Word 2007 "Style Body Text + Bold" dilemma

[John]

Word 2007 SP1
XP Pro SP2

Problem: Word 2007 "Style Body Text + Bold" dilemma

Create a new DOCX.
Type in a paragraph.

Give the paragraph style Body Text.
Note: Body Text shows a paragraph and character icon to the right
in the style panel.

Select any word in the paragraph.
Type Ctrl B
The word becomes bold and has style Body Text + Bold.
Note: Body Text + Bold does not show a paragraph or character icon
in the style panel.
If I look in the Modify Style dialog, I see that the name is
"Style Body Text + Bold"
Notice the word "Style" because whenever Word has a style with a
name that begins with "Style" like for "Style Body Text + Bold",
Word does not display a paragraph or character icon in the style panel.

It is very annoying seeing the "Body Text + Bold" in the style panel.
I want the bold word to have style Bold with a character icon, and
not "Body Text + Bold" with no icon.

I could select my bold word and give it the Strong style.
Then the annoying "Body Text + Bold" goes away.
But if I select a different word and Ctrl B, the annoying
"Body Text + Bold" reappears. It is so convenient using
the Ctrl B shortcut that it seems strange Word does not
use the built-in Strong style for Ctrl B.

It seems that Word treats any style with the name beginning
with "Style" like for "Style Body Text + Bold" in a peculiar
manner i.e. no paragraph or character icon, etc.. What is going on?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jay Freedman]

The "Body Text + Bold" isn't a real style; it's a sort of
"pseudo-style" consisting of direct formatting on top of a real
paragraph style (and possibly a character style). If you don't want to
see some or all pseudo-styles, there are two places to turn them off.

You can suppress all pseudo-styles by going to Office button > Word
Options > Advanced and unchecking the "Keep track of formatting"
option in the first group.

You can control which groups of pseudo-styles appear in the Styles
pane by clicking the Options link at the bottom of the pane and
checking/unchecking the options in the "Select formatting to show as
styles" group.

The standard character styles Strong and Emphasis are latecomers,
included when Microsoft started adding web features to Word. The
direct formatting commands for bold and italic go back a lot further
than that, and aren't likely to change.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
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