Hi

If someone can help me with this then it will solve a problem which I have encountered intermittently for several years. I have a fairly long document, 20 pages or more which has nothing more that text and formatting in it. When I go to change formatting, for example of bullets or bold some text, the entire documents gets bullets applied to it or the entire document becomes bold. In addition, it increase the size of the Footer area. Clicking on the Undo button will reverse this but in turn the file size gets increased every time this happen. Once this has happened to the file once it is impossible to stop it happening. I have tried copying and pasting to an entirely new file but the problem still occurs. I have even tried scanning in the entire document but this has not helped either.

I am attaching 2 images - one of the text I was working with before I tried to add in one more bullet point at the end and the second image illustrates what it does when I do this.

I have spoken to Microsoft Support in Australia regarding this issue but got nowhere.

This is not a new or recent problem. I have experienced this on very odd occasions for at least 5 years now.

I would really appreciate any help that I can get as I cannot find any solution to the problem.



Shirley

Attached Images

	Before Formatting.jpg (23.3 KB, 29 views)
	After Formatting.jpg (28.8 KB, 27 views)

I have been having exactly the same problem. Our IT deptarment had no idea what the problem was. I reinstalled Word. That did not help. I erased the "Normal" template, thinking that might be the source of the problem. That did not help either.

Would appreciate if anyone knows what this problem is and how to solve it.

I think I just solved the problem. It has to do with the settings on the "Normal" paragraph style. There is an "automatic update" setting that changes all text in the document that is designated as that style. Since I never mess with styles, my entire document changes every time a change formatting of any text.

Why it increases the file size like that, I have no idea.

Instructions for changing the setting are found here:

Format Changes Entire Document in Microsoft Word

So far I haven't had the problem recur, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

It would be great if that solved the problem but it doesn't. This option by default is unselected and is something that you select if you want it to universally apply a style change to an entire document. In some instances, particularly when using Numbering, every Enter key that has been pressed to create new paragraphs ends up being numbered so I have document where the numbering is 1,348!!! If you do find a fix please let me know.

Shirley,
Did you ever get a fix for this. I'm having the same problem and it's not because I have the Auto-Update checked. It just happens with bullets with me.

Regards,
Jim

Hi Jim

I didn't get any other replies but I did manage to get mine problem fixed by ensuring that the automatic update was not selected.

Can you be a bit more specific about the problem with the bullets.

Shirley

Hello Shirley, others
Did you ever get your problem solved? I'm suffering the same since years:
Select a word or line, then for example Control B for bold and the entire document bolds. Click on undo arrow and the document unbolds; only the selected piece remains bolded. A paragraph mark is added to the footer each time this is done. (Using W XP and O 2003, both fully updated.)
It appears the problem is residing in each doc file, also in rtf. A file started on another machine is free of this problem also when I copy it to my main machine. A file made on my main machine and copied to the other carries the problem along.
While closing a file I'm often requested to save changes while I made no changes, like a virus trying to get piggy backed.
I'm in the mood now to get rid of this problem. It is a real pain.
Thanks for advice.
Johannes

I hope this will help, but I'm not sure. Numbering is a combination of formatting for paragraphs. By numbering so many alternating paragraphs, I suspect there is confusion and the numbering style or List Paragraph style that is in use is being edited when you mean to only edit selected text.

If you need space between numbered paragraphs, I would use paragraph spacing or you can insert line breaks instead of paragraph breaks. (to insert a line break, hold down Shift and press Enter). Try doing one of those instead of having those empty paragraphs.

It is possible to have numbered paragraphs and then some non-numbered, and then return to numbered, but to have every other paragraph numbered seems like it would be troublesome. I hope this helps.

Hello Kimberley,
Thanks for the reply. Please reread the problem as I wrote to Shirley.
In the meantime I found a solution at a different billboard. Word 2003: In the open document: goto format; goto styles and formatting; in the side bar window goto normal and open modify; uncheck automatic updates. It works with me for the time being. There may be a virus present on my machine in a word macro or so that continues changing the normal.dot file. Future will tell.
Best,
Johannes