Word 2003 Styles (cross post)

[Ratcliff]

Hi All,

This is a cross post from Docmanagement group.

I am attempting to create a template with a certain set of styles for
a book (900+ pages) and I want to use the protect document feature to
disallow the introduction of unintentional styles.

Am I missing something or do I really have to create a style for every
tiny thing? For example, I have one for Character Bold, Character
Italic, Character Bold Italic, Character Underline, Character Bold
Underline, Character Italic Underline, Character Bold Italic
Underline ... and on and on and on....

Is there a way to stack these styles so I only need one Bold style and
one Italic style and one underline style I can apply in any
combination? The same question goes for paragraph styling. If I bold a
paragraph and then try to apply an indent - I lose one or the other or
I have to create a bold 1st indent, bold 2nd indent, and on and
on ....

I cannot find any documentation which addresses this. (and I cannot
use my apostrophe key without ending up with a quick search ...?)

Thanks,
P Ratcliff

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hello Ratcliff

This is a cross post from Docmanagement group.

well, technically it's more like a new post, but I know what you mean
(and thanks for mentioning it!).

I am attempting to create a template with a certain set of styles for
a book (900+ pages) and I want to use the protect document feature to
disallow the introduction of unintentional styles.

Am I missing something or do I really have to create a style for every
tiny thing? For example, I have one for Character Bold, Character
Italic, Character Bold Italic, Character Underline, Character Bold
Underline, Character Italic Underline, Character Bold Italic
Underline ... and on and on and on....

No, I don't think you're missing a thing. There can only be one
Character Style in place in Word.

[Unless your example is exaggerated, this "feature" of Word might be a
good opportunity to revise your various formatting needs: in general,
users tend to mix too many different means to accentuate. "Underline",
for instance, is something you might want to forget entirely (it's
pretty much from the typewriter area; with different font sizes and
weights for headings, and bold and/or italic, you should not need it at
all; and Word doesn't do it any good from a typographical POV, anyway).

HTH
Robert

 

[Ratcliff]

Thanks, Robert,

Dang it! This is a document citing various legal issues and is
published in print yearly. Unfortunately, the example I gave isn't an
exaggeration. In Quark and InDesign, stacking is possible. Adding a
Bold to an Italic doesn't have the bold overwrite the italic style.
I'd use these applications but this document has about 1000 endnotes
(also not an exaggeration) and neither app. handles endnotes.

Do you have any other suggestions that might make this easier for the
user to do his edits? I want to force styles because this document
will soon be published on a website. By limiting the styles, I can get
a clean conversion.

Your comments are greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Philippa

Hello Ratcliff

This is a cross post from Docmanagement group.

well, technically it's more like a new post, but I know what you mean
(and thanks for mentioning it!).

I am attempting to create a template with a certain set of styles for
a book (900+ pages) and I want to use the protect document feature to
disallow the introduction of unintentional styles.

Am I missing something or do I really have to create a style for every
tiny thing? For example, I have one for Character Bold, Character
Italic, Character Bold Italic, Character Underline, Character Bold
Underline, Character Italic Underline, Character Bold Italic
Underline ... and on and on and on....

No, I don't think you're missing a thing. There can only be one
Character Style in place in Word.

[Unless your example is exaggerated, this "feature" of Word might be a
good opportunity to revise your various formatting needs: in general,
users tend to mix too many different means to accentuate. "Underline",
for instance, is something you might want to forget entirely (it's
pretty much from the typewriter area; with different font sizes and
weights for headings, and bold and/or italic, you should not need it at
all; and Word doesn't do it any good from a typographical POV, anyway).

HTH
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MSFT |
\ / | MVP | Scientific Reports
X Against HTML | for | with Word?
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word |http://www.masteringword.eu/

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Another option -- the one I employ -- is to think functionally in terms of
the types of text you want formatted--rather than the kind of
formatting--and to create a dedicated style for each distinct type.

Without knowing the different types of text contained in the document, it's
hard to give you precise examples. But, if I think about an academic paper
or research report, styles I might need would be:

Document title

Document date

In line citation--character style

Book title--character style

Journal title--character style

Article title--character style

Technical term--character style

Equation--paragraph style

Bulleted list 1--paragraph style

Bulleted list 2 (for being within the former)--paragraph style

Numbered list 1 (e.g., for 1, 2, 3...)--paragraph style

Numbered list 2 (e.g., for a, b, c...)--paragraph style

Heading 1--paragraph style

Heading 2--paragraph style

Heading 3--paragraph style

Body Text--paragraph style

Obviously, some of these already exist. But, by thinking functionally, you
might find that you have a smaller list. And, rather than having to apply
multiple layers/stacks to a single word or phrase, you would have just one
style you would need to apply. Note that you can vary the character style
within a paragraph, hence switching from Body Text/Default Paragraph Font to
Body Text/Article title is no problem.

To make this simpler to apply on the fly, you can create aliases for the
names, such as "at" for Article title (i.e., Article title,at is how it
would appear). Then, press Ctrl+Shift+S, type "at" and press Enter to apply
that style.

Over the years, I've found that the functional approach has served my needs
and my clients' needs very nicely. You can also change formatting very
easily if your requirements change, by simply adjusting the formatting for
the type of text that needs to be changed. This gives you quite a bit of
formatting flexibility and leverage.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

Thanks, Robert,

Dang it! This is a document citing various legal issues and is
published in print yearly. Unfortunately, the example I gave isn't an
exaggeration. In Quark and InDesign, stacking is possible. Adding a
Bold to an Italic doesn't have the bold overwrite the italic style.
I'd use these applications but this document has about 1000 endnotes
(also not an exaggeration) and neither app. handles endnotes.

Do you have any other suggestions that might make this easier for the
user to do his edits? I want to force styles because this document
will soon be published on a website. By limiting the styles, I can get
a clean conversion.

Your comments are greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Philippa

Hello Ratcliff

This is a cross post from Docmanagement group.

well, technically it's more like a new post, but I know what you mean
(and thanks for mentioning it!).

I am attempting to create a template with a certain set of styles for
a book (900+ pages) and I want to use the protect document feature to
disallow the introduction of unintentional styles.

Am I missing something or do I really have to create a style for every
tiny thing? For example, I have one for Character Bold, Character
Italic, Character Bold Italic, Character Underline, Character Bold
Underline, Character Italic Underline, Character Bold Italic
Underline ... and on and on and on....

No, I don't think you're missing a thing. There can only be one
Character Style in place in Word.

[Unless your example is exaggerated, this "feature" of Word might be a
good opportunity to revise your various formatting needs: in general,
users tend to mix too many different means to accentuate. "Underline",
for instance, is something you might want to forget entirely (it's
pretty much from the typewriter area; with different font sizes and
weights for headings, and bold and/or italic, you should not need it at
all; and Word doesn't do it any good from a typographical POV, anyway).

HTH
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MSFT |
\ / | MVP | Scientific Reports
X Against HTML | for | with Word?
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word |http://www.masteringword.eu/

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Dang it! This is a document citing various legal issues and is
published in print yearly. Unfortunately, the example I gave isn't an
exaggeration. In Quark and InDesign, stacking is possible. Adding a
Bold to an Italic doesn't have the bold overwrite the italic style.
I'd use these applications but this document has about 1000 endnotes
(also not an exaggeration) and neither app. handles endnotes.

hmm, didn't know ID couldn't speak Endnotes. I'm pretty sure you could
emulate something similar, though (like, simply a numbered list at the
end (or wherever) to which you cross-reference ...

Do you have any other suggestions that might make this easier for the
user to do his edits? I want to force styles because this document
will soon be published on a website. By limiting the styles, I can get
a clean conversion.

I don't think there's a simple solution. If you use Word's built-in
"locking for styles", you need to analyze the document model carefully
and, well, offer the user all styles he needs. And for those things that
most of us, despite preaching about "styles, styles, and nothing but
styles", are usually handled with direct formatting
(bold/italics/underlines and all combinations thereof), you need a
character style.

Another approach is to leave the styles open, and then run a macro over
the document that at least checks all the paragraph styles are "correct"
(in the sense of: have not been changed or newly invented).

And yet another is teaching your users to behave, of course ...

Greetinx
Robert

 

[Ratcliff]

Thanks to both of you for your input. Very helpful. I believe I'll go
with the locking styles - I have the user committed to about 20 (much
like Herb's list with a few extras). I have a script to strip out word
gunk and map the styles for the web version and that sounds like the
best I can do for now.

Again, thanks for the help and ideas.
Cheers
Philippa

 

[Julie Armstrong]

How do you lock styles in Word 2003?

Thanks to both of you for your input. Very helpful. I believe I'll go
with the locking styles - I have the user committed to about 20 (much
like Herb's list with a few extras). I have a script to strip out word
gunk and map the styles for the web version and that sounds like the
best I can do for now.

Again, thanks for the help and ideas.
Cheers
Philippa

 

[Jules]

Tools Protect Document Limit formatting a selection of styles.