Hi,

I am having a strange problem with my custom MS Word styles.

I have MS Word 2007 Home & Student version (fully updated, till support ran out).

The short version: I create my own MS Word styles, both paragraph and character. Sometimes, weird problems occur, and I do not get back the original format when I reject the character style.

The loner version is a s follows:

For my manuscripts, I create my own MS Word styles.

For the body text, I create a base style.

Then based on the base style, I create a style for the first paragraph and another for the other paragraphs.

I create the base style (My_00_Body_base) based on “no style” to make it independent of the Normal template (so the style will be unaffected by the PC it is on). For the base style I use the style type “Paragraph” and I set “Automatically update” to off (unticked).

In the base style, I set the font face, font size, font color, justification, spacing above and below the paragraph, and line spacing. I leave the first line indent zero.

In this case I had set Times New Roman, 12 pt, black, left justified, no spacing above or below, and lone spacing single.

Then, I create, the style for the first paragraph (My_03a_Body_First_para) and another style for the other paragraphs (My_03b_Body_Other_paras).

Both styles are paragraph styles based on the base style (My_00_Body_base)

For the style for the first paragraph (My_03a_Body_First_para), I usually set the “First line indent” to 0”.

For the style for the other paragraphs (My_03b_Body_Other_paras), I usually set the “First line indent” to 0.5”.

I use these styles (My_03a_Body_First_para and My_03b_Body_Other_paras) to format the body text in my manuscript.

Then I create some character styles, for example, for thoughts My_03f_Body_Thoughts, which just applies italics.

For the character style, I use style based on “underlying properties.”

(I don’t know the difference between “underlying properties” or “default Paragraph font.”)

So, I have some body text on which I have already applied My_03b_Body_Other_paras.

Now, on a part of that text, I apply my character style My_03f_Body_Thoughts.

Normally, when I apply the style My_03f_Body_Thoughts, the tracking pane shows “My_03f_Body_Thoughts.”

If I reject the change, I get back the original text correctly formatted with My_03b_Body_Other_paras.

However, occasionally, I see that the tracking pane has changed the name of the applied style to “My_03f_Body_Thoughts, Font: 12 pt, Complex Script Font: 11 pt.”

Now, in this case when I reject the change, I DO NOT get back the original text correctly formatted with My_03b_Body_Other_paras.

When I rest my pointer on the text, the style pane still indicates My_03b_Body_Other_paras.

However, the text has changed to a smaller size 8 pt, instead of 12 pt.

I am at a loss as to why this happens.

Can someone please help me understand what is going on?

Thank you.