Styles don't apply in Word 2003

[Nancy C.]

I have just recently started using Word 2003.

Whenever I open a new blank document and try to apply
Heading 1 to text, I get a new "Heading, 1" style, but
none of the formatting of Heading 1 is applied. It does
the same if I click Heading 2, except the "Heading, 1"
turns into "Heading, 2"

In addition, I can't modify the built-in heading styles,
if I try I get the meesage, "This style name already
exists or is reserved for a built-in style."

I have downloaded and installed the updates, and tried a
new Normal.dot, turning off Keep track of formatting, and
uninstalling and reinstalling Word.

Just when I thought I was getting a handle on Word...

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If you're in Normal view, make sure you don't have "Draft font" enabled
(View tab of Tools | Options). Also, in Outline view, you can choose to
display formatting or not.

 

[Nancy C.]

Thank you very much for reply. Would you have another
suggestion? It still isn't working.

 

[Klaus Linke]

"Heading, 1", "Heading, 2"


Hi Nancy,

How do you apply the styles?

From your description, it sounds as if you have a "Heading" style, and are
somehow creating alias names ("1", "2") for it.
Commas in style names mean you have several (alias) names for the same
style.

Greetings,
Klaus

 

[Nancy C.]

Hi Klaus,

I am applying the style by either selecting the entire
paragraph or just placing my cursor into the paragraph. I
am careful not to select part of a word because I had run
into the Char, Char, Char, style issue in earlier versions
of Word, and apparently this was partly a result of
selecting parts of your paragraphs and applying a style.

What is driving me nuts with this "Heading, 1" issue is
that it happens even when I haven't made any changes to
any styles. All I'm trying to do is apply one of the
built-in heading styles. I open a blank document, type
one line of text, apply Heading 1, and then
get "Heading,1" in my style list, and my text doesn't look
any different! The text should appear as the default
Heading 1 style: Arial, 1 pt, Bold..., but its still the
same Times New Roman, 12 pt.

If I then try to modify even just the font size in Heading
1, I get the message "This style name already exists or is
reserved for a built-in style."

These are some of the things I've tried doing to fix it:

Un-installing all my programs, and re-installing Windows,
& Office (just in case Word 2003 doesn't like hanging out
with some of my other programs)
Running a virus scan
Confirming Keep track of changes is not selected
Confirming Draft Font is not selected
Following the suggestions in the Knowledge base article
821715 "HOW TO: Rename the Normal.dot Global Template in
Microsoft Office Word 2003" which included trying the
Troubleshoot utility in the Support Template.

Any other suggestions???? Please...

 

[Klaus Linke]

Hi Nancy,

I can't think of an explanation right now...
Does it also happen when you apply the heading styles with Alt+Ctrl+1,
Alt+Ctrl+2?
Does it also happen with documents based on another template?

Klaus

 

[Nancy C.]

I know it happens with documents based on another
template. Someone had sent me a document that I had to
make changes to and I had tried re-applying the Heading 1
style with no luck.

I will try the keyboard shortcut and let you know.

Thank you very much for all your suggestions.

 

[Bob S]

I have just recently started using Word 2003.

Whenever I open a new blank document and try to apply
Heading 1 to text, I get a new "Heading, 1" style, but
none of the formatting of Heading 1 is applied. It does
the same if I click Heading 2, except the "Heading, 1"
turns into "Heading, 2"

In addition, I can't modify the built-in heading styles,
if I try I get the meesage, "This style name already
exists or is reserved for a built-in style."

I have downloaded and installed the updates, and tried a
new Normal.dot, turning off Keep track of formatting, and
uninstalling and reinstalling Word.

Just when I thought I was getting a handle on Word...

One of the advantages of using a brand new version of Word (i.e. any
version that hasn't had at least two service releases) is that you get
to deal with nice fresh bugs instead of the usual boring old stale
bugs.

In this case it sounds as though Word has decided that your attempt to
apply a style should be interpreted as an attempt to define a new
style by example. Thus it creates a new style with the formatting that
you have provided. Since you didn't have quotation marks around the
two parts of the name, it apparently decided that they were a name and
an alias.

The intriguing question is why Word performed this unnatural act when
you simply tried to apply a style. Microsoft probably never actually
tested it, but at least one beta tester must have applied a heading
style at some point, and probably would have noticed this odd behavior
if it happened to them.

So I suspect that one of your settings in Tools | Options must be
unusual. Do you have anything interesting set in any option that
involves what formats are displayed, or what happens when selecting?

Bob S