatting exactly the way I
want. I am trying to paste a new 20-page section at the bottom that used
different tab stops for it's formatting when it was created. After I do the
paste of the 20 pages into the big document, the formatting of this new
section uses the tab stops from the rest of the document. I can 't seem to
set the tab stops differently for just this last section of the document
without those new settings going back and applying to the previous sections
of the document. I'm using Word 2007.

 

[DeanH]

Turn off "automatically update" for the styles being affected before changing
the Tab stops in the new section, as described in
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/WholeDocumentReformatted.htm
The new piece of content has styles the same as the old document and is
picking up the new format.

 

[BC7]

My style is "Normal", and in Word 2007 there is not an option to turn off
"automatically update". I tried to follow the directions described in the
link, which involves creating a macro. I followed the steps outlined, but
they did not work for me. I suspect that there was some information left out
of the instructions for Word 2007. Perhaps the instructions assume I know
how to create and run macros, which I do not. I can't believe that Word 2007
blocks turning off automatic update, and that to get around it you have to do
something as laborious as create a macro. Anyway, I couldn't figure it out.
But I really appreciate you answering my post. If you have any other ideas,
or some supplementary material for the instructions in that link, I would
certainly appreaciate it.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The article does not require you to know how to create and run macros. It's
hard to see how the instructions could be much simpler than this:

1. Press Alt+F11 to display the Visual Basic Editor. Press Ctrl+G to show
the Immediate Window.

2. Type:

ActiveDocument.Styles(wdStyleNormal).AutomaticallyUpdate = False

3. Press Enter, and save the document.


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

 

[BC7]

Yes, I agree those instructions are simple, and I did them exactly as
indicated. But this did not work for me, which is why I suspected there may
be something I'm missing. Here is exactly what I did:
1) open my 270 page document in Word 2007 that has default normal tab stops
of .5
2) go to the very end and insert a new section
3) open my 18 page document (also Word 2007) that has default normal tab
stops of .2
4) copy and paste the 18 page document into the new section at the end of
the 270 page document; the tab stops in the new section change to .5
5) I select all the paragraphs in the new 18 pages at the bottom of the
document
6) I change the tabs for those paragraphs to .2
7) I observe that all the tabs in the previous 270 pages are now .2
8) I run the three steps exactly as indicated
9) I see that nothing has changed in the 270 pages and they still have tab
stops of .2

I don't mean to be dense, and I know I'm obviously missing something simple,
but I am not an MVP-level Word user, and I'm doing the best I can.

Thanks for any further guidance anyone can provide.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Okay, what I missed is that this is not an issue with Normal (or any other)
style updating automatically because the default tab stops are not part of
any style; they are set for the entire document; you can set individual tab
stops for selected text, but when you change the default tab interval,
you're changing it for the entire document, and there is no way around that.

Unfortunately, the solution to your problem is much more difficult: you need
to define styles with the desired tab stops (exactly where you need them,
not depending on the default interval) and then apply those styles to the
text as required.

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