What is "Body Text?"

[Alls Quiet]

I opened a document for which the Normal Style is Times New Roman, 12
point. I pasted (not Special Pasted, just Pasted) a Cut of Times New
Roman 11 point text at the very beginning of the document.

In order to do this, I had to hit Enter/Enter/Enter (or Paragraph/
Paragraph/Paragraph). After the text was pasted, the Style changed
from Normal to "Body Text."

If someone could just tell me how Body Text is different from Normal--
or what in tarnation it exactly is--I would appreciate it. Thank you.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I don't pretend to claim that it will answer your question in this context,
but see http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NormalVsBodyStyles.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Alls Quiet]

I don't pretend to claim that it will answer your question in this context,
but seehttp://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NormalVsBodyStyles.htm

Thank you. The article was quite helpful.

 

[Alls Quiet]

Thank you. The article was quite helpful.

Ms. Barnhill, Since yours is sincerely the only article I have found
online that defines Body Text (I've done searches on several engines
and come up with nothing more than simple definitions), I reread the
article yesterday and realized I had misconstrued it. My main question
is why you would want to have a document of a "permanent, structured
nature" (great description, by the way) based on something that is--
unless ticked otherwise--dependent on Normal. In fact, before
beginning these two threads here on this forum, my understanding was
that Normal is the cornerstone or building-block on which all other
styles are built.

Indeed, you say as much in the article. So since this is the case,
wouldn't a document of a "permanent, structured nature" be built most
fittingly on the Style that is the one to which you revert most often?
I mean, isn't that why people design their own default Normal to begin
with? The point is that Body Text seems redundant and its name
misleading, insofar as it is nothing more than an additional Style to
choose from (for example, I did not know there were 6 points after
each paragraph; frankly, I still don't understand--unless one is
talking digital photography--the denotation of the word "point" within
Microsoft WORD at all)?

I wanted to post this in the event that future WORD users waste as
much time as I have wasted with the problem I have written about here
and that still is not fixed.

Perhaps I should ask how, if one is using a template one did not
create but rather downloaded online, one can find ALL the formatting
employed in the template. This is the final (and really *only*)
explanation for my backspacing problem: i.e., where Normal reverts to
Body Text. If there is something "programmed" into the template that
defines the Style as Body Text as default, then that would explain (I
suppose) my ongoing and unaddressed issue.

 

[Graham Mayor]

*EVERY* paragraph in a document is formatted with a style. Every unique
paragraph format should have its own style. You cannot avoid styles in Word.
It is a style driven application.

Body Text is one of a whole raft of built-in style names that can be used by
Word documents. It can be used as provided or modified to your personal
requirements.

Whether you choose normal or body text, some other style, built-in or
created by you as your preferred style is a matter for you. Styles simply
ensure that you have a consistent appearance that can easily be changed by
modifying the style.

Styles do NOT have to be based on the normal style, and while the original
body text style as supplied (I haven't checked) may be based on the normal
style, it can be changed to be based on another style or on no style.
Suzanne's web page would have been correct until Word 2007, when Microsoft
changed the layout of the normal style.

You can display all the available styles from the styles task pane
CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+S and change the option to display All styles.

FWIW A point is a unit of measurement that has been used in typesetting
since long before word processing. For desktop publishing purposes there are
72 points to the inch.

Thank you. The article was quite helpful.

Ms. Barnhill, Since yours is sincerely the only article I have found
online that defines Body Text (I've done searches on several engines
and come up with nothing more than simple definitions), I reread the
article yesterday and realized I had misconstrued it. My main question
is why you would want to have a document of a "permanent, structured
nature" (great description, by the way) based on something that is--
unless ticked otherwise--dependent on Normal. In fact, before
beginning these two threads here on this forum, my understanding was
that Normal is the cornerstone or building-block on which all other
styles are built.

Indeed, you say as much in the article. So since this is the case,
wouldn't a document of a "permanent, structured nature" be built most
fittingly on the Style that is the one to which you revert most often?
I mean, isn't that why people design their own default Normal to begin
with? The point is that Body Text seems redundant and its name
misleading, insofar as it is nothing more than an additional Style to
choose from (for example, I did not know there were 6 points after
each paragraph; frankly, I still don't understand--unless one is
talking digital photography--the denotation of the word "point" within
Microsoft WORD at all)?

I wanted to post this in the event that future WORD users waste as
much time as I have wasted with the problem I have written about here
and that still is not fixed.

Perhaps I should ask how, if one is using a template one did not
create but rather downloaded online, one can find ALL the formatting
employed in the template. This is the final (and really *only*)
explanation for my backspacing problem: i.e., where Normal reverts to
Body Text. If there is something "programmed" into the template that
defines the Style as Body Text as default, then that would explain (I
suppose) my ongoing and unaddressed issue.

 

[Steve Hayes]

Indeed, you say as much in the article. So since this is the case,
wouldn't a document of a "permanent, structured nature" be built most
fittingly on the Style that is the one to which you revert most often?
I mean, isn't that why people design their own default Normal to begin
with? The point is that Body Text seems redundant and its name
misleading, insofar as it is nothing more than an additional Style to
choose from (for example, I did not know there were 6 points after
each paragraph; frankly, I still don't understand--unless one is
talking digital photography--the denotation of the word "point" within
Microsoft WORD at all)?

Because normal can be changed on each computer, a document built on Normal
will change depending on the settings of that computer. I have me Normal set
to Bookman Old Style 12 point. On most computers it is Times New Roman 10
point.

But Body Text goes with the document. So if my Normal is basted on Bookman Old
Style, the Body Test that is stored with the document will remain that,
regardless of what any other computer's Normal is set to.

 

[Alls Quiet]

Because normal can be changed on each computer, a document built on Normal
will change depending on the settings of that computer. I have me Normal set
to Bookman Old Style 12 point. On most computers it is Times New Roman 10
point.

But Body Text goes with the document. So if my Normal is basted on Bookman Old
Style, the Body Test that is stored with the document will remain that,
regardless of what any other computer's Normal is set to.

AH! I didn't know this. So (if you'd be so kind, because this all is
and always has been a tad recondite) what you're saying is that if I
copy a document formatted on *my* computer in "Normal" (in my case
Times New Roman, 11 point), but then, say, go the library and work on
the library's version of Word--and the library's version of "Normal"
is Century Gothic, 12 point, Justified, with First Line Indents--my
document will open not in Times New Roman 11 point but in the
library's "Normal?"

Secondly, are you saying that if I format a document using Body Text
(which for me would be no different from Normal), if I open that
document in another person's or another institution's Word program, my
formatting will be retained? Thank you *VERY* much for finally
breaking through or beginning to break through my confusion
surrounding these two Styles.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

No, this is not true. All the styles (including Normal) travel with the
document; see
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/templates/templaterelations.html. Unless you
have "Automatically update document styles" enabled for a given document,
any modifications you make to any style in that document will persist in
that document. If you do have that option enabled, then not only Normal but
also Body Text and any other built-in styles you have modified will be reset
to the template defaults when you open the document. The only styles that
would not change would be user-defined styles that you have created in that
document (they don't exist in the template) and that are not based on any
style that exists in the template.

For more on how styles inherit from each other, see
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styles/howstylescascade.html

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Graham Mayor]

Steve I regret is wrong. That is not what happens. The format settings you
apply to a document are stored with the document.
You would have to have the option set in the templates dialog to
automatically update the document styles to match those of the template on
another (or the same) PC. Otherwise they stay as you set them (within the
constraints provided by the active printer driver and the availability of
the identical fonts).
Normal and Body Text are simply two differently formatted (by default)
styles. They only have the significance you give to them by applying them to
your document. They can be directly related to one another or not according
to their configuration.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

Because normal can be changed on each computer, a document built on Normal
will change depending on the settings of that computer. I have me Normal
set
to Bookman Old Style 12 point. On most computers it is Times New Roman 10
point.

But Body Text goes with the document. So if my Normal is basted on Bookman
Old
Style, the Body Test that is stored with the document will remain that,
regardless of what any other computer's Normal is set to.

AH! I didn't know this. So (if you'd be so kind, because this all is
and always has been a tad recondite) what you're saying is that if I
copy a document formatted on *my* computer in "Normal" (in my case
Times New Roman, 11 point), but then, say, go the library and work on
the library's version of Word--and the library's version of "Normal"
is Century Gothic, 12 point, Justified, with First Line Indents--my
document will open not in Times New Roman 11 point but in the
library's "Normal?"

Secondly, are you saying that if I format a document using Body Text
(which for me would be no different from Normal), if I open that
document in another person's or another institution's Word program, my
formatting will be retained? Thank you *VERY* much for finally
breaking through or beginning to break through my confusion
surrounding these two Styles.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

To add further to the contrast of Normal and Body Text, my primary reason
for recommending Body Text (or Body Text First Indent) as the basic body
style is this: Many users (especially those typing school papers with a
prescribed format) want almost all the text in the document to be
double-spaced, with a first-line indent. But if you format Normal this way,
then every style based on Normal will inherit those settings (including, by
default, all headings). That can apply to many things you don't envision,
such as the footnote separator, which will be indented and double-spaced. So
I prefer to leave Normal alone and use some flavor of Body Text for the body
of the document. Headings and other built-in styles can then be
independently modified as required, and Normal paragraphs can be modified
with direct font/paragraph formatting for one-time special uses.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Steve Hayes]

AH! I didn't know this. So (if you'd be so kind, because this all is
and always has been a tad recondite) what you're saying is that if I
copy a document formatted on *my* computer in "Normal" (in my case
Times New Roman, 11 point), but then, say, go the library and work on
the library's version of Word--and the library's version of "Normal"
is Century Gothic, 12 point, Justified, with First Line Indents--my
document will open not in Times New Roman 11 point but in the
library's "Normal?"

Not quite. It will remain as you typed it, but if you type something else in
it on the library computer, it will appear in that computer's Normal, and can
make your text took horribly inconsistent.

Secondly, are you saying that if I format a document using Body Text
(which for me would be no different from Normal), if I open that
document in another person's or another institution's Word program, my
formatting will be retained?

Yes, that is what should happen.

For example I recently received a document for editing from someone in Hong
Kong.

I set up a style based on the publisher's style - so Body Text was double
spaced, first line indented, and unjustified.

But she had typed all the headings in Normal, and half the footnotes in
Normal, I changed the headings to Heading styles (according to the publisher's
guidelines), and the Footnotes as footnote text. When I sent it back to her,
it would appear on her computer as it appeared on mine.



Thank you *VERY* much for finally

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Not quite. It will remain as you typed it, but if you type something else

in
it on the library computer, it will appear in that computer's Normal, and
can
make your text took horribly inconsistent.

Still not true. A document, once created, is entirely divorced from its
template. The formatting of Normal in the library's Normal.dot would have no
effect unless "Automatically update document styles" were enabled.

It seems you also need to read
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/templaterelations/index.html

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Alls Quiet]

Still not true. A document, once created, is entirely divorced from its
template. The formatting of Normal in the library's Normal.dot would haveno
effect unless "Automatically update document styles" were enabled.

It seems you also need to readhttp://www.shaunakelly.com/word/templaterelations/index.html

Ms. Barnhill (et. al.), I do appreciate these responses, more than
you'd know. It has been awful to spend twenty years using a program
more than I use/read my particular holy book, and then not really
understand the extent of its capabilities. The course I took in Word
in 2003 was helpful to an extent, in that it showed the range of
Word's functions. I believe, however--as someone who created two
scholarly manuscripts and tons of less heavily formatted manuscripts
on the software--that people *want* to regard Word as a computerized
typewriter. I am one of them.

One of the reasons for this is that Word gets unnecessarily and, in my
opinion, pretentiously...garrulous and redundant. Taking the above
post by Mr. Hayes, I was able to comprehend it until he started
talking about Header Styles, or *the* Header Style. How much more or
less difficult is it to Select All in a header (or footer) and then
click to change the Font and other formatting than it is to go into
the header area, and then have to use the drop-down menu to choose
Header Style? That's a rhetorical question, of course; and one can go
about reformatting each document 'til the cows come home--and THAT is
exactly what most Word users do, simply because the surfeit of
choices, worded with verbs vague in context (i.e., "Automatically
update Styles), make it less tedious to just ignore EVERYTHING and
reformat-as-you-go.

Again, thanks.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

There *is* a single built-in Header style (and also a Footer style). This is
not to be confused with the built-in heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2,
etc.), which are used in the body of the document. That's not to say that
you absolutely have to modify the Header style just to change the formatting
of the header, and in fact sometimes it's unwise to do so. In fact, if you
want distinct formatting in odd and even headers, you are better advised to
create specific styles for the two (or at least one additional style for one
or the other) so that you can update them independently.

But note that it isn't necessary to go through the Modify Style | Format
route to update a style. There are many ways of updating a style by example,
the easiest of which (though it's problematic because it's not subject to
Undo) is to add the Redefine Style command to a toolbar button and use it as
required. To use any of these methods, you basically apply the formatting
you want a given style to have and then tell Word to redefine that style to
have that formatting. Word 2002 and above make this possible through the
Styles & Formatting task pane, where the Update to Match Selection command
is available for every style except Normal. In earlier versions, if you
reselect the style in the Style dropdown, you will get a dialog box asking
whether you want to "Update the style to reflect recent changes" or "Reapply
the formatting of the style to the selection." (In Word 2002 and 2003 you
won't get this dialog unless you check the box for "Prompt to update style"
on the Edit tab of Tools | Options.)

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

Still not true. A document, once created, is entirely divorced from its
template. The formatting of Normal in the library's Normal.dot would have
no
effect unless "Automatically update document styles" were enabled.

It seems you also need to
readhttp://www.shaunakelly.com/word/templaterelations/index.html

Ms. Barnhill (et. al.), I do appreciate these responses, more than
you'd know. It has been awful to spend twenty years using a program
more than I use/read my particular holy book, and then not really
understand the extent of its capabilities. The course I took in Word
in 2003 was helpful to an extent, in that it showed the range of
Word's functions. I believe, however--as someone who created two
scholarly manuscripts and tons of less heavily formatted manuscripts
on the software--that people *want* to regard Word as a computerized
typewriter. I am one of them.

One of the reasons for this is that Word gets unnecessarily and, in my
opinion, pretentiously...garrulous and redundant. Taking the above
post by Mr. Hayes, I was able to comprehend it until he started
talking about Header Styles, or *the* Header Style. How much more or
less difficult is it to Select All in a header (or footer) and then
click to change the Font and other formatting than it is to go into
the header area, and then have to use the drop-down menu to choose
Header Style? That's a rhetorical question, of course; and one can go
about reformatting each document 'til the cows come home--and THAT is
exactly what most Word users do, simply because the surfeit of
choices, worded with verbs vague in context (i.e., "Automatically
update Styles), make it less tedious to just ignore EVERYTHING and
reformat-as-you-go.

Again, thanks.

 

[Steve Hayes]

is available for every style except Normal. In earlier versions, if you
reselect the style in the Style dropdown, you will get a dialog box asking
whether you want to "Update the style to reflect recent changes" or "Reapply
the formatting of the style to the selection." (In Word 2002 and 2003 you
won't get this dialog unless you check the box for "Prompt to update style"
on the Edit tab of Tools | Options.)

And those are the things where you are liable to get undesired changes,
because unless you are a real Word fundi it is hard to remember which does
what, and when you are concentrating on the conent of the document and that
pops up it is easy to click the wrong one in the heat of the moment in order
to get back to the text, and end up having to waste a lot of time trying to
undo all the undesired changes.

I didn't mention them becasuse I couldn 't be bothered to open Word to see the
exact wording of them, but that is the reason I use Body Text rather than
Normal, as a defined style in a template, and I know one has to apply it in
two separate places, under Format Style something or other, and under
Templates.

So I created a template called wipf.dot to use with a document I was editing,
and I used Body Text because I'd DOESN"T ask me if I want to update
BodyText.dot to conform to the style of that particular document, it only asks
if I want to change Normal.dot, and it's a schlep to get my Normal.dot back,
because it differs from Word's default Normal.dot.