In the course of tracking down some little gremlins in Word 2007 documents today, I have come to the "Preserve styles" box on the Autoformat tab. I don;t know if it is pertinent, because I can't find out what it does, beside Word Help's worthless description. I was led to it by discovering for the first time that the "Other paragraph styles" function above it on the tab, if checked, can nullify all the Advanced Copy and Paste settings one has scrupulously set. And I thought I understood all that! Well, live and learn.

Anyway, will someone please enlighten me with an adequate description of the "Preserve Styles" function, what it does and doesn't do, and any variables which may affect its behavior?

Much obliged.