Word 2003 Sp3: Paragraph syle a disaster

[Wallace B]

Both my wife and I updated to Sp3 on XP with Office 2003. I have a Dell
desktop. She has a Sony laptop. We both experience the same problem.

Paragraph styles are now a disaster. Space before & after paragraph sets
itself randomly and is hard to change back. The format painter may or may
not actually change the format. The list of styles grows like never before.
Sometimes when you try to fix a busted style, it creates a new style, even
more busted than before.

Documents rapidly become uncontrollable. It's completely frustrating.
Somebody must have noticed this if they are in our situation.

Suggestions? Can I safely roll back Sp3?

Thanks,
Wallace

 

[Stefan Blom]

Did you clear the "helpful" options in the AutoCorrect dialog box
(AutoFormat As You Type tab)? See
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/formatting/TameAutoFormat.htm.

Also, did you turn off the option to "Keep track of formatting" (Tools |
Options, Edit tab)?

 

[Wallace B]

Outstanding. Thank you. This looks extremely promising. I had not done any
of that.

In a quick test, it seems to have solved the bulk of my issues. The one
remaining quirk I found is paintbrush not copying the entire style. For
example, I selected a section of bold, large font, italicized and underlined
text and painted some other text, which was converted to large font,
underlined text but, sadly, was neither bold nor italicized.

 

[Terry Farrell]

Are they definitely part of the style and not direct formatting?

Terry

 

[Wallace B]

Ah. I see the light. Thank you. I wasn't even aware that the painter only
painted the style ... because of the aforementioned auto-everything. It's a
whole new world for me now.

Thank you both. I'm impressed by and grateful for such rapid and on-target
assistance.

Wallace

 

[Terry Farrell]

Your welcome.

Terry

Ah. I see the light. Thank you. I wasn't even aware that the painter
only
painted the style ... because of the aforementioned auto-everything. It's
a
whole new world for me now.

Thank you both. I'm impressed by and grateful for such rapid and
on-target
assistance.

Wallace