Permanently Saving Style Changes

[pastorjustin]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Hello.

I am new to Word for Mac and I am having some difficulty with permanently saving the Style Changes that I make to documents. I am using Word 08.

The changes will always appear in that one document, but I don't know how to save them so that the updated style will be applied to all documents in that theme.

I like to customize the look and layout of my documents and then reuse the same layout for similar documents. At this time, I have to customize every single one instead of making a pre-formed pattern.

If anyone can offer insight it would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Justin

 

[mdh]

I'd recommend reading Clive's tome: Bend Word To Your Will

http://word.mvps.org/mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html

It hasn't been updated for Word 2008, but the majority of the
principles still apply and it provides a strong hand of guidance to
help you avoid a number of the pitfalls of how Word operates.

Matt

 

[CyberTaz]

You're correct in your conclusion: Custom styles are specific to the
document in which you create them.

There is a checkbox in the dialog for "Add to Template". When checked the
style will be stored in the template on which the document is based & added
to the dozens of built-in styles Word provides. However, most experienced
users will suggest that you not save all your styles in the Normal.docm
template for several reasons.

First, Normal is subject to corruption. If it does corrupt you've lost all
your hard work unless you maintain a current backup of Normal. Second, it
makes it more complicated to deal with your styles if you have any number of
different ones for differently purposed document types -- everything is in
every document whether you need it or not. Also, it can become a rat's nest
to have a variety of unrelated styles which may be based on various other
styles in that template because modifying one style may have an unwanted
effect on others.

Instead, it's a good idea to create your own document templates. Each
template would include the styles needed for that type of document as well
as margin settings, Headers/Footers, and all other specs & "standard"
content. Each new document would then be created via the Project Gallery
based on the appropriate template.

You might have a look at the information on templates here but disregard
anything that refers to Macros or VBA as VBA isn't supported in Office 2008.
[It will return in the next major release, however.]

http://word.mvps.org/mac/UsingWord-macIndex.html#Templates

One additional note: Existing documents do not "inherit" styles that have
been added to the template on which they're based if the style was added
after the doc was created. However, you can use the Organizer to copy styles
from one do/template to another. Also, if you copy styled content from one
doc to another the style transfers with the text.

 

[CyberTaz]

Correction:

"... in the Normal.docm" should read as "... in the Normal.dotm" -- Sorry
for the typo

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac