Outline Numbering, Word XP, Paste Among Docs, Styles linked to wrong template after paste

[Julie]

Hi all,



I poured through thread after thread on Word XP numbering woes and cannot
find any mention of my problem. A quick answer would be helpful as I don't
have time to pour through every thread.



Word XP, SR3, Windows 2K



Situation:

- Using outline numbering with styles

- Styles all properly linked to named list templates in both source and
target documents

- Paragraphs linked to the correct list templates in both source and target
documents

- multiple outline schemes in both documents (one Heading scheme plus five
other schemes in both documents)

- All schemes "healthy" in both source and target document before the paste



Then,



Paste from source document to target document. What happens (seems
random) - All scheme styles for the pasted text become linked to a different
list template. That "different" list template is, CONSISTENTLY, one
previous in the list templates collection.



This happens when pasting into new empty document containing all of the
schemes and scheme styles, plus when paste into target document where scheme
styles are applied. Happens with the Heading scheme and with custom
schemes.



This does not happen consistently. I can test and test and test with the
same documents until the cows come home and then, just as I think I have
discovered a setting or condition that replicates it, it stops happening -
only to start again out of the blue. It seems to go in cycles, but I cannot
identify what causes the cycle.



I have tried turning off all of the new paste features for Word XP, and
tried a variety of combination with those settings on. Have also tried
turning off all autocorrect features.



As well, Have programmatically tried pasting with various paste options.



Still stumped. Has anyone else observed this problem. I need to use
outline numbered styles in Word XP for reasons that I won't detail, and
desperately require a fix for this problem. I can, if absolutely necessary,
programmatically correct the schemes with a paste macro but would very much
like to avoid that.



Thanks in advance,

Julie

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Julie

I have experienced this in Word of various versions, with various service
packs.

However, it's very hard to reproduce this phenomenon exactly. If you have an
example you can reproduce, even if it happens only occasionally, could you
send me the files by private email? Remove any sensitive content: what
matters is the styles and the LTs.

I have never found a reliable solution apart from VBA code to re-create all
the numbering schemes in the target document. I suspect (but I'm not sure)
that it's more reliable to paste into a document that contains *no* list
templates of any kind. But of course you can't prevent real life and users'
needs from interfering with that rule.

Shauna


Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[Julie]

Thank you for the reply Shauna,

I did some further testing today and can now find a way to reproduce it
consistently. Unfortunately, I cannot yet find a way to avoid it
consistently.

In testing today, I noticed that if I pasted among documents that were
created from the same template, I did not encounter the error. I then
started chasing that down, but it now seems as though that was a red
herring.

I can now replicate it consistently with Word XP, SR3, Windows
2K. It seems to be that if the schemes were created in a different a ORDER
in
source and target documents, then the problem occurs even if documents were
created from the same template.

You may be able to reproduce it without my files. Here's a simple test:

Two documents, each with seven schemes: Heading, Recital, Scheme_A,
Scheme_B, Scheme_C, Scheme_D & Scheme_E

Schemes were created programmatically. All list templates are named.

1st Document, schemes created in this order
Heading
Recital
Scheme_A
Scheme_B
Scheme C
Scheme D
Scheme E

2nd document, schemes created in this order:
Scheme A
Scheme B
Scheme C
Scheme D
Scheme E
Heading
Recital

In both documents, the schemes are identical except for the order in which
they were created. List template names are also identical among the 2
documents.

Before paste among documents, all is well in both documents.

Test 1. In document #1, Create a few paragraphs styled with Heading 1 and
Heading 2 then copy and paste them into document 2,

Results of changes in document after the paste:

- All 9 Heading styles - list template name is now what was formerly the
name for Scheme C
- All 9 Scheme_C - list template name is what was formerly the name for
Scheme B
- All 9 Recital Styles - list template name is now what was formerly the
name for Heading Scheme
- All Scheme_B - list template now has no name
Schemes A, D and E survived the operation - list template names still as
they were before the paste

So what happened to the List template for the Recital Scheme?... Looks like
Word stripped the list template name - there is no longer a list template in
the collection with that name.

Test 2: create a copy of document 1 and paste from document 1 into the copy
of document 1 - no problem.

Now, further testing suggests (and I will have to test more on the weekend
to be certain) that the styles are actually linked to the original list
templates, but what has gone sideways is that Word has mixed up the names of
the list templates. I need to test with a variety of numbering styles to be
sure. - The recital scheme is different than the others. For level 1, Tab
position is 1" and Text position is 0. For all other schemes, tab/text
position are for cascading .5" hanging indents. After the paste, I evaluate
the list template properties for the recital scheme (which now carries the
name that, before paste, was the list template name for the Heading Scheme)
I see that the list template properties are correct for the Recital scheme,
but the name is wrong.

I cannot replicate the problem with Word 2000 running under Windows XP or
Windows NT using documents originating from Word 2000.

The tests above were created in Word XP for the purpose of writing this
message. After testing in XP, I opened the same test documents in Word 2000
and cannot replicate the problem with 2000

My problem - my numbering tools rely heavily on use of the list template
names to manage the numbering. I cannot control the order in which list
templates are created - that is up to the user.

I have tested enough to be reasonably confident that it doesn't make
difference whether the list templates NAMES in source and target are
identical.

Hopefully this sheds some light on things.

Any ideas?

Thank-you,
Julie

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Julie

Thanks for the detailed documentation. I doubt I'll get time till the
weekend to go into it thoroughly, but I'll have a look at it then.

Shauna

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[Julie]

Thanks Shauna

Like you, I won't have more time to spend on it before the weekend, but have
some things to try, one is: I do not recall the problem happening early in
the development phase for my current XP rollout. Early in the game, I was
being extremely cautious and forcing documents to be saved before adding new
schemes. Users did not like that restriction, so I edited the scheme create
macro to allow its use with an unsaved document.

I am wondering if there is a connection there. For the samples created
yesterday, I saved the document only once - after creating all of the
schemes. I will test that on Sunday to see if it sheds any light on the
problem..

Regards,
Julie

 

[Julie]

Shauna,

More info is available:- After that last post, I re-built a couple of
templates and saved after creating each scheme. The results were good, so
good that I rebuilt all of the core templates for the system! Now, I can
copy and paste text numbered among documents created from any of the new
templates without encountering problems (except, of course, for the known
problem with direct formatting being added to paragraphs when the style
properties differ among documents!).

I was hoping that would be the end of this problem, but unfortunately, that
is not so.

If find that there is at least one more thing that is triggering the
problem. If I add a new heading scheme and use a new list template for the
new scheme (renaming the old list template to "") the problem returns. The
same problem does not arise if I create a new scheme using one of the custom
style sets. That is where I had to drop the matter to meet a deadline for
training tomorrow and Saturday, but will test further with it Sunday.

Regards,
Julie