Hidden text won't stick

You were RIGHT ON TARGET!

Thank you very much!!

This newsgroup saved my bacon again. What would I do without you people?

"Margaret Aldis" wrote in
message ...
To add to what John and Bob have posted - while it's possible that you do
have a more complicated numbering style problem here, I think you might
find the solution to this is simply to use Ctrl-Q (reset paragraph
formatting) to clean up the formatting instead of reapplying the style -
this will do what Bob's proposed macro does, and leave character
formatting alone. I suspect the difference between "good" and "bad"
paragraphs is that the "bad" paragraphs have more than 50% of the text
hidden - when you apply a paragraph style to those, Word "kindly" assumes
you want the font applied too, but if you have less than 50% it leaves it
alone, and you have to explicitly use Ctl-Space to clean back to para
style font.

Bob's other suggestion of using a character style to apply the hidden
characteristic is even better, if you are prepared to change the documents
and train other editors to use it (a nice easy button will normally work
as well as a sharp stick g). Where font formatting is applied with a
character style, it will stay put even if you do (re)apply a paragraph
style in the over 50% case.

--
Margaret Aldis - Microsoft Word MVP
Syntagma partnership site: http://www.syntagma.co.uk
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.word.mvps.org

"Gary Burton" wrote in message
...
Thanks! I wish I could keep the other teachers from editing the document,
but that isn't an option. I just have to make it as safe as possible.

Please read my last response to John, and make any comments you deem
useful.

"Robert M. Franz (RMF)" wrote in message
...
Hi Gary

Gary Burton wrote:
I am using Word 2002 and a later version of word. Both are
on Win XP machines, and both have the same problem. It's important
that I find a solution because it affects a lot of documents.

I am a teacher, working with other teachers; and I am
making up a homework book to be used by several teachers. The homework
book has 2 basic styles: 1. "Numbered question" for the questions and,
2. "Lettered answer" for the answer choices. There is hidden text at
the end of both styles with no carriage return separating the hidden
text from the visible text.

Sometimes the format gets messed up by me or one of the
other teachers, and I want to be able to just click on the appropriate
style form the styles window and fix it. That usually works, but there
are some paragraphs in both of these styles for which I have a common
problem. The problem is that while clicking on the appropriate style
does reformat the numbered question or the lettered answer, it also
makes the hidden text visible. I sometimes make changes to a large
number of paragraphs at once, so I can't even tell which ones are
getting visible answers. The students appreciate that because it shows
them the answers, but I don't like it.

:-)

See John's remarks!

What might work is the following: if you use a character style for your
hidden formatting, and make sure that you never apply it to a paragraph
mark, then you could use a makro that resets a paragraph to its para
style but preserves char styles.

But I agree with John, it's probably easier just to use hidden paragraph
styles for hidden text and use "Tools | Options | View" to manage its
visibility, and "... | Print" wheter it's printed or not.

Not letting other teachers work with carefully drafted numbered
paragraphs might be an idea, too! :-)

Greetinx
Robert
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