Hi all,

I'm using Word 2013 and have a very large document that was previously formatted properly. However, I'm not sure if it's because of upgrading to Windows 8.1 or what, but when I do the style separator, it will double whatever I have in the second half. I put what I wanted on another line, changed the style, then highlighted all and inserted the style separator.

For example, if I have 'This is my caption for the figure.' and I have the style separator between 'figure' and the '.' (as I don't want that in my ToC, then it will put a '.' after the dotted paragraph mark AND another '.' on the line below. I can't delete the duplicate and if I do, then it deletes the other '.' so I'm not sure how to correct this. When I do print preview it shows the duplicate as well, so it's not just in viewing the document...very frustrating.



Thanks!

Your description suggests a damaged document. Have you tried copying all content, except for the final paragraph mark (¶), into a new document?

To show/hide paragraph marks as well as other nonprinting marks, click the ¶ button on the Home tab.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Thanks, I haven't tried that yet. As I said, it's a large document and I have a number of styles throughout - how can I copy everything so the formatting does not change when copied to a new document?

Go to the end of the document. Insert a Next-Page Section break before the final paragraph mark. Copy everything except the final paragraph mark. Paste into a new document.

The way I normally use the style separator is to have two separate paragraphs formatted in different styles. At the end of the first paragraph, just before the paragraph mark, I press Ctrl+Alt+Enter. That gives me the separation.

In your case, I would put the "." at the beginning of the second paragraph, followed by a space. When I try doing it before the final period in a paragraph, it moves outside the period. This may have something to do with "smart selection."

It is not unlikely that some changes will occur; if both the source and target documents contain the same style names but with different properties, the target styles will "win." But you can always test and see what you get.

Of course, you can modify styles after you have pasted the content.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Great, thanks for the help! I'll try that out