Turn off global formatting changes

[LTA]

Whenever I apply a formatting change to a highlighted body of text,
Word typically changes the entire document, which then needs to be
undone. Can someone please tell me how to turn off this global
formatting change?

Thanks!

 

[Elliott Roper]

Whenever I apply a formatting change to a highlighted body of text,
Word typically changes the entire document, which then needs to be
undone. Can someone please tell me how to turn off this global
formatting change?

It is not one of Word's most endearing defaults is it?
Put the insertion point in a paragraph of the style that is being
changed when you don't want it to.
Format » style... » modify. In the panel that appears, uncheck
automatically update.

You will need to do this for every style that gets changed unbidden I
think.

God knows what they were thinking of when thay made that the default.

Even with it unchecked, you may sometimes get my favourite example of
Word brain-damage. A box will appear after you have butchered a
paragraph asking you, in spite of the setting, if you want to update
your style to match the paragraph. You tell it "No you addle-pated
moron, I have already told you that I will always change my styles
explicitly." Then it asks if you want to "automatically update styles
in future". It is taking the piss. How I long for another question on
that panel. "Never ask again, the answer's NO It will always be NO and
why did you ask in the fiirst place? Can't you read your own
settings?!"

Because of this misbehaviour, it is not a great idea to apply manual
formatting to any part of any Word document. It is better by far to
develop a set of styles for all your documents, and then apply the
style when you want to change formatting. Your work ends up more
consistent, and you are no longer tempted to fling your Macca across
the room when Word goes feral.

Word's numbering remains a launching matter.

 

[LTA]

Thanks, Elliott!

It is not one of Word's most endearing defaults is it?
Put the insertion point in a paragraph of the style that is being
changed when you don't want it to.
Format » style... » modify. In the panel that appears, uncheck
automatically update.

You will need to do this for every style that gets changed unbidden I
think.

God knows what they were thinking of when thay made that the default.

Even with it unchecked, you may sometimes get my favourite example of
Word brain-damage. A box will appear after you have butchered a
paragraph asking you, in spite of the setting, if you want to update
your style to match the paragraph. You tell it "No you addle-pated
moron, I have already told you that I will always change my styles
explicitly." Then it asks if you want to "automatically update styles
in future". It is taking the piss. How I long for another question on
that panel. "Never ask again, the answer's NO It will always be NO and
why did you ask in the fiirst place? Can't you read your own
settings?!"

Because of this misbehaviour, it is not a great idea to apply manual
formatting to any part of any Word document. It is better by far to
develop a set of styles for all your documents, and then apply the
style when you want to change formatting. Your work ends up more
consistent, and you are no longer tempted to fling your Macca across
the room when Word goes feral.

Word's numbering remains a launching matter.

 

[Clive Huggan]

Cher ange,

Further to what Elliott said, with which I agree entirely (including his
sparkling adjectives), if you want to read up more on what's involved in
using styles, take a look at pages 81-104 of some notes on the way I use
Word for the Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will", which are available as a
free download from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html).

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================

 

[Phillip M. Jones, CE.T.]

It is not one of Word's most endearing defaults is it?
Put the insertion point in a paragraph of the style that is being
changed when you don't want it to.
Format » style... » modify. In the panel that appears, uncheck
automatically update.

You will need to do this for every style that gets changed unbidden I
think.

God knows what they were thinking of when thay made that the default.

Even with it unchecked, you may sometimes get my favourite example of
Word brain-damage. A box will appear after you have butchered a
paragraph asking you, in spite of the setting, if you want to update
your style to match the paragraph. You tell it "No you addle-pated
moron, I have already told you that I will always change my styles
explicitly." Then it asks if you want to "automatically update styles
in future". It is taking the piss. How I long for another question on
that panel. "Never ask again, the answer's NO It will always be NO and
why did you ask in the fiirst place? Can't you read your own
settings?!"

Because of this misbehaviour, it is not a great idea to apply manual
formatting to any part of any Word document. It is better by far to
develop a set of styles for all your documents, and then apply the
style when you want to change formatting. Your work ends up more
consistent, and you are no longer tempted to fling your Macca across
the room when Word goes feral.

Word's numbering remains a launching matter.

Gee Elliott, tell us how you really feel! You know MS doesn't get
anything wrong! ;-)

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Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
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[Elliott Roper]

Hi Elliott:

You're remarkably restrained today: feeling a little mellow, are we?? Pah!

I have a damaging confession to make... I sometimes turn Automatically
Update on when I am creating a template. It makes tweaking things a breeze,
provided that you remember to turn the damned thing OFF when you've finished
playing

Dunno. It is good for the discipline to explicitly define everything in
a style and to check what inherits from it at the same time. Auto
update is a very slippery thing indeed.

Generally, if you switch it on or off from Normal style, the setting should
inherit down the whole chain of styles in a particular document.

I have dissociated every style in my templates from normal. Mostly to
avoid inheritance nightmares from other people's documents.
If I remember correctly, it was on your advice that I put everything
into an explicit global template. It has served me well.

Unfortunately, Microsoft is currently trying to take Word down-market to
make it more suitable for use in kiddies play-pens. All the carefully
designed and constructed tools that made Word the premier complex-document
creation tool are all being ruined, one by one.

Now who is being curmudgeonly?
You are probably right.

There is a chance that we will be able to stop the rot in the next version,
but we'll have to do it ourselves: Microsoft is hell-bent on making Word
more popular with people who don't know how publishing, at the expense of
those who do.

It is a tricky game. There is a lot of money in the hard-of-learning
middle managment market that Microsoft is loath to lose. Word has
probably got away from them, and it will never again be predictable
enough and clear enough and consistent enough to let people climb over
the play-pen fence.

The coming XML based doc formats will be a double edged sword for MS.
On one hand they get Massachusetts back, on the other, it will be
easier for someone to write a professional word processor without all
the bloat and still have their docs readable by PHBs without getting
their PAs to print it off.