Re: Word caption style there...but not...

Subject: Re: Word caption style there...but not...
From: Edwin Skau <eddy -dot- skau -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2005 01:02:17 -0700


On 10/21/05, Joe Malin <jmalin -at- tuvox -dot- com> wrote:

> As far as I know, this normal
> template overrides the definitions of identically-named styles you have
> in your own document, *unless you attached a template different from
> normal.dot*.
>
> For example, suppose you create the document foobar.doc on your
> computer, where you defined the style Heading1 with Helvetica font. You
> didn't save this style to a different template or attach a template
> specific to this document, because you didn't think you had to!
>
> You now copy this document to another computer where normal.dot *also*
> has defined Heading1 but with Arial font. Surprise! anything formatted
> with Heading1 will show as Arial, *but only on that computer*.

This is very different from the Word behavior I know.

According to what I'm used to, Normal.dot is the default template that
documents map to, unless you create a document based on another
template, or attach the other template to the document. This much is
identical.

When you add superficial formatting, however, Word adds that
information in the form of switches (bold, etc. on/off) that seem to
be embedded in the paragraph mark (hard return code).

If you copy a paragraph with the superficially added (not defined in
the style) formatting, the formatting is usually carried on to the
next document. This is usually the cause for document corruption in
pre-XP versions of Word. XP and later, word just mutates styles and
adds the formatting info to the style name (e.g. Web Normal + bold +
italics + other stuff)

None of this, however, explains why your Caption style is not displayed.

---------------------------

To display the Caption style in the Styles and Formatting list:

In the "show" listbox, select custom. The rest will be obvious.

------------------

> * *Always* define your own template; *never* depend on normal.dot. One way to do this
> is to construct a boilerplate shell of your document, save it as a template, and then
> create the "real" document from the template.

If you're a technical communicator, this is more than just a good idea.

> * Set up all the styles you like to use, *name them differently from Word's built-in styles*, save them as a template, and then overwrite normal.dot with that template. In XP and
2003 versions of Office, your normal.dot directory is picked up from
your logon user settings, that is c:\Documents and
Settings\<username>\Application
Data\Microsoft\Templates

Very very bad move.
1. Do not create new heading styles. modify the existing heading
styles (in your new template) unless you're using fields for
numbering. This is also a good idea for body text, list levels, etc.

2. Tampering with Normal.dot template is the MS Office equivalent of
dangling your nuts in a bear trap. It will affect every Word document
you ever open on your computer, and all templates you create.

> I do *not* use style Normal, nor do I allow any other style to be based on it. All my
> styles are based on (no style).
> * Never default to the normal.dot template for any document that's going "off" your machine.

Wise words.

-------------------

-ed


P.S. www.mvps.org is an excellent source for Word and other
Offfice-related issues.

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RE: Word caption style there...but not...: From: Joe Malin

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