Format Painter Makes Unwanted Format Changes

I've got a very long document with many heading levels. When I try to use
the format painter to transfer the style of one heading to another, I get an
unwanted change in format. First, I click on the heading that has the format
that I want to copy, and then click the format painter icon on the tool bar.
Sor far, so good.

Next, I click on the heading that I want to recieve the format. It gets the
new format. So far, so good. Unfortuantely, the first heading that had the
format being copied is mysteriously changed to a new format. Not good. To
prevent this from happending, I've turned off all of the autocorrect and
autoformat things I can find, but the probelm persists.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Sorry it took so long for you to get to the group, Tim, but the fact is that
if this is a document of any length with a lot of heading levels you really
would be far better off to learn to use Styles for your formatting rather
than relying on direct formatting & the frivolous piece of frippery called
the Format Painter... especially if the doc may have to be revised
periodically. What you're experiencing is quite probably just an omen of
worse to come, eventually resulting in corruption of the doc which will
render it unusable.

You first might want to have a look he

http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/concepts/styles/

as well as the other relevant pages on Shauna's [excellent] site, and also
peruse the information he

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting.htm

for more guidance. If you need any help on specific issues don't hesitate to
pose your questions to the appropriate group.

--
HTH |:)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

"Tim" wrote in message
...
I've got a very long document with many heading levels. When I try to use
the format painter to transfer the style of one heading to another, I get
an
unwanted change in format. First, I click on the heading that has the
format
that I want to copy, and then click the format painter icon on the tool
bar.
Sor far, so good.

Next, I click on the heading that I want to recieve the format. It gets
the
new format. So far, so good. Unfortuantely, the first heading that had
the
format being copied is mysteriously changed to a new format. Not good.
To
prevent this from happending, I've turned off all of the autocorrect and
autoformat things I can find, but the probelm persists.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Hi Tim,

I have not heard of such an issue before. Which version do you use?

You didn't mention the formatting change that was made to the paragraph you
copied the format from.
Even better would be some reproducible steps to see the problem.

Does the change occur on copying, or on pasting (as your description
suggests)?

Regards,
Klaus



"Tim" wrote:
I've got a very long document with many heading levels. When I try to use
the format painter to transfer the style of one heading to another, I get
an
unwanted change in format. First, I click on the heading that has the
format
that I want to copy, and then click the format painter icon on the tool
bar.
Sor far, so good.

Next, I click on the heading that I want to recieve the format. It gets
the
new format. So far, so good. Unfortuantely, the first heading that had
the format being copied is mysteriously changed to a new format.
Not good. To prevent this from happending, I've turned off all of the
autocorrect and autoformat things I can find, but the probelm persists.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Hi Klaus:

Yep: I have heard of it :-) Any combination of Automatic Update, Keep
Track of Formatting and Linked Styles will do this :-)

What's happening is that he's painting a "format" into a linked style that
is set to automatically update. When he does that, the entire document
updates :-)

As Bob says, the user's better off learning to use Styles properly, because
the inside of that document is rapidly turning into format salad and it will
be very unstable.

Cheers

On 22/7/06 8:00 AM, in article , "Klaus
Linke" wrote:

Hi Tim,

I have not heard of such an issue before. Which version do you use?

You didn't mention the formatting change that was made to the paragraph you
copied the format from.
Even better would be some reproducible steps to see the problem.

Does the change occur on copying, or on pasting (as your description
suggests)?

Regards,
Klaus



"Tim" wrote:
I've got a very long document with many heading levels. When I try to use
the format painter to transfer the style of one heading to another, I get
an
unwanted change in format. First, I click on the heading that has the
format
that I want to copy, and then click the format painter icon on the tool
bar.
Sor far, so good.

Next, I click on the heading that I want to recieve the format. It gets
the
new format. So far, so good. Unfortuantely, the first heading that had
the format being copied is mysteriously changed to a new format.
Not good. To prevent this from happending, I've turned off all of the
autocorrect and autoformat things I can find, but the probelm persists.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your help!



--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

Hi John,

Thanks, I will play a bit with your info.
Sounds like one more reason to hate linked styles...

Regards,
Klaus


"John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]" wrote:
Hi Klaus:

Yep: I have heard of it :-) Any combination of Automatic Update, Keep
Track of Formatting and Linked Styles will do this :-)

What's happening is that he's painting a "format" into a linked style that
is set to automatically update. When he does that, the entire document
updates :-)

As Bob says, the user's better off learning to use Styles properly,
because
the inside of that document is rapidly turning into format salad and it
will
be very unstable.

Cheers

On 22/7/06 8:00 AM, in article ,
"Klaus
Linke" wrote:

Hi Tim,

I have not heard of such an issue before. Which version do you use?

You didn't mention the formatting change that was made to the paragraph
you
copied the format from.
Even better would be some reproducible steps to see the problem.

Does the change occur on copying, or on pasting (as your description
suggests)?

Regards,
Klaus



"Tim" wrote:
I've got a very long document with many heading levels. When I try to
use
the format painter to transfer the style of one heading to another, I
get
an
unwanted change in format. First, I click on the heading that has the
format
that I want to copy, and then click the format painter icon on the tool
bar.
Sor far, so good.

Next, I click on the heading that I want to recieve the format. It gets
the
new format. So far, so good. Unfortuantely, the first heading that had
the format being copied is mysteriously changed to a new format.
Not good. To prevent this from happending, I've turned off all of the
autocorrect and autoformat things I can find, but the probelm persists.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your help!



--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

Hi Klaus -

Please don't get the wrong impression - It isn't so much the linked styles
that is the problem. It's that when styles are linked but you don't know it
and didn't create them & don't even know that styles are involved or what
they are and you've got direct formatting interjected... that the issue
starts to eat you - and your doc - alive. (Or at least approaches the level
of panic I tried to infer in that last sentence.)

Regards |:)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac



On 7/21/06 10:58 PM, in article ,
"Klaus Linke" wrote:

Hi John,

Thanks, I will play a bit with your info.
Sounds like one more reason to hate linked styles...

Regards,
Klaus


"John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]" wrote:
Hi Klaus:

Yep: I have heard of it :-) Any combination of Automatic Update, Keep
Track of Formatting and Linked Styles will do this :-)

What's happening is that he's painting a "format" into a linked style that
is set to automatically update. When he does that, the entire document
updates :-)

As Bob says, the user's better off learning to use Styles properly,
because
the inside of that document is rapidly turning into format salad and it
will
be very unstable.

Cheers

On 22/7/06 8:00 AM, in article ,
"Klaus
Linke" wrote:

Hi Tim,

I have not heard of such an issue before. Which version do you use?

You didn't mention the formatting change that was made to the paragraph
you
copied the format from.
Even better would be some reproducible steps to see the problem.

Does the change occur on copying, or on pasting (as your description
suggests)?

Regards,
Klaus



"Tim" wrote:
I've got a very long document with many heading levels. When I try to
use
the format painter to transfer the style of one heading to another, I
get
an
unwanted change in format. First, I click on the heading that has the
format
that I want to copy, and then click the format painter icon on the tool
bar.
Sor far, so good.

Next, I click on the heading that I want to recieve the format. It gets
the
new format. So far, so good. Unfortuantely, the first heading that had
the format being copied is mysteriously changed to a new format.
Not good. To prevent this from happending, I've turned off all of the
autocorrect and autoformat things I can find, but the probelm persists.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your help!



--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

Ummm... Yeah, that about covers it :-)


On 22/7/06 2:59 PM, in article ,
"CyberTaz" wrote:

Hi Klaus -

Please don't get the wrong impression - It isn't so much the linked styles
that is the problem. It's that when styles are linked but you don't know it
and didn't create them & don't even know that styles are involved or what
they are and you've got direct formatting interjected... that the issue
starts to eat you - and your doc - alive. (Or at least approaches the level
of panic I tried to infer in that last sentence.)

Regards |:)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac



On 7/21/06 10:58 PM, in article ,
"Klaus Linke" wrote:

Hi John,

Thanks, I will play a bit with your info.
Sounds like one more reason to hate linked styles...

Regards,
Klaus


"John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]" wrote:
Hi Klaus:

Yep: I have heard of it :-) Any combination of Automatic Update, Keep
Track of Formatting and Linked Styles will do this :-)

What's happening is that he's painting a "format" into a linked style that
is set to automatically update. When he does that, the entire document
updates :-)

As Bob says, the user's better off learning to use Styles properly,
because
the inside of that document is rapidly turning into format salad and it
will
be very unstable.

Cheers

On 22/7/06 8:00 AM, in article ,
"Klaus
Linke" wrote:

Hi Tim,

I have not heard of such an issue before. Which version do you use?

You didn't mention the formatting change that was made to the paragraph
you
copied the format from.
Even better would be some reproducible steps to see the problem.

Does the change occur on copying, or on pasting (as your description
suggests)?

Regards,
Klaus



"Tim" wrote:
I've got a very long document with many heading levels. When I try to
use
the format painter to transfer the style of one heading to another, I
get
an
unwanted change in format. First, I click on the heading that has the
format
that I want to copy, and then click the format painter icon on the tool
bar.
Sor far, so good.

Next, I click on the heading that I want to recieve the format. It gets
the
new format. So far, so good. Unfortuantely, the first heading that had
the format being copied is mysteriously changed to a new format.
Not good. To prevent this from happending, I've turned off all of the
autocorrect and autoformat things I can find, but the probelm persists.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your help!



--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410





--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410