styles adding "char"

[Abbi]

Word 2002 SP-2. All of a sudden a document I've been
working on a lot is getting "Char" added to the paragraph
styles. I have a paragraph style such as Text_standard.
It has a certain shortcut. Now the list of styles
has "Text_standard Char Char". The shortcut doesn't work
any more.

I've had this problem before, and I was told that it was
a bug that was fixed with SP-2. I got SP-2 and it seemed
to go away. Now it's back again.

It's difficult to describe in polite language how
frustrating this is. I've used styles since Word for Dos,
and they just seem to be getting MORE not less difficult.

Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions I would greatly
appreciate it.

 

[Greg Maxey]

Abbi,

Is Tools>Options>Edit>Keep Track of Formatting checked? Yes, uncheck it.

 

[Cindy Meister -WordMVP-]

Hi Abbi,

You have to make sure to NEVER, EVER apply a paragraph style
to a text selection that doesn't contain a paragraph mark.
If you do apply a paragraph style to text with no paragraph
mark, then Word generates a character style linked to your
paragraph style.

The only thing an SP does is to "hide" this a bit better,
and to fix the bug Greg refers to (when two particular
options are activated simultaneously and you update the
style by example).

Word 2002 SP-2. All of a sudden a document I've been
working on a lot is getting "Char" added to the paragraph
styles. I have a paragraph style such as Text_standard.
It has a certain shortcut. Now the list of styles
has "Text_standard Char Char". The shortcut doesn't work
any more.

I've had this problem before, and I was told that it was
a bug that was fixed with SP-2. I got SP-2 and it seemed
to go away. Now it's back again.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jan
24 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any
follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[Abbi]

Okay, I guess I must have applied a paragraph style to some text while there
was a selection within the paragraph instead of the cursor alone. (I don't
remember that being a problem before, but obviously it is now!)

I still don't get it though. What does it mean for Word to link a character
style to a paragraph style? Where has the paragraph style gone? Or, more to
the point, how do I get it back?

Thanks for your help,

Abbi

 

[Abbi]

By the way, Tools Options Edit Keep track of formatting was not turned on.

Abbi

 

[Abbi]

Greg and Cindy,

I've been trying to replicate the problem, with partial success.

I made a new paragraph style, and selected some text not including a
paragraph marker, and applied the new paragraph style. It didn't add "Char"
to the name of the style, but it did cause the 'style type' box to be greyed
out and it says "paragraph and character" instead of just "paragraph".

I wonder why the Style type line is greyed out sometimes, and why it has a
value that can change even though its greyed out (from "Paragraph" to
"Paragraph and character")? You'd think the solution would be to change the
style type back to "Paragraph" after it inadvertently gets changed to
"paragraph and character"; but it's greyed out...

Abbi

 

[Cindy Meister -WordMVP-]

Hi Abbi,

Okay, I guess I must have applied a paragraph style to some text while there
was a selection within the paragraph instead of the cursor alone. (I don't
remember that being a problem before, but obviously it is now!)

This misbehavior only started in Word 2002. It was part of an effort to help
users apply formatting more consistently and correctly, but it backfired...

I still don't get it though. What does it mean for Word to link a character
style to a paragraph style? Where has the paragraph style gone? Or, more to
the point, how do I get it back?

The assumption is, if you apply a paragraph style to characters, that you'd
like to format some of your text to always look like the paragraph style. So a
character style is created with the same font definitions as the paragraph
style. Then the two are linked so that changing the font definition of one
automatically changes the font definition of the other to match.

The paragraph style is still there, but the character style "overlays" it.
You'll find sample code on my website to remove the character style: it links
it to a different, "temporary" style in your document, then deletes it (and
with it the temporary paragraph style).

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jan 24 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or
reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail