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Old 09-13-2019, 07:28 AM
andiekit andiekit is offline My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Windows 10 My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Office 2016
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Hi folks,

I hope you can help. I am redesigning a set of dozens of documents for a firm.

What I've done is copy the contents of old Word documents and then paste them into brand new documents with no formatting (or so I thought!)

We then decided to create our own theme and style set so that customers could change the look of the documents at the click of a mouse button.

But I have an issue in that, when I apply the style set to some documents, there are issues. Eg, heading 4 doesn't have the "1.1.1.1" numbering, the bulleted list has either numbers of no bullets, and heading 2 reverts to "H2", which is what was in the old documents.

Is there anything I can do? Whenever I think I've fixed the issue, I open another document and... same problem.

Is there a way to maybe strip out the old style set and then add the new one without getting bits of old formatting coming through?

Really desperate, so would appreciate any help!

Many thanks,

Andie

Last edited by Charles Kenyon; 09-25-2019 at 02:00 PM. Reason: Mark as solved
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Old 09-13-2019, 09:38 AM
jthomas666 jthomas666 is offline My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Windows 10 My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Office 2016
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How did you accomplish copying the contents into a new document? If you did a simple cut and paste, the formatting went along for the ride.

Try opening the Style Pane, selecting the entire document, then select Clear All at the top of the Style pane. That will clear all formatting, so that everything will revert to Normal.

Then copy & paste and format as necessary.

Hope this helps!
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Old 09-13-2019, 01:12 PM
Charles Kenyon Charles Kenyon is offline My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Windows 10 My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Office 2016
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  1. See QuickStyle Sets
  2. Style sets only include styles that are set to display in the Quick Styles Gallery.
  3. They include all styles that are set to display in the Quick Styles Gallery. This may include styles you do not want.
  4. Styles can be based on other styles, which may or may not be included in the style set. I.e., based on normal.
  5. Numbering should be attached to styles following directions at How to create numbered headings or outline numbering in Ribbon Versions of Word by Shauna Kelly
  6. I do not know that the list styles get attached to quick style sets.
  7. I have used macros to transfer them and that has worked.
    A Global StyleSheet in Microsoft Word?
    Outline Heading Styles Global Stylesheet
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Old 09-14-2019, 03:31 PM
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Stefan Blom Stefan Blom is online now My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Windows 10 My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Office 2019
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In my experience, number formatting doesn't always work with style sets. You should set up a template (*.dotx) instead.
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Old 09-14-2019, 06:33 PM
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Lugh Lugh is offline My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Windows 10 My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Office 2016
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Welcome to the forum, Andie

Quote:
Originally Posted by andiekit View Post
Is there a way to maybe strip out the old style set and then add the new one without getting bits of old formatting coming through?
There is indeed. I deal with old long documents regularly, with no clue what their history is, so I've developed a 'nuclear' process for peace of mind, consistent quality and lots of time saving. The bones:

1. A template for the new setup.
2. 'Tagging' in old doc to identify any formatting I want to keep.
3. Save old doc as plain text TXT—UTF-8 if asked.
4. Open new DocX based on template.
5. Open old doc in text editor, copy-paste into new DocX.
6. Format.

I have almost all the above in macros, so it's quick and painless. If it's not worth your while to automate—eg you don't see yourself doing this kind of project again—then the worst your faced with is a bunch of Global Replace operations.
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Old 09-16-2019, 04:28 AM
andiekit andiekit is offline My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Windows 10 My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Office 2016
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jthomas666 View Post
How did you accomplish copying the contents into a new document? If you did a simple cut and paste, the formatting went along for the ride.

Try opening the Style Pane, selecting the entire document, then select Clear All at the top of the Style pane. That will clear all formatting, so that everything will revert to Normal.

Then copy & paste and format as necessary.

Hope this helps!
Thanks so much, I shall try this! In terms of copy and paste, I did try to paste with "no formatting", but I guess I got things a bit wrong a time or two!
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Old 09-16-2019, 04:33 AM
andiekit andiekit is offline My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Windows 10 My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Office 2016
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Quote:
Originally Posted by andiekit View Post
Thanks so much, I shall try this! In terms of copy and paste, I did try to paste with "no formatting", but I guess I got things a bit wrong a time or two!
PS Hmmm, just tried this and it's not worked. Even though I load the right style set, it's still got old stuff in there. Which is weird because, when opening it in other documents, it's absolutely fine.
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Old 09-16-2019, 08:06 AM
Charles Kenyon Charles Kenyon is offline My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Windows 10 My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Office 2016
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Quote:
Originally Posted by andiekit View Post
PS Hmmm, just tried this and it's not worked. Even though I load the right style set, it's still got old stuff in there. Which is weird because, when opening it in other documents, it's absolutely fine.

Andie, Did you look at the links I provided?


I agree with Stefan that I have not been able to get numbering to work reliably using [Quick] Style Sets. A template is the simplest solution. Otherwise, I've been able to use the Organizer to copy paragraph styles set up following Shauna Kelly's instructions and transferred the numbering that way reliably. Again, that is described and demonstrated in the links I provided.
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Old 09-16-2019, 08:09 AM
andiekit andiekit is offline My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Windows 10 My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Office 2016
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles Kenyon View Post
Andie, Did you look at the links I provided?
Hi Charles,

I must confess I didn't - but hopefully they may help other people in the future.

I think I've sorted it by following the steps here: How to Change an Existing Style in Word 2016 - dummies

But thanks so much for all your help, everyone. I really appreciate it, and will be sure to use the forum heaps in the future.
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Old 09-23-2019, 10:56 PM
freda0255 freda0255 is offline My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Windows 10 My Style Sets Formatting Hell! Office 2010 32bit
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I can attest to the effectiveness of Mr. Kenyon's solution. I've been using and supporting Word in a legal environment for > 20 years. We tried style sets when they first introduced. No. Nein. Nyet. We use Shauna Kelly's instructions.
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