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Old 10-23-2019, 12:00 PM
Ulodesk Ulodesk is offline Cumulative Style Name Syndrome, or Beyond 'char' Windows 7 64bit Cumulative Style Name Syndrome, or Beyond 'char' Office 2013
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Default Cumulative Style Name Syndrome, or Beyond 'char'

As a corporate proposal DTP for more than a decade, I have seen my share of documents with style lists that are shall, we say, interesting. Although I understand the old “char” addition to names as a result of selecting partial paragraphs and pasting in other styles, I am unable to replicate the types of style names I see in documents that were issued from a clean template and returned with “interest.” The style controls have changed since the advent of 2007 versions, and I wonder if anyone can tell me the settings among the four Advanced tab options for pasting that actually cause the accumulation of style names into a single style.

Allow me to illustrate with an example that continues to astound even my jaded eye. The company that employs me recently received a government statement of work of about 120 pages for a proposal. The styles list, after the view options had been set to remove all the local formatting, remained exceedingly long and complex, let alone about twenty “x” styles pasted in from Excel. The document’s content actually represented a need for fewer than a dozen styles. Just for fun, I decided to print out the styles list—102 pages, comprising more than 600 styles! Among them, from one of several sets of heading lists, this remarkable style name:

Heading 1,Head1,Heading apps,2,Heading 10,Heading 101,Head11,Heading apps1,Heading 102,Head12,Heading apps2,Heading 103,Head13,Heading apps3,Heading 104,Head14,Heading apps4,H1,1,Part,h1,Header 1,II+,I,SCE,H11,H12,H111,H13,H112,H14,H113,H15,H11 4

And not even a “char” to be found, unlike

Heading 2,H2,h2,Reset numbering,Heading 2 Char Char1,H2 Char Char1,h2 Char Char1,Reset numbering Char Char1,Heading 2 Char Char Char,H2 Char1 Char,h2 Char1 Char,Reset numbering Char1 Char,Chapter Title,Heading 2 Char1,Reset numbering Char1,H2 Char Char

I would truly like to know how this happens.
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Old 10-23-2019, 04:27 PM
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Guessed Guessed is offline Cumulative Style Name Syndrome, or Beyond 'char' Windows 10 Cumulative Style Name Syndrome, or Beyond 'char' Office 2016
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I think human intervention has occurred in some of those examples. The Char names are a carryover from older versions of the Word bug you obviously know about. Another Word bug is responsible for the appended digit sets hanging off a parent eg Head1 created for a valid reason then spawned "Head11,Head12,Head13,Head14". I most often see this in table styles but these look like they follow the same pattern.

I would say the shorter aliases like "Head1, H1" were placed there by an author wanting to type a style name shorter than "Heading 1".

And finally, there are other aliases that are appended to built-in styles for the purposes of merging (rationalising) styles. I would surmise that "Part" and "SCE" fall in to that category.

The reason you are seeing these complex stylesets is that nobody ever works from a blank piece of paper. Everybody copies and pastes from older docs and formal government SoWs are beasts that have ancestry dating back 20+ years. The aliases get (asexually) transmitted whenever you paste (or insert from building blocks) content with 'infected' styles from any word source. It is so very easy to re-infect a document, it is no wonder that the very few people who know HOW to clean up the styles just don't bother.
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Old 10-24-2019, 06:16 AM
Ulodesk Ulodesk is offline Cumulative Style Name Syndrome, or Beyond 'char' Windows 7 64bit Cumulative Style Name Syndrome, or Beyond 'char' Office 2013
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Thanks, Andrew; I appreciate your insights. As I said, I have tried to replicate the behavior so that I can give a more precise explanation when asked, as I am occasionally, or even help to avoid it. That's why I wonder about the specific settings -- such as Merge styles, Keep source formatting, etc. I have not taken the time to methodically test every combination of the four, simply because, in my experience that they don;t behave predictably anyway, and, combined with the vagueries of SharePoint, individuals' own settings, versions, etc., it seems more efficient to deal with the problems as they arise. Usually, it's not too big a problem. This particular SoW is a real doozy (did you know that the term originated from the Dusenberg auto?) in multiple ways. Why lead a boring life?
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Old 10-24-2019, 06:42 AM
Charles Kenyon Charles Kenyon is offline Cumulative Style Name Syndrome, or Beyond 'char' Windows 10 Cumulative Style Name Syndrome, or Beyond 'char' Office 2016
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Bob Buckland said it a long while ago:
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Old 10-24-2019, 06:43 AM
Ulodesk Ulodesk is offline Cumulative Style Name Syndrome, or Beyond 'char' Windows 7 64bit Cumulative Style Name Syndrome, or Beyond 'char' Office 2013
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