Styles corrupt? "Char char char" No access to "select all instances"

[Alex]

A few days after I installed Office 2000, the option to
select "select all # instances" of a certain style from
teh format and styles window of a Word document
disappeared (grey and inaccessible). At this point, my
styles started getting corrupt and the names of styles
multiplied with titles like "body text char char char
char char1 char2" etc. I tried deleting them in the
Styles Organizer, and they just reappear the next time I
open the document. I tried cutting and pasting the text
into a new document and all the corrupt styles come with
it unless I just paste the text (many of these are
hyperlinks and cross-references and I don't want to have
to redo them!)

So I thought that maybe Word 2000 broke. I bought Office
2003. I removed Word 2000 and installed Word 2003.
The "select all # instances" option did not return and I
still have the same problem with all the corrupt styles.

I have several hundred pages of text and hyperlinks to
weave together...I created a template initially and stuck
to it. I tried following all the Master Document "rules."
At my wit's end. Help!

Ph.D. thesis grief...
Alex

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Alex,

A few days after I installed Office 2000, the option to
select "select all # instances" of a certain style from
teh format and styles window of a Word document
disappeared (grey and inaccessible). At this point, my
styles started getting corrupt and the names of styles
multiplied with titles like "body text char char char
char char1 char2" etc.

Well, since Word 2000 didn't have "Select all # instances",
nor generate char char char, you must mean Word 2002?

Take a look in Tools/Options/Edit at the "prompt to update
style" and the "Keep track of formatting" options. If both
of these are activated in the original release of Word
2002, you got the problem you describe when you try to
update a style / reset a selection to the underlying style
definition. It was fixed in SP-1 and should also not occur
in Word 2003. Of course, if you're working with damaged
files (including Normal.dot) it's not going to just
disappear because you're working in a different version...

As to the "Select # instances", the "Keep track of
formatting" has to be activated for that to be available.

Getting rid of the char char stuff isn't simple, because
what's happening behind the scenes is that these are linked
to the base paragraph style. You'll find a bit of code on
my website that will help remove the links, so that the
styles can be deleted using Tools/Templates and
Addins/Organizer.

Note for the future that you should NEVER, EVER select some
text then apply a paragraph style. Either select entire
paragraphs, or just leave the cursor blinking in a
paragraph. If you apply a paragraph style to a selection of
characters, Word will generate char styles.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update
Sep 30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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