Remove styles but preserve formatting

[Andrew]

I have inherited a document that has styles randomly applied to text. For
example there is text formatted throughout the document using the "Heading
1" style, often with additional formatting such as bold or underline
applied.

I wish to apply the Heading 1 style to titles that I need to include in a
table of contents. However, first I need to remove this style from all the
existing text. How do I do so whilst preserving the formatting? I cannot
simply remove the style

 

[LH]

Open up the original document as a COPY or in READ-ONLY mode. Select
all the text and copy & paste it into a new document. SAVE the new
document. Now you have some additional choices to make, but you always
have the original document to refer to. I recommend closing the
original document while you go to work on the new document

If you have Word 2003, you can select all the instances where Heading 1
is applied using the Styles and Formatting Pane. Or you can use the
FIND/REPLACE function to search for text where Heading 1 style is in
use. CTRL-SPACEBAR will remove character formatting that is not part of
the style. CTRL-Q will remove paragraph formatting that is not part of
the style. Insert a ToC to check that you have the relevant paragraphs
styled correctly.