Formatted text changes (Office 2K/Windows 2K)

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When I send a Word document to a colleague as an e-mail attachment and she returns it at a later date with a few updates/changes, etc., most, if not all, of the original formatting is changed, e.g., paragraph indents, Heading indents, list indents, etc. I am sure there is an obvious answer here , but any insight or further areas of investigation that anyone can provide is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Ron M

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Select Tools | Templates and Add-ins… If the check box labeled “Automatically update styles in document” (or something like that, I use a foreign-language version of Word) is checked, the styles in the document will be updated from the template each time the document is opened.

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Thanks Hans. I checked that and some of them were that way. So I unchecked them. I also found out that she had, in fact, changed some of the formatting. Not quite sure how, but anyway the riddle is solved.

Ron M

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Hi Ron:
One other idea. If you use styles & stay away from direct formatting, you may find that the recipient is using direct formating. You can keep the text changes, but get rid of the direct formatting changes, by selecting everything & press Ctrl+Q & Ctrl+Spacebar.
Cheers,

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Thanks Phil. Good knowledge to have.

Ron

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Phil, on another note – same song – there should be a way to use a VBA macro to run through the document and reapply the old format. Define the format in the macro and then go through and apply the “new” specs to the old paragraphs, e.g., if it is Body Text 2 that has been changed, then redefine Body Text 2 in the macro and go through and apply the redefined Body Text 2 to those paragraphs that have the Body Text 2 style already applied to them – make sense?

Ron M

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Can’t you just do that with the stylesheet?

kip

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If all your styles are defined in a particular template, you could just copy those styles over using the Organizer. Also, if you haven’t used direct formatting, you can select the whole document (Ctrl+A) & then press Ctrl+Q & Ctrl+Spacebar. I’m not knowlegeable enough with macros to write one that would serve your purpose, but I’m sure that one could work.

Klaus Linke had one called NewDocumentEmptyStyles, which created a new document with all the formatting stripped out. However, I can’t search for it right now.

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