Re: Word styles that refuse to be modified or deleted and won'tfreakin' go away

["Jonathan West" <jwest -at- mvps -dot- org>]

2008/9/17 Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>:
> I'll add:
>
> 3.  Do not give the styles in your own template the same
> names as styles in Word's NORMAL template.  I use
> <companyname_stylename" to name all our template
> styles.
>

That is unnecessary and can cause problems, at least with the Heading
styles. I would recommend you use the built-in heading styles, so that
you can manipulate the document in Outline view.

I recommend using separate styles for bulleted and numbered lists -
I've found that using the built-in style names can cause extra
unwanted tabs to appear in the style definition.

Of course some built-in style names have to be used, such as the TOC
styles and the footnote & endnote styles.

Apart from that, you can take your pick as to whether you use built-in
style names.


> 4.  Do not base the styles in your own template on any
> styles in Word's NORMAL template.  Break the "based on"
> association and make your styles stand on their own.
>

You are confusing the Normal style with the Normal.dot template. When
you create a separate template, all the styles defined within it are
self-contained within the template.

Whether you base styles on the Normal style or make them separate is a
fairly arbitrary choice. I would always recommend that the Normal
style itself is left untouched, since changing Normal has unintended
effects on your ability to specify Table styles. Basing styles on each
other allows you to change some base style (e.g. if you decide that
your body text should be 11pt instead of 10pt) and have the change
cascade through all the derived styles. This enables you to make
changes to the overall layout of the document very quickly & easily.

Regards
Jonathan West
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