Hi Daiya:
{Coming in very late...}
There is a specific exception hard-coded for "Normal Template". If the
document template is Normal Template, then "Automatically update styles on
open" cannot be set and never operates.
Because what Shauna mentions is exactly what used to happen: the random
formatting salad in a user's Normal Template would blow away all of the
formatting in any document they opened, every time. We had to include dire
warnings about always -- always -- using Attached Templates to avoid this.
Now, if the document's template is set to Normal Template, this effectively
divorces the document from any external influences: its style table is held
internally to the document and will never change unless the user explicitly
changes it. Users can now explicitly attach a document to the Normal
Template as a way of saying "Break the link to templates for the
formatting." The document's formatting will then be entirely stored
internally until the user attaches a different template.
If the user does want to update to the styles in his or her document from
the Normal Template, they can check the Tools>Templates and
Add-Ins>Automatically Update... Box. When they do, Word will perform a
one-time-only update and uncheck the box.
Similarly, any updates to styles made in the document will now not affect
the Normal Template unless the user explicitly chooses "Add to Template" in
the Format>Style dialog when making the change.
If the user copies text in from a different document, they will now be
prompted to "Keep source formatting or adopt destination formatting." If
they turn the prompt off, the incoming text will adopt the destination
formatting for same-named styles.
So going back to the user's question about why avoid Normal style: there's
your reason. If you have your Normal style set to, say, Times New Roman 12
points, and you paste in text with Normal Style from a document in which the
Normal Style was set to Verdana 10, it will adopt TNR 12 as its underlying
font. If the font has been overridden in the incoming text by Direct
Formatting, you get a "measles" effect. The direct formatting will be
preserved, but the effect is additive. If the direct formatting specified a
colour of Red and a font of 14 points, but did not specify any other
properties, the pasted text will be red and 14 points in places, but
entirely in TNR font.
The reason they disabled one-click updating of the Normal style is to avoid
this "effect". Normal style is "style 0" in every document. The way Word
works, everything is dependant on the item above it in the various
hierarchies that exist in a document, of which Styles are one. So until you
break the inheritance chain, every style in the document inherits properties
from Normal Style. Consequently, one-click updating Normal style could
instantly ruin the formatting for an entire document!
So documentation professionals tend to treat "Normal Style" as a "label"
that says "This text is yet to be formatted." But it's no longer important
to do this, because the Normal style is now stable unless you go out of your
way to change it.
Hope this helps
Isn't that the case? Sounds so here:
http://shaunakelly.com/word/sharing/WillMyFormatChange.html
"What happens when Word opens a document?
When Word opens a document, it doesn’t care about the styles in the template
on which the document was based …
unless …
you ticked the box at Tools > Templates and Add‑Ins > Automatically Update
Document Styles.
If that box is ticked in your document then, when Word opens the document,
Word searches for the template on which the document was based. If it finds
that template, then Word copies the styles from that template to the
document."
--
Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.
John McGhie <
[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410
