Normal.dot

[Gary D.]

Help! This is driving me crazy.

I have Office97 running on Windows98 and recently I've reinstalled
both from scratch after reformatting my hard disk.
I mention this only in passing as I've been experiencing the same
problems both before and after reinstallation.

The problems are...

1. When formatting text in a normal (.doc or .rtf) document, whether
text in a table or not, there are occasions when changing ordinary
text impacts all other text in the document.

For example, selecting one word and applying BOLD (or whatever)
changes not only the selected text but ALL text within the document,
both before and after the selected text. However, if I immediately hit
Ctrl+Z the selected text is correctly formatted but all other text
returns to its former settings, so the end result is the intended
formatting is achieved. This is a damned nuisance.

2. Another (possibly related) problem is that text in a table becomes
assigned all manner of standard styles, e.g. Heading 4, Comment Text,
Normal, etc., even in a simple two-column table. When I apply the
"Normal" style to any of the table's cells (or individual text, or the
entire table or the entire document) the formatting appears to work
okay but the moment I move the cursor away and then back to the text
in question I see that the style named in the style box is not the
Normal style but any of the others I've listed above (and sometimes
different ones entirely).
I've tried modifying my Styles to set Normal font as Verdana 10pt.
What is going on here?

 

[Martha]

I have Office97 running on Windows98 [...]
1. When formatting text in a normal (.doc or .rtf) document, whether
text in a table or not, there are occasions when changing ordinary
text impacts all other text in the document. [...]
2. Another (possibly related) problem is that text in a table becomes
assigned all manner of standard styles, e.g. Heading 4, Comment Text,
Normal, etc., even in a simple two-column table.

Open your Normal.dot template. (Easiest way is to find it via Windows
Explorer, then right-click and select Open.) Go to Format > Style.
Tell it to list all styles. Go through the list of styles and look at
each description. If the description of a style includes the words
"Automatically update", click Modify, then UNcheck the box for that
setting and click OK.

When you've made sure that NONE of your styles are set to
automatically update, close the Style dialog. Go to Tools >
Autocorrect. On the 'Autoformat as you type' tab, UNcheck pretty much
everything in the top portion (Apply as you type), but especially
Headings.

(Note: these instructions are based on Word2K, but I *think* it should
be the same, or reasonably close, in Word97. I just don't have a 97
installed anywhere that's handy.)

When you're done, save and close Normal.dot, then close Word. If you
have misbehaving documents, you'll need to either fix their styles
manually as outlined above (ugh, I know), or update them based on
normal.dot. Unfortunately, the latter is an area where I know there
were changes between versions, so I can't give you how-to
instructions.

 

[Gary D.]

I have Office97 running on Windows98 [...]
1. When formatting text in a normal (.doc or .rtf) document, whether
text in a table or not, there are occasions when changing ordinary
text impacts all other text in the document. [...]
2. Another (possibly related) problem is that text in a table becomes
assigned all manner of standard styles, e.g. Heading 4, Comment Text,
Normal, etc., even in a simple two-column table.

Open your Normal.dot template. (Easiest way is to find it via Windows
Explorer, then right-click and select Open.) Go to Format > Style.
Tell it to list all styles. Go through the list of styles and look at
each description. If the description of a style includes the words
"Automatically update", click Modify, then UNcheck the box for that
setting and click OK.

When you've made sure that NONE of your styles are set to
automatically update, close the Style dialog. Go to Tools >
Autocorrect. On the 'Autoformat as you type' tab, UNcheck pretty much
everything in the top portion (Apply as you type), but especially
Headings.

(Note: these instructions are based on Word2K, but I *think* it should
be the same, or reasonably close, in Word97. I just don't have a 97
installed anywhere that's handy.)

When you're done, save and close Normal.dot, then close Word. If you
have misbehaving documents, you'll need to either fix their styles
manually as outlined above (ugh, I know), or update them based on
normal.dot. Unfortunately, the latter is an area where I know there
were changes between versions, so I can't give you how-to
instructions.

That seems to have worked, although you're right - it is a pain having
to do this to all offending documents.

Thanks Martha