Word v. X and 2004: Formatting palette funnies and "No Style"queries

[Paul Williams]

We¹ve had a document passed to us that¹s brought up a strange quirk in Word
2004 (and seems to be in v. X too).

If I select ALL the text in the document, the Font name (in the formatting
palette) blanks.
If I ³clear formatting² and select all, the same thing happens even though,
technically, there¹s a single font in use for the entire document.
If I select approx one page of text in the document, the Font name is
displayed BUT if I continue to select (shift ­ arrow key down/up), the Font
name vanishes again. This selection of ³approximately one page² of text will
work across page breaks, so it¹s nothing to do with those as far a I can
tell.

Anyone got a good idea what¹s going on there?

Also, I noticed that ³No Style² is no longer an option. Was it always
missing from Word? Or has it just gone since versions X and 2004?

Thanks,

Paul

 

[Elliott Roper]

We¹ve had a document passed to us that¹s brought up a strange quirk in Word
2004 (and seems to be in v. X too).

If I select ALL the text in the document, the Font name (in the formatting
palette) blanks.
If I ³clear formatting² and select all, the same thing happens even though,
technically, there¹s a single font in use for the entire document.
If I select approx one page of text in the document, the Font name is
displayed BUT if I continue to select (shift ­ arrow key down/up), the Font
name vanishes again. This selection of ³approximately one page² of text will
work across page breaks, so it¹s nothing to do with those as far a I can
tell.

Anyone got a good idea what¹s going on there?

The font blanks when the selection contains more than one font.

The style blanks when the selection contains more than one style,
depending on how you are looking at the formatting palette and the
phase of the moon.

In 2004, if I type cmd-shift-s and the the name of a style, a mini
formatting palette showing only the style name hops onto the screen and
stays all day. That one blanks if more than one style is selected.
However, if I encourage the full formatting palette to appear, that one
shows the style of the beginning of the selection.

You gotta admire the user interface consistency of Microsoft products.
Sometimes I think they are using the same B F Skinner psychology theory
of variable ratio reinforcement that was used to train pigeons to play
table tennis.

Also, I noticed that ³No Style² is no longer an option. Was it always
missing from Word? Or has it just gone since versions X and 2004?

Clear formatting applies normal style and removes any hand inserted
italics. It also removes character styles such as emphasis and strong.

Normal style is no style. No style at all. Another example of the
style-free approach to UI design.

Finally, I have noticed that sometimes you need to apply style changes
more than once to make them really apply. Most frequently after a
select all. Don't ask me why. It just happens.

If the document you are importing is an utter mess, it is wise to copy
all but the last paragraph mark into a fresh document, optionally using

paste special... unformatted text. That will leave all the document
styles behind and use your own styles from your normal template where
the names match.

Note that normal template and normal style are utterly disjoint
concepts. Another triumph of Skinnerian conditioning.

Anyone for table tennis?

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Paul:

There is at least one character in there that will not change font. It may
be in a tracked change or in hidden text that is not visible.

No Style was never an option in Word: it's a technically impossible
condition.

The way a Word document works internally, all formatting is effectively a
"style", and the formatting of a piece of text cannot be "undefined". Each
string of text ends in a "pointer" (its an hexadecimal number that is
usually in the paragraph mark) that indicates a row in the formatting table
that contains all of the formatting for the document.

So effectively Normal style is what you are looking for: it's entry 0 in the
list of styles maintained for the document. If no other formatting is
applied, the formatting pointer defaults to Style 0.

There is a "No Style" value available in the "Based On" property of a style
definition: this enables you to disable inheritance for that style. And
some versions of Word show a "Clear Formatting" entry in the list of styles
in the Formatting Palette/Task Pane. But that's simply a mis-naming of a
button that should read "Clear direct formatting and default to Normal
Style".

Hope this helps

We¹ve had a document passed to us that¹s brought up a strange quirk in Word
2004 (and seems to be in v. X too).

If I select ALL the text in the document, the Font name (in the formatting
palette) blanks.
If I ³clear formatting² and select all, the same thing happens even though,
technically, there¹s a single font in use for the entire document.
If I select approx one page of text in the document, the Font name is
displayed BUT if I continue to select (shift ­ arrow key down/up), the Font
name vanishes again. This selection of ³approximately one page² of text will
work across page breaks, so it¹s nothing to do with those as far a I can tell.

Anyone got a good idea what¹s going on there?

Also, I noticed that ³No Style² is no longer an option. Was it always missing
from Word? Or has it just gone since versions X and 2004?

Thanks,

Paul

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Paul Williams]

Thanks John and Elliott for your explanations; most helpful.

Paul