Autoformat and Automatically Update
AutoFormat as you Type
AutoFormat as you Type isn’t about Styles, but if you’ve looked into style behavior and are still scratching your head, it’s worth looking into this. Here’s the way in and a look at the options available…
This option is off by default, and it is recommended for experienced style users only. It determines whether Word defines styles automatically, but it does not control whether Word updates a style that’s already been defined.
File > Options > Add–ins and select Templates from the Manage DropList at the bottom of that dialog. Then hit [ Go…] to get to the Templates and Add-ins dialog. There you can check – and change – which template your document is based upon and most importantly, ensure that Automatically update document styles is DISABLED.
There’s also an Automatically update option in the Modify Style dialog, that you can use to selectively apply or disable style updating depending upon your preference of ‘Automatically update document styles‘ discussed just above. Be wary of selecting the Automatically update check box for styles that have a global impact, like Normal. If you happen to select this, it could result in surprising and unexpected formatting later, if you apply direct formatting to text that uses this style.
For example, say this check box has been selected for the Normal paragraph style. In your document, you decide you want to emphasize just one paragraph with italic formatting. So you select this one paragraph and click the Italic button. Your whole document turns italic.
What happened? It’s likely that every style in your document is based on the Normal paragraph style. Because Automatically update is selected for the Normal style, Word interprets your italic formatting to be desirable everywhere Normal is used.
The default setting for this option is off. Turning it on can be a good thing for styles, such as headings, that have less impact than Normal. Just be judicious about when you select it.
And…
Have a look through ‘10 annoying Word features (and how to turn them off)‘ by by Jody Gilbert at TechRepublic. Note that there is even an ‘Undo‘ to the ‘Cheap solution: Undo‘ solution, and that’s Redo [Ctrl]+[Y].
there’s more; what, and what-not…
What
What to do: Modify paragraphs using a paragraph style.
A paragraph style controls all aspects of a paragraph’s appearance, such as text alignment, tab stops, line spacing, and borders, and can include character formatting.
A character style affects selected text within a paragraph (font, font size etc).
- Modify text with a character style rather than direct formatting
What-not
Avoid these if you can!
Table Styles are historically problematic; your document’s likely to become like a ball of yarn with a playful cat! Wassat? Table styles carry a high risk of document corruption, so, no, don’t use them unless you absolutely must.
- Restrict use of tables in the body of a document, throw in a hundred and just sit back and wait for your super-doco to crash and corrupt!
- Never use a table in a header of footer. Never, ever, ever!
- Avoid the inbuilt table styles; tables have their own set of styles, tweak those instead.
Normal style is the most problematic of all. It’s fine when kept in its box, but let it out and Pandora strikes! It’s fine for local stuff, but if you modify your Normal style and send your document to someone else, when they open it their Normal style will take over and your formatting is lost. If that’s of no import, then yay, but if it adversely affects the way you want your document to look, then re-work those changes on a new style that’s clean 9not based on normal or any other default style.
- Be wary of using ‘Automatic update on any style
- Be sparing of automated bullets, Word seems to confuse itself around a lot of these
- Minimise the use of direct formatting (applying Italic, bold etc.) through toolbar buttons, or shortcuts. There’s nothing wrong with it, per se, but if you find yourself doing this a lot, and in a consistent way (say, to highlight terminology) then it’s worth making a style for that. You can tweak a character style that’s bold, but less than outright black so that it emphasises without ‘shouting out’, like the words ‘character style’ used just now.
Create - Manage - Produce 