Word character styles

[Roger Morris]

Mac OS 10.4.8 and Word 11.3

I try not to use character styles but sometimes it has to be done.

One problem I've found recently is that when updating a character style
via menu Format > Style or via Formatting Palette > Modify Style is that
the reported font size won't update.

eg:
Start off with character style "myEffect" set at (eg) underlying para +
font 12pt
the Format > Style dialog window reports "underlying para +font 12pt" as
expected.

now modify the font size to 14pt. click all necessary OKs etc

The dialog still reports +font 12pt even though in the document itself
the new size is operative.

This stubornness to update the reported size remains through quits and
reboots.

It's a nuisance because I can't tell what's what by looking at the
dialog report. Anyone have any ideas?

Roger

 

[Roger Morris]

Mac OS 10.4.8 and Word 11.3

I try not to use character styles but sometimes it has to be done.

One problem I've found recently is that when updating a character style
via menu Format > Style or via Formatting Palette > Modify Style is that
the reported font size won't update.

eg:
Start off with character style "myEffect" set at (eg) underlying para +
font 12pt
the Format > Style dialog window reports "underlying para +font 12pt" as
expected.

now modify the font size to 14pt. click all necessary OKs etc

The dialog still reports +font 12pt even though in the document itself
the new size is operative.

This stubornness to update the reported size remains through quits and
reboots.

It's a nuisance because I can't tell what's what by looking at the
dialog report. Anyone have any ideas?

Roger

Roger

 

[Roger Morris]

A bit more info:

This failure seems to be manifested in most but not all of my own
templates (which are in Templates:MyTemplates folder).

I can't see any difference in permissions

Roger

Mac OS 10.4.8 and Word 11.3

I try not to use character styles but sometimes it has to be done.

One problem I've found recently is that when updating a character style
via menu Format > Style or via Formatting Palette > Modify Style is that
the reported font size won't update.

eg:
Start off with character style "myEffect" set at (eg) underlying para +
font 12pt
the Format > Style dialog window reports "underlying para +font 12pt" as
expected.

now modify the font size to 14pt. click all necessary OKs etc

The dialog still reports +font 12pt even though in the document itself
the new size is operative.

This stubornness to update the reported size remains through quits and
reboots.

It's a nuisance because I can't tell what's what by looking at the
dialog report. Anyone have any ideas?

Roger

Roger

 

[Elliott Roper]

A bit more info:

This failure seems to be manifested in most but not all of my own
templates (which are in Templates:MyTemplates folder).

Two questions
1. Are you hitting "add to template" after modifying the style?

2. Does the dialog update when you first make the change then fail to
re-appear on subsequent visits to format » style.. ?
(oops, you answer this below)
I followed your recipe for modifying a character style, but could not
make it fail here.

I can't see any difference in permissions

Roger

Character styles are a Good Thing . You keep open an option of
globally changing similarly formatted text. That is not available if
you had applied hand-formatting.
hmm. I can't reproduce this. My dialog box faithfully reflects the
current definition.
(presumably the new style definition becomes operative only after
hitting "apply"?)

Can you change other things .e.g paragraph styles in the misbehaving
templates? Is it just font size changes that are stubborn?

 

[Roger Morris]

It is strange Elliott,

I was not hitting "add to template" but have now tried it - no
difference.

It doesn't seem to matter whether I open a new document by going through
the Project Gallery to My Templates or even to File > Open the template
directly.

Changing other aspects of the style do show up (just to emphasize I am
looking at the little summary near the bottom of the dialog window
headed "Modify Style") - it's just the numerical value for font size
which doesn't change in that window. But yes, the new value does take
effect in the document after hitting the final close or apply.

It must be some sort of corruption in some but not all of my templates.
How do I cure corruption in a template? I have tried saving a document
(made from the template) as RTF then deleting the template then
re-saving the new document as a new template but to of no avail.

BUT doing that gave me an idea - I did the same trick using HTML instead
of RTF and it seems to have cured the problem. I must try the other
'faulty' templates. Fingers crossed!

Thanks for prodding me into trying more things

Two questions
1. Are you hitting "add to template" after modifying the style?

2. Does the dialog update when you first make the change then fail to
re-appear on subsequent visits to format » style.. ?
(oops, you answer this below)
I followed your recipe for modifying a character style, but could not
make it fail here.

Character styles are a Good Thing. You keep open an option of
globally changing similarly formatted text. That is not available if
you had applied hand-formatting.

hmm. I can't reproduce this. My dialog box faithfully reflects the
current definition.
(presumably the new style definition becomes operative only after
hitting "apply"?)

Can you change other things .e.g paragraph styles in the misbehaving
templates? Is it just font size changes that are stubborn?

Roger

 

[Elliott Roper]

It is strange Elliott,

BUT doing that gave me an idea - I did the same trick using HTML instead
of RTF and it seems to have cured the problem. I must try the other
'faulty' templates. Fingers crossed!

Thanks for prodding me into trying more things

When repairing your templates, you might try opening it directly,
copying all but the last paragraph mark, and pasting into a brand new
template.

That is the magic for uncorrupting a normal document. I'd bet good
money it might work for templates too. (Don't forget to save as
template on the way out with the new one.)

I probably spend too much time in here, but one of the reasons is that
I get prodded to try new things as a result. It *might* be time well
spent. It *is* quite good fun. Particularly when you find out something
has worked well.