User-defined template problems

[Stephen Miller >]

I have developed a range of templates for my own needs
and typographic sensibilities: now comes the time when I
must submit a number of articles to journals and need to
change to bog standard layout.

Attaching the Normal template (with the update box
ticked) does absolutely nothing bar attach the Normal
template: my chosen type styles etc etc all remain.

Working the other way around, creating a new document
using Normal and pasting in the file does exactly the
same.

Also, I see only the styles used by myself and not the
Normal range.

I have reinstalled Word, removed the My Templates folder
so the pathname is even nolonger valid, open a document
and lo and behold the styles are still there!

Er, I thought the purpose of using templates was so you
could change on the fly look and feel of a document!

What is going wrong here?! (Mac OS X / Word X)

Thanks for any help/advice offered!

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

In your custom templates, are the style names the same as the style names
used in Normal?

I generally use Insert File to do this rather than attaching a template,
though it's supposed to produce the same results.

DM

 

[Larry]

Stephen,

From the symptom I'll assume you're using Word 2002 or XP; if so, the behavior you describe is as expected. Word is being "helpful" and assumes (wrongly) that you want to add the styles from your source document into the new document's list of styles.

There may be a way to configure Word to supress this behavior. but I haven't tested it. In Word 2002, open the Save tab of the Tools > Options dialog. Try the setting labeled "Disable features introduced after...", and see whether going back in the time machine gives you any relief. Good luck.