Word 2002 Styles problem

[Anna]

I have created a very long document consisting of about 15
files linked through a master document. I created 3 simple
styles using justification, tabs and a font. I used the
master document to amend each individual document and
applied the styles. When I save the documents and reopen
they have all reverted back to another font and tab
placement and the indents, etc. are all scrambled. Each
time I apply a style an additional style is created but
not necessarily a duplicate of the style I applied. It
keeps changing the font from Times Roman to Courier. I
have been working with a simple document of 3 weeks with
no progress. Yesterday I expanded the document, deleted
all of the new styles that had been automatically created,
reapplied the 3 styles that I had customized, adjusted
tabs and indents then saved. I opened and expanded the
master document this morning and everything had changed
since I saved it the day before. I check Styles and there
were 51 new styles automatically created. What worthwhile
purpose does automatically creating styles serve? Help!

 

[Sara]

This might be part of the answer:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WhyMasterDocsCorrupt
..htm