Why aren't styles updating?

[Tunathedog]

I just tried to set all Normal paragraphs to have double-spacing. So did a Modify Style. But the Normal paragraphs didn't change. They only change if I select them and set them (again) to Normal. I've noticed this kind of thing several times before. How do you tell Word to make style changes override any special formatting in a paragraph? (OK that's maybe two question, but they're closely related.)

[Charles Kenyon]

If you have applied direct formatting to text, modifying the underlying style only will change things that were not the subject of direct formatting.


Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word



You can apply direct formatting and then tell the style to update to match the formatting.

[Tunathedog]

Thanks. That explains that. I can see why, if it's a choice between never and always over-riding direct formatting Microsoft would choose the former. But what a pity there's no option to override direct formatting. I get a lot of text from authors who've done huge amounts of direct formatting because they don't know how to use styles, and end up reapplying paragraph by paragraph.

[eNGiNe]

Unless I'm misunderstanding your situation, have you tried Ctrl+A [select all] followed by Ctrl+spacebar [remove overrides]? usually my first step in the process of cleaning up incoming files.

[Tunathedog]

Thanks! That's a nifty trick I wasn't aware of (BTW, Cmd+A and Ctrl+space bar on a Mac).



And it also works when just selecting paragraphs of a given style, which is perfect.