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Old 11-18-2013, 07:08 AM
New Daddy New Daddy is offline Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template? Windows Vista Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template? Office 2003
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Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template?
 
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Question Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template?

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https://www.msofficeforums.com/word/...ing-first.html



I'm making a change to my workflow, so the body text will have its own, well, "Body Text" style, and the "Normal" style will be reserved for use as template for other non-body text styles.

Having made the changes in one of my manuscript, I've copied these new styles to the Normal.DOT. But when I open my other manuscripts, these style changes in the Normal.DOT are not dynamically reflected in the documents based on the Normal.DOT. I have to import them into each document from the Normal.DOT.

Is there a way to make this happen automatically by option?
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Old 11-18-2013, 03:57 PM
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Stefan Blom Stefan Blom is offline Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template? Windows 7 64bit Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template? Office 2013
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To have the styles in a document update to match the attached template, select "Automatically update document styles" in Tools | Templates and Add-Ins (for the relevant documents).
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Old 11-18-2013, 08:53 PM
Charles Kenyon Charles Kenyon is online now Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template? Windows 7 64bit Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template? Office 2013
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Generally speaking, you will want to go back to each document you do this in and turn this option off! As I said in answer to your parallel question: One final point is to make sure that any document you use as the basis for a template does NOT have the option checked to update styles from the template. (Tools > Templates and Add-Ins) See http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/shar...matchange.html.

This is a maintenance tool, not a setting that should be set and left on.
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Old 02-22-2017, 07:55 PM
Digmen1 Digmen1 is offline Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template? Windows 10 Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template? Office 2016
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The whole Styles / Template area really needs a re-vamp.

Surely the idea of Styles in a template is that you update them once and then every other document that uses that Template has all the latest styles.

But No, you have to import them all MANUALLY.
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Old 02-23-2017, 05:43 AM
Charles Kenyon Charles Kenyon is online now Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template? Windows 10 Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template? Office 2013
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Quote:
The whole Styles / Template area really needs a re-vamp.

Surely the idea of Styles in a template is that you update them once and then every other document that uses that Template has all the latest styles.

But No, you have to import them all MANUALLY.
That may be your idea of styles. It is not mine. You can set your documents up to automatically bring in style changes made in the template already. This was the subject of the previous posts. Doing this has its own problems, as described in What happens when I send my document to someone else? Will Word mess up my formatting?

It is also possible to have a global stylesheet. A Global StyleSheet in Microsoft Word?
Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word

One thing is that a document should be like a piece of paper in a file. You should not be using it to create new documents. For new documents you should be using a template. Templates in Microsoft Word If you were, the new documents would have the template's styles when created.

If you have boilerplate text you want in many documents, you should explore Word's features designed for that purpose, not reuse documents. Automated Boilerplate Using Microsoft Word

By the way, no one answering questions here works for Microsoft. We are your fellow users.
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Old 02-23-2017, 06:58 AM
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Stefan Blom Stefan Blom is offline Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template? Windows 7 64bit Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template? Office 2013
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Quote:
The whole Styles / Template area really needs a re-vamp.

Surely the idea of Styles in a template is that you update them once and then every other document that uses that Template has all the latest styles.

But No, you have to import them all MANUALLY.

You may have files that have been archived years ago. Do you really want them to change as soon as you update their template?

That said, I agree in part: some aspects of style management are convoluted in Word. There are too many places to look (Styles pane, Manage Styles dialog box, etc.). In other words, some changes would be a good idea.
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Old 02-24-2017, 02:42 PM
Digmen1 Digmen1 is offline Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template? Windows 10 Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template? Office 2016
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Thanks for the replies. I will study those links.

But MY IDEA of styles is that if you have lots of documents based on a template. If you change the styles in that template, then all of the documents should be updated to that style.

This would apply in a company, where the manager decides that from now "we will use Tachoma font in all of our documents."

Or in my case where I have 20 documents, based on one template and I now wish to change one of the styles. (Sure any new documents will confirm to my new style, but what about the other 20 documents that I created last month?
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Old 02-24-2017, 03:52 PM
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Stefan Blom Stefan Blom is offline Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template? Windows 7 64bit Can you make a document automatically update changes styles template? Office 2013
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Quote:
But MY IDEA of styles is that if you have lots of documents based on a template. If you change the styles in that template, then all of the documents should be updated to that style.

This would apply in a company, where the manager decides that from now "we will use Tachoma font in all of our documents."
As Charles wrote, you can have document styles update based on the attached template (*.dotx) by enabling the "Automatically update document styles" option for each document that you create. The setting isn't turned on by default, and I think there are good reasons for that.

Suggestions for Microsoft can be posted in the Uservoice forum at http://word.uservoice.com.
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