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#1
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Formats go berserk when emailing a document
I want to understand how formatting of emailed documents behaves. Am willing
to pay for a reproducible set of actions that reproduces my problem and demonstrates a solution. Do you understand the problem described below? Can you help me solve it? How much will you charge to solve it and describe the cause and effect to me so that I can communicate the same cause and effect to my masters and then implement the solution (that I think centers around a corporate template)? I am a somewhat, self-taught Word Aficionado in my company. We use Word 2007. Although we have MOSS 2007 running, several members of staff continue to email Word documents to colleagues as a method of collaboration. My Cassandra cries go unanswered. Recently, I was unceremoniously stripped of my ‘right’ to contribute because anytime I retuned the document it the formatting was inconsistent with what the author had sent. I ‘knew’ that the problem was related to templates somehow. His document was based on normal.dotx with lots of direct formatting. I could see that his document included some corporate styles since “ProposalNormal” was a style and was evident in his document. However, whenever I opened the document, the heading numbering scheme changed along with lots of other subtle changes. For clarity, the Author sent the document to me and to my colleague. Whenever I opened the document, the formatting was corrupt. Whenever my colleague opened the document, it displayed ‘predictably.’ The author based his document on another document that my colleague provided. As a self-taught Word guy, I, naturally, assumed that the problem centered around the normal template and the style definitions embedded within. So I wanted to test my hypothesis. I created a document based on the normal.dotm template. I then proceeded to modify many of the styles (normal, body text, Headings, etc.) within the document AND the template so that they would bear no relation to anyone else’s normal template. On the developer tab, the check box for updating the styles was selected. I emailed the document to one of my colleagues confident that he would see the document in a totally different way than how I was seeing it. Such was not the case. The style definitions and the presentation were identically my definitions. We both opened another document that we had received from a third party. The check box was unchecked for update styles from the normal template. The document displayed as the original author had intended (we think). When I selected the “update styles from template” check box, Word responded predictably and adjusted the formats to my settings. I want to introduce a corporate template to the organization to alleviate much of the frustration associated with collaborative reviews. I can’t sell it unless I can explain it and recreate the behaviors that demonstrate that the only viable way forward is a corporate template. Tasks. 1) Explain the Word hierarchy of formats (specifically the precedence of global and document templates and direct formatting interact) within emailed documents 2) Does the behavior manifest itself in a similar way when using a platform like MOSS 2007? 3) Develop a scenario that I can create on my computer that demonstrates why we need to introduce a corporate template. The experience that I describe above is what we want to AVOID; therefore, by explaining why I could send a document that displayed correctly on my colleagues machine but I couldn’t open a document from a third colleague without the formatting going haywire is necessary. I can handle template development and distribution. -- Dan FANCHER Springfield OH |
#2
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Formats go berserk when emailing a document
If you are e-mailing the document as the body of the e-mail message then you
should bear in mind that formatted e-mails are html and Word documents are doc format, which have entirely different formatting requirements. If you want the document to remain a reasonable facsimile of the original mail it as an attachment, but bear in mind http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/TextReflow.htm. If you want the recipient to see what you see, send a PDF file of the document. -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org Dan FANCHER wrote: I want to understand how formatting of emailed documents behaves. Am willing to pay for a reproducible set of actions that reproduces my problem and demonstrates a solution. Do you understand the problem described below? Can you help me solve it? How much will you charge to solve it and describe the cause and effect to me so that I can communicate the same cause and effect to my masters and then implement the solution (that I think centers around a corporate template)? I am a somewhat, self-taught Word Aficionado in my company. We use Word 2007. Although we have MOSS 2007 running, several members of staff continue to email Word documents to colleagues as a method of collaboration. My Cassandra cries go unanswered. Recently, I was unceremoniously stripped of my 'right' to contribute because anytime I retuned the document it the formatting was inconsistent with what the author had sent. I 'knew' that the problem was related to templates somehow. His document was based on normal.dotx with lots of direct formatting. I could see that his document included some corporate styles since "ProposalNormal" was a style and was evident in his document. However, whenever I opened the document, the heading numbering scheme changed along with lots of other subtle changes. For clarity, the Author sent the document to me and to my colleague. Whenever I opened the document, the formatting was corrupt. Whenever my colleague opened the document, it displayed 'predictably.' The author based his document on another document that my colleague provided. As a self-taught Word guy, I, naturally, assumed that the problem centered around the normal template and the style definitions embedded within. So I wanted to test my hypothesis. I created a document based on the normal.dotm template. I then proceeded to modify many of the styles (normal, body text, Headings, etc.) within the document AND the template so that they would bear no relation to anyone else's normal template. On the developer tab, the check box for updating the styles was selected. I emailed the document to one of my colleagues confident that he would see the document in a totally different way than how I was seeing it. Such was not the case. The style definitions and the presentation were identically my definitions. We both opened another document that we had received from a third party. The check box was unchecked for update styles from the normal template. The document displayed as the original author had intended (we think). When I selected the "update styles from template" check box, Word responded predictably and adjusted the formats to my settings. I want to introduce a corporate template to the organization to alleviate much of the frustration associated with collaborative reviews. I can't sell it unless I can explain it and recreate the behaviors that demonstrate that the only viable way forward is a corporate template. Tasks. 1) Explain the Word hierarchy of formats (specifically the precedence of global and document templates and direct formatting interact) within emailed documents 2) Does the behavior manifest itself in a similar way when using a platform like MOSS 2007? 3) Develop a scenario that I can create on my computer that demonstrates why we need to introduce a corporate template. The experience that I describe above is what we want to AVOID; therefore, by explaining why I could send a document that displayed correctly on my colleagues machine but I couldn't open a document from a third colleague without the formatting going haywire is necessary. I can handle template development and distribution. |
#3
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Formats go berserk when emailing a document
You could start with
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/temp...ons/index.html and http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/atta...ate/index.html, along with http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styl...xtChanges.html -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA http://word.mvps.org "Dan FANCHER" wrote in message ... I want to understand how formatting of emailed documents behaves. Am willing to pay for a reproducible set of actions that reproduces my problem and demonstrates a solution. Do you understand the problem described below? Can you help me solve it? How much will you charge to solve it and describe the cause and effect to me so that I can communicate the same cause and effect to my masters and then implement the solution (that I think centers around a corporate template)? I am a somewhat, self-taught Word Aficionado in my company. We use Word 2007. Although we have MOSS 2007 running, several members of staff continue to email Word documents to colleagues as a method of collaboration. My Cassandra cries go unanswered. Recently, I was unceremoniously stripped of my ‘right’ to contribute because anytime I retuned the document it the formatting was inconsistent with what the author had sent. I ‘knew’ that the problem was related to templates somehow. His document was based on normal.dotx with lots of direct formatting. I could see that his document included some corporate styles since “ProposalNormal” was a style and was evident in his document. However, whenever I opened the document, the heading numbering scheme changed along with lots of other subtle changes. For clarity, the Author sent the document to me and to my colleague. Whenever I opened the document, the formatting was corrupt. Whenever my colleague opened the document, it displayed ‘predictably.’ The author based his document on another document that my colleague provided. As a self-taught Word guy, I, naturally, assumed that the problem centered around the normal template and the style definitions embedded within. So I wanted to test my hypothesis. I created a document based on the normal.dotm template. I then proceeded to modify many of the styles (normal, body text, Headings, etc.) within the document AND the template so that they would bear no relation to anyone else’s normal template. On the developer tab, the check box for updating the styles was selected. I emailed the document to one of my colleagues confident that he would see the document in a totally different way than how I was seeing it. Such was not the case. The style definitions and the presentation were identically my definitions. We both opened another document that we had received from a third party. The check box was unchecked for update styles from the normal template. The document displayed as the original author had intended (we think). When I selected the “update styles from template” check box, Word responded predictably and adjusted the formats to my settings. I want to introduce a corporate template to the organization to alleviate much of the frustration associated with collaborative reviews. I can’t sell it unless I can explain it and recreate the behaviors that demonstrate that the only viable way forward is a corporate template. Tasks. 1) Explain the Word hierarchy of formats (specifically the precedence of global and document templates and direct formatting interact) within emailed documents 2) Does the behavior manifest itself in a similar way when using a platform like MOSS 2007? 3) Develop a scenario that I can create on my computer that demonstrates why we need to introduce a corporate template. The experience that I describe above is what we want to AVOID; therefore, by explaining why I could send a document that displayed correctly on my colleagues machine but I couldn’t open a document from a third colleague without the formatting going haywire is necessary. I can handle template development and distribution. -- Dan FANCHER Springfield OH |
#4
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Formats go berserk when emailing a document
Graham,
We're attempting to collaborate on a document's content; sending in PDF doesn't support our aim. Using Office 2007, we send as email is identically equivalent as attaching the document to an email. -- Dan FANCHER Springfield OH "Graham Mayor" wrote: If you are e-mailing the document as the body of the e-mail message then you should bear in mind that formatted e-mails are html and Word documents are doc format, which have entirely different formatting requirements. If you want the document to remain a reasonable facsimile of the original mail it as an attachment, but bear in mind http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/TextReflow.htm. If you want the recipient to see what you see, send a PDF file of the document. -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org Dan FANCHER wrote: I want to understand how formatting of emailed documents behaves. Am willing to pay for a reproducible set of actions that reproduces my problem and demonstrates a solution. Do you understand the problem described below? Can you help me solve it? How much will you charge to solve it and describe the cause and effect to me so that I can communicate the same cause and effect to my masters and then implement the solution (that I think centers around a corporate template)? I am a somewhat, self-taught Word Aficionado in my company. We use Word 2007. Although we have MOSS 2007 running, several members of staff continue to email Word documents to colleagues as a method of collaboration. My Cassandra cries go unanswered. Recently, I was unceremoniously stripped of my 'right' to contribute because anytime I retuned the document it the formatting was inconsistent with what the author had sent. I 'knew' that the problem was related to templates somehow. His document was based on normal.dotx with lots of direct formatting. I could see that his document included some corporate styles since "ProposalNormal" was a style and was evident in his document. However, whenever I opened the document, the heading numbering scheme changed along with lots of other subtle changes. For clarity, the Author sent the document to me and to my colleague. Whenever I opened the document, the formatting was corrupt. Whenever my colleague opened the document, it displayed 'predictably.' The author based his document on another document that my colleague provided. As a self-taught Word guy, I, naturally, assumed that the problem centered around the normal template and the style definitions embedded within. So I wanted to test my hypothesis. I created a document based on the normal.dotm template. I then proceeded to modify many of the styles (normal, body text, Headings, etc.) within the document AND the template so that they would bear no relation to anyone else's normal template. On the developer tab, the check box for updating the styles was selected. I emailed the document to one of my colleagues confident that he would see the document in a totally different way than how I was seeing it. Such was not the case. The style definitions and the presentation were identically my definitions. We both opened another document that we had received from a third party. The check box was unchecked for update styles from the normal template. The document displayed as the original author had intended (we think). When I selected the "update styles from template" check box, Word responded predictably and adjusted the formats to my settings. I want to introduce a corporate template to the organization to alleviate much of the frustration associated with collaborative reviews. I can't sell it unless I can explain it and recreate the behaviors that demonstrate that the only viable way forward is a corporate template. Tasks. 1) Explain the Word hierarchy of formats (specifically the precedence of global and document templates and direct formatting interact) within emailed documents 2) Does the behavior manifest itself in a similar way when using a platform like MOSS 2007? 3) Develop a scenario that I can create on my computer that demonstrates why we need to introduce a corporate template. The experience that I describe above is what we want to AVOID; therefore, by explaining why I could send a document that displayed correctly on my colleagues machine but I couldn't open a document from a third colleague without the formatting going haywire is necessary. I can handle template development and distribution. . |
#5
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Formats go berserk when emailing a document
Suzanne,
I have exhausted nearly every resource on the web to include Shauna's. The relationships between documents and their templates is slightly helpful, but it doesn't go deep enough to allow me to reliably recreate the problem that we are having. I know that I can't be the only one that is frustrated by this behavior--things like the heading numbering changes from 1.1.1 to 1.A.(1) for instance. -- Dan FANCHER Springfield OH "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote: You could start with http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/temp...ons/index.html and http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/atta...ate/index.html, along with http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styl...xtChanges.html -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA http://word.mvps.org "Dan FANCHER" wrote in message ... I want to understand how formatting of emailed documents behaves. Am willing to pay for a reproducible set of actions that reproduces my problem and demonstrates a solution. Do you understand the problem described below? Can you help me solve it? How much will you charge to solve it and describe the cause and effect to me so that I can communicate the same cause and effect to my masters and then implement the solution (that I think centers around a corporate template)? I am a somewhat, self-taught Word Aficionado in my company. We use Word 2007. Although we have MOSS 2007 running, several members of staff continue to email Word documents to colleagues as a method of collaboration. My Cassandra cries go unanswered. Recently, I was unceremoniously stripped of my ‘right’ to contribute because anytime I retuned the document it the formatting was inconsistent with what the author had sent. I ‘knew’ that the problem was related to templates somehow. His document was based on normal.dotx with lots of direct formatting. I could see that his document included some corporate styles since “ProposalNormal” was a style and was evident in his document. However, whenever I opened the document, the heading numbering scheme changed along with lots of other subtle changes. For clarity, the Author sent the document to me and to my colleague. Whenever I opened the document, the formatting was corrupt. Whenever my colleague opened the document, it displayed ‘predictably.’ The author based his document on another document that my colleague provided. As a self-taught Word guy, I, naturally, assumed that the problem centered around the normal template and the style definitions embedded within. So I wanted to test my hypothesis. I created a document based on the normal.dotm template. I then proceeded to modify many of the styles (normal, body text, Headings, etc.) within the document AND the template so that they would bear no relation to anyone else’s normal template. On the developer tab, the check box for updating the styles was selected. I emailed the document to one of my colleagues confident that he would see the document in a totally different way than how I was seeing it. Such was not the case. The style definitions and the presentation were identically my definitions. We both opened another document that we had received from a third party. The check box was unchecked for update styles from the normal template. The document displayed as the original author had intended (we think). When I selected the “update styles from template” check box, Word responded predictably and adjusted the formats to my settings. I want to introduce a corporate template to the organization to alleviate much of the frustration associated with collaborative reviews. I can’t sell it unless I can explain it and recreate the behaviors that demonstrate that the only viable way forward is a corporate template. Tasks. 1) Explain the Word hierarchy of formats (specifically the precedence of global and document templates and direct formatting interact) within emailed documents 2) Does the behavior manifest itself in a similar way when using a platform like MOSS 2007? 3) Develop a scenario that I can create on my computer that demonstrates why we need to introduce a corporate template. The experience that I describe above is what we want to AVOID; therefore, by explaining why I could send a document that displayed correctly on my colleagues machine but I couldn’t open a document from a third colleague without the formatting going haywire is necessary. I can handle template development and distribution. -- Dan FANCHER Springfield OH . |
#6
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Formats go berserk when emailing a document
Heading numbering should not changed provided you have linked each level of
a numbered list to a specific style--unless the document is based on a template in which the styles are defined differently and "Automatically update document styles" is enabled. -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA http://word.mvps.org "Dan FANCHER" wrote in message ... Suzanne, I have exhausted nearly every resource on the web to include Shauna's. The relationships between documents and their templates is slightly helpful, but it doesn't go deep enough to allow me to reliably recreate the problem that we are having. I know that I can't be the only one that is frustrated by this behavior--things like the heading numbering changes from 1.1.1 to 1.A.(1) for instance. -- Dan FANCHER Springfield OH "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote: You could start with http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/temp...ons/index.html and http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/atta...ate/index.html, along with http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/styl...xtChanges.html -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA http://word.mvps.org "Dan FANCHER" wrote in message ... I want to understand how formatting of emailed documents behaves. Am willing to pay for a reproducible set of actions that reproduces my problem and demonstrates a solution. Do you understand the problem described below? Can you help me solve it? How much will you charge to solve it and describe the cause and effect to me so that I can communicate the same cause and effect to my masters and then implement the solution (that I think centers around a corporate template)? I am a somewhat, self-taught Word Aficionado in my company. We use Word 2007. Although we have MOSS 2007 running, several members of staff continue to email Word documents to colleagues as a method of collaboration. My Cassandra cries go unanswered. Recently, I was unceremoniously stripped of my ‘right’ to contribute because anytime I retuned the document it the formatting was inconsistent with what the author had sent. I ‘knew’ that the problem was related to templates somehow. His document was based on normal.dotx with lots of direct formatting. I could see that his document included some corporate styles since “ProposalNormal” was a style and was evident in his document. However, whenever I opened the document, the heading numbering scheme changed along with lots of other subtle changes. For clarity, the Author sent the document to me and to my colleague. Whenever I opened the document, the formatting was corrupt. Whenever my colleague opened the document, it displayed ‘predictably.’ The author based his document on another document that my colleague provided. As a self-taught Word guy, I, naturally, assumed that the problem centered around the normal template and the style definitions embedded within. So I wanted to test my hypothesis. I created a document based on the normal.dotm template. I then proceeded to modify many of the styles (normal, body text, Headings, etc.) within the document AND the template so that they would bear no relation to anyone else’s normal template. On the developer tab, the check box for updating the styles was selected. I emailed the document to one of my colleagues confident that he would see the document in a totally different way than how I was seeing it. Such was not the case. The style definitions and the presentation were identically my definitions. We both opened another document that we had received from a third party. The check box was unchecked for update styles from the normal template. The document displayed as the original author had intended (we think). When I selected the “update styles from template” check box, Word responded predictably and adjusted the formats to my settings. I want to introduce a corporate template to the organization to alleviate much of the frustration associated with collaborative reviews. I can’t sell it unless I can explain it and recreate the behaviors that demonstrate that the only viable way forward is a corporate template. Tasks. 1) Explain the Word hierarchy of formats (specifically the precedence of global and document templates and direct formatting interact) within emailed documents 2) Does the behavior manifest itself in a similar way when using a platform like MOSS 2007? 3) Develop a scenario that I can create on my computer that demonstrates why we need to introduce a corporate template. The experience that I describe above is what we want to AVOID; therefore, by explaining why I could send a document that displayed correctly on my colleagues machine but I couldn’t open a document from a third colleague without the formatting going haywire is necessary. I can handle template development and distribution. -- Dan FANCHER Springfield OH . |
#7
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Formats go berserk when emailing a document
Did you read the linked page -
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/TextReflow.htm ? -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org Dan FANCHER wrote: Graham, We're attempting to collaborate on a document's content; sending in PDF doesn't support our aim. Using Office 2007, we send as email is identically equivalent as attaching the document to an email. If you are e-mailing the document as the body of the e-mail message then you should bear in mind that formatted e-mails are html and Word documents are doc format, which have entirely different formatting requirements. If you want the document to remain a reasonable facsimile of the original mail it as an attachment, but bear in mind http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/TextReflow.htm. If you want the recipient to see what you see, send a PDF file of the document. -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org Dan FANCHER wrote: I want to understand how formatting of emailed documents behaves. Am willing to pay for a reproducible set of actions that reproduces my problem and demonstrates a solution. Do you understand the problem described below? Can you help me solve it? How much will you charge to solve it and describe the cause and effect to me so that I can communicate the same cause and effect to my masters and then implement the solution (that I think centers around a corporate template)? I am a somewhat, self-taught Word Aficionado in my company. We use Word 2007. Although we have MOSS 2007 running, several members of staff continue to email Word documents to colleagues as a method of collaboration. My Cassandra cries go unanswered. Recently, I was unceremoniously stripped of my 'right' to contribute because anytime I retuned the document it the formatting was inconsistent with what the author had sent. I 'knew' that the problem was related to templates somehow. His document was based on normal.dotx with lots of direct formatting. I could see that his document included some corporate styles since "ProposalNormal" was a style and was evident in his document. However, whenever I opened the document, the heading numbering scheme changed along with lots of other subtle changes. For clarity, the Author sent the document to me and to my colleague. Whenever I opened the document, the formatting was corrupt. Whenever my colleague opened the document, it displayed 'predictably.' The author based his document on another document that my colleague provided. As a self-taught Word guy, I, naturally, assumed that the problem centered around the normal template and the style definitions embedded within. So I wanted to test my hypothesis. I created a document based on the normal.dotm template. I then proceeded to modify many of the styles (normal, body text, Headings, etc.) within the document AND the template so that they would bear no relation to anyone else's normal template. On the developer tab, the check box for updating the styles was selected. I emailed the document to one of my colleagues confident that he would see the document in a totally different way than how I was seeing it. Such was not the case. The style definitions and the presentation were identically my definitions. We both opened another document that we had received from a third party. The check box was unchecked for update styles from the normal template. The document displayed as the original author had intended (we think). When I selected the "update styles from template" check box, Word responded predictably and adjusted the formats to my settings. I want to introduce a corporate template to the organization to alleviate much of the frustration associated with collaborative reviews. I can't sell it unless I can explain it and recreate the behaviors that demonstrate that the only viable way forward is a corporate template. Tasks. 1) Explain the Word hierarchy of formats (specifically the precedence of global and document templates and direct formatting interact) within emailed documents 2) Does the behavior manifest itself in a similar way when using a platform like MOSS 2007? 3) Develop a scenario that I can create on my computer that demonstrates why we need to introduce a corporate template. The experience that I describe above is what we want to AVOID; therefore, by explaining why I could send a document that displayed correctly on my colleagues machine but I couldn't open a document from a third colleague without the formatting going haywire is necessary. I can handle template development and distribution. . |
#8
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Formats go berserk when emailing a document
yes, I read it. The phenomenon affects fonts, font sizes, and section
numbering. If it were minor 'irratations with margins and page breaks, I could live with it. -- Dan FANCHER Springfield OH "Graham Mayor" wrote: Did you read the linked page - http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/TextReflow.htm ? -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org Dan FANCHER wrote: Graham, We're attempting to collaborate on a document's content; sending in PDF doesn't support our aim. Using Office 2007, we send as email is identically equivalent as attaching the document to an email. If you are e-mailing the document as the body of the e-mail message then you should bear in mind that formatted e-mails are html and Word documents are doc format, which have entirely different formatting requirements. If you want the document to remain a reasonable facsimile of the original mail it as an attachment, but bear in mind http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/TextReflow.htm. If you want the recipient to see what you see, send a PDF file of the document. -- Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org Dan FANCHER wrote: I want to understand how formatting of emailed documents behaves. Am willing to pay for a reproducible set of actions that reproduces my problem and demonstrates a solution. Do you understand the problem described below? Can you help me solve it? How much will you charge to solve it and describe the cause and effect to me so that I can communicate the same cause and effect to my masters and then implement the solution (that I think centers around a corporate template)? I am a somewhat, self-taught Word Aficionado in my company. We use Word 2007. Although we have MOSS 2007 running, several members of staff continue to email Word documents to colleagues as a method of collaboration. My Cassandra cries go unanswered. Recently, I was unceremoniously stripped of my 'right' to contribute because anytime I retuned the document it the formatting was inconsistent with what the author had sent. I 'knew' that the problem was related to templates somehow. His document was based on normal.dotx with lots of direct formatting. I could see that his document included some corporate styles since "ProposalNormal" was a style and was evident in his document. However, whenever I opened the document, the heading numbering scheme changed along with lots of other subtle changes. For clarity, the Author sent the document to me and to my colleague. Whenever I opened the document, the formatting was corrupt. Whenever my colleague opened the document, it displayed 'predictably.' The author based his document on another document that my colleague provided. As a self-taught Word guy, I, naturally, assumed that the problem centered around the normal template and the style definitions embedded within. So I wanted to test my hypothesis. I created a document based on the normal.dotm template. I then proceeded to modify many of the styles (normal, body text, Headings, etc.) within the document AND the template so that they would bear no relation to anyone else's normal template. On the developer tab, the check box for updating the styles was selected. I emailed the document to one of my colleagues confident that he would see the document in a totally different way than how I was seeing it. Such was not the case. The style definitions and the presentation were identically my definitions. We both opened another document that we had received from a third party. The check box was unchecked for update styles from the normal template. The document displayed as the original author had intended (we think). When I selected the "update styles from template" check box, Word responded predictably and adjusted the formats to my settings. I want to introduce a corporate template to the organization to alleviate much of the frustration associated with collaborative reviews. I can't sell it unless I can explain it and recreate the behaviors that demonstrate that the only viable way forward is a corporate template. Tasks. 1) Explain the Word hierarchy of formats (specifically the precedence of global and document templates and direct formatting interact) within emailed documents 2) Does the behavior manifest itself in a similar way when using a platform like MOSS 2007? 3) Develop a scenario that I can create on my computer that demonstrates why we need to introduce a corporate template. The experience that I describe above is what we want to AVOID; therefore, by explaining why I could send a document that displayed correctly on my colleagues machine but I couldn't open a document from a third colleague without the formatting going haywire is necessary. I can handle template development and distribution. . . |
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