New kind of "char char" bug

[Larry]

This isn't the regular "where did this mystery character style come
from" problem that we usually associate with Evil Hidden Char styles.
This one's a doozy, and it's affecting two distinct and unconnected
groups within my international company. Here's the scenario:

User Amy creates a document in Mac Word 2004, using a templated set of
paragraph and character styles only -- no local formatting, no
monkeying with the styles as given, and certainly no renaming of
styles. Amy sends me the document to check. I open it in Win Word
2003, and see that Amy has done a great job of obeying the style usage
rules -- except that one of the most commonly used paragraph style
names (possibly THE most commonly used?) -- has been changed to "Char
Char". It's not a character style, and it doesn't have a leading space
in the name; it's just a paragraph style that used to be "READ_PARA",
but is now named "Char Char". Amy swears that she did not change the
style name, and, in fact, while on the phone with me and looking at
the file on her Mac, says, "What are you talking about? It says
"READ_PARA".

Meanwhile (I've just learned), User Bill is engaged in the same
conversation with my colleague, Techie Carla, who works in a
completely separate (physically and functionally) organisation. Amy
and Bill have no connection whatever to one another. Bill is using Mac
Word 2008, but otherwise the symptoms are the same. Oh, except that in
Bill's document, it's style "04BaseText" that is changing to "Char
Char"... and "04BaseText" is, according to Carla, supposed to be the
most commonly used style in Bill's document.

This problem is repeatable; even though Carla and I fix the files of
our respective users and send them back, when we receive updated
versions, we again see that "READ_PARA" (in my case) and
"04BaseText" (in Carla's case) have been changed to "Char Char" in our
Win Word 2003 sessions, while Amy and Bill both insist that no such
change is visible on their screens. Amy and Bill also swear that only
colleagues who have similar editing environments to theirs have ever
touched their files.

Carla and I have never seen anything like this before. Any insights,
anyone?

TIA....

 

[Larry]

Can anyone tell me how to submit this problem report to Microsoft?

 

[John McGhie]

This would be the very horrid "Linked Styles" ruining your day.

"Linked Styles" is where the "Char Char" styles went. They're not "gone",
just "hiding". But now that they are "documented" this has become a
"feature" not a bug.

So there's no point in reporting it

In Word 2007 you have the ability to "Disable linked styles" in the task
pane. I don't think that option is there in Word 2003, and certainly not in
Word 2004 or Word 2008.

A "Linked" style is a pair of styles of the same name, linked together. The
Paragraph style is the master, the Character style contains only the Font
properties of it.

If a user selects some text and applies a style, Word looks to see if the
paragraph mark is included in the selection. If it is, Word applies the
Paragraph style. If the paragraph mark is NOT included in the selection,
Word creates a new style of type Character, with the same name as the
Paragraph style. It links them together, and applies the new Character
style to the text.

From that point on, the style has become a linked style, and you cannot
unlink it. Even in VBA, there is no way to split the two styles once they
have become a linked style.

In Mac Word 2004, which does not expect Linked Styles, they will indeed
appear as Char styles.

Sorry: It's documented, so we're stuck with it.

Microsoft would say that since the two styles are linked, there's nothing
wrong, the user will get the correct formatting if they use the correct
style.

My response is not suitable for a family newspaper: I need to KNOW that my
user's font formatting AND paragraph formatting will be correct. And with
this monstrosity, I can't be sure...

Grrrr.....

You can try Help>Send Feedback. At least a human being is guaranteed to see
your post if you send it there. But they won't do anything about it...

Cheers

This isn't the regular "where did this mystery character style come
from" problem that we usually associate with Evil Hidden Char styles.
This one's a doozy, and it's affecting two distinct and unconnected
groups within my international company. Here's the scenario:

User Amy creates a document in Mac Word 2004, using a templated set of
paragraph and character styles only -- no local formatting, no
monkeying with the styles as given, and certainly no renaming of
styles. Amy sends me the document to check. I open it in Win Word
2003, and see that Amy has done a great job of obeying the style usage
rules -- except that one of the most commonly used paragraph style
names (possibly THE most commonly used?) -- has been changed to "Char
Char". It's not a character style, and it doesn't have a leading space
in the name; it's just a paragraph style that used to be "READ_PARA",
but is now named "Char Char". Amy swears that she did not change the
style name, and, in fact, while on the phone with me and looking at
the file on her Mac, says, "What are you talking about? It says
"READ_PARA".

Meanwhile (I've just learned), User Bill is engaged in the same
conversation with my colleague, Techie Carla, who works in a
completely separate (physically and functionally) organisation. Amy
and Bill have no connection whatever to one another. Bill is using Mac
Word 2008, but otherwise the symptoms are the same. Oh, except that in
Bill's document, it's style "04BaseText" that is changing to "Char
Char"... and "04BaseText" is, according to Carla, supposed to be the
most commonly used style in Bill's document.

This problem is repeatable; even though Carla and I fix the files of
our respective users and send them back, when we receive updated
versions, we again see that "READ_PARA" (in my case) and
"04BaseText" (in Carla's case) have been changed to "Char Char" in our
Win Word 2003 sessions, while Amy and Bill both insist that no such
change is visible on their screens. Amy and Bill also swear that only
colleagues who have similar editing environments to theirs have ever
touched their files.

Carla and I have never seen anything like this before. Any insights,
anyone?

TIA....

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Larry]

This would be the very horrid "Linked Styles" ruining your day.

Thanks, John, but that's not actually the problem this time, though it
bears a passing resemblance.

I'm very (and tragically) familiar with the linked styles problem that
you describe... and in fact I have developed (with much help from some
MVPs) a VBA macro that undoes them and restores the intended paragraph
style. I posted it recently on microsoft.public.word.vba (I hope I got
that right... it's the general VBA group for WinWord).

This problem is different, though it's possible its genesis is the
same. The MacWord users can successfully work on their files, and I
can confirm on my PC (with my macro) that they have not introduced any
linked styles (at this point, they are doing little touch-ups to the
text, and doing almost no styling). But there is one big "BUT":
Whereas on their machines, all the style names are fine, on my
machine, looking at the same file, one and only one paragraph style
name has changed, to " Char Char". It's not a linked style -- I can
see in its properties that it is a pure paragraph style. There is
nothing special about the style name that has been changed, except
that it is probably the style that applies to more text than any other
style. My colleague is facing the same situation with the users that
she supports -- except that the most 'common' style there is a
different style name, and that's the one that gets changed. [Let me
emphasise that I don't know for certain that they are the most common
styles in their respective paragraphs -- I have that only based on my
own general observation and on the word of my colleague.]

My response is not suitable for a family newspaper: I need to KNOW that my
user's font formatting AND paragraph formatting will be correct.  And with
this monstrosity, I can't be sure...

Grrrr.....

You and me both, buddy. Staggeringly stupid idea. But check out my
macro; it may help.

 

[Larry]

It occurs to me that I won't likely hear anything back from Microsoft
other than "upgrade to Word 2007" -- which of course I can't do since
the majority of the folks I support are outside of my company and
outside of my control and they use Word 2003.

It also occurs to me to mention that if you use Tools -> Protect, you
can lock the formatting, which will prevent linked styles from being
created. And we're doing that on the Windows side. If only MacWord
2004 had this feature....

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Larry:

I seem to remember that I was one of the MVPs

I spent some time a year or so ago developing a macro to unlink styles in
Word 2003. In Word 2007, I gave up: there are default styles in Word 2007
that are linked styles and you can't change them. The entire "Heading"
series are linked.

Cheers

This would be the very horrid "Linked Styles" ruining your day.

Thanks, John, but that's not actually the problem this time, though it
bears a passing resemblance.

I'm very (and tragically) familiar with the linked styles problem that
you describe... and in fact I have developed (with much help from some
MVPs) a VBA macro that undoes them and restores the intended paragraph
style. I posted it recently on microsoft.public.word.vba (I hope I got
that right... it's the general VBA group for WinWord).

This problem is different, though it's possible its genesis is the
same. The MacWord users can successfully work on their files, and I
can confirm on my PC (with my macro) that they have not introduced any
linked styles (at this point, they are doing little touch-ups to the
text, and doing almost no styling). But there is one big "BUT":
Whereas on their machines, all the style names are fine, on my
machine, looking at the same file, one and only one paragraph style
name has changed, to " Char Char". It's not a linked style -- I can
see in its properties that it is a pure paragraph style. There is
nothing special about the style name that has been changed, except
that it is probably the style that applies to more text than any other
style. My colleague is facing the same situation with the users that
she supports -- except that the most 'common' style there is a
different style name, and that's the one that gets changed. [Let me
emphasise that I don't know for certain that they are the most common
styles in their respective paragraphs -- I have that only based on my
own general observation and on the word of my colleague.]

My response is not suitable for a family newspaper: I need to KNOW that my
user's font formatting AND paragraph formatting will be correct.  And with
this monstrosity, I can't be sure...

Grrrr.....

You and me both, buddy. Staggeringly stupid idea. But check out my
macro; it may help.

You can try Help>Send Feedback.  At least a human being is guaranteed to see
your post if you send it there.  But they won't do anything about it...

Cheers

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]