Troubleshoot using styles and applying formatting

• Automatic updating may be turned on for the style   With automatic updating, a style is updated when you make additional changes to it, so that certain elements in your document — such as headings — are consistent. You can turn off this setting by modifying the style.

  1. If the Styles and Formatting task pane is not open, click Styles and Formatting on the Formatting toolbar.

  2. Right-click the style that you want to change, and then click Modify.

  3. If the Automatically update check box is selected, clear it.

• Your style may be based on another style that has changed   When a base style changes, so do all the styles that are dependent on it. For example, if you change the font in the Normal style to Arial, Microsoft Word changes the font for the styles used in footnotes, headers, footers, page numbers, and other text based on the Normal style.

• If you don't want a certain style to change when you change a base style, make certain that your style is not based on another style, or at least not on the base style that you're changing.

  1. If the Styles and Formatting task pane is not open, click Styles and Formatting on the Formatting toolbar.

  2. Right-click the style that you want to change, and then click Modify.

  3. In the Style based on box, click (no style) or a style different from the base style you're changing.

• The document may be based on a template that changed   If you change the styles in a template and then reopen a document based on that template, styles in the current document may be updated, based on their new definitions in the template. If you don't want the styles in documents based on a particular template to be updated when you open the documents, click Templates and Add-Ins on the Tools menu, and then clear the Automatically update document styles check box.

• The template that contains the style definitions may be missing or damaged   If the template that contains the style definitions is missing or damaged, styles in the current document use the style definitions from the Normal template.

The format you apply by using a paragraph style or character style may change the existing character formatting of the text. For example, when you apply a built-in heading style such as Heading 1 to underlined text, the underlining disappears. This will not occur if you format the characters after you apply the style.

The Style Gallery is not used for changing the template attached to your document; you use it to view or apply styles from other templates to your document. To attach a different template to your document, click Templates and Add-Ins on the Tools menu.

Some text may have been formatted manually by using Microsoft Word formatting commands. You can compare the formatting of two text selections by using the Reveal Formatting task pane.

1. On the Format menu, click Reveal Formatting, and then select the first instance of formatted text that you want to compare.

2. Select the Compare to another selection check box, and then select the second instance of text with the formatting that you want to compare.

3. Under Formatting differences, any differences between the two selections are listed.

You can also remove manual formatting from a text selection and restore the settings of its style. To remove manual formatting from a paragraph, select the paragraph — including the paragraph mark — and then press CTRL+Q. To remove manual formatting from characters, select the characters, and then press CTRL+SPACEBAR.

• In the Styles and Formatting task pane, in the Show box, click All styles or Custom.

When you apply a style to text, change the text formatting, and then reapply the style, Microsoft Word can prompt you to either update the style based on the new formatting or reapply the style as it was last defined.

By contrast, when you apply the Normal style to text, Word does not give you the option to update the style. Instead of prompting you either to redefine or reapply the Normal style, Word automatically reapplies the Normal style, and overwrites the formatting changes you made.

To redefine the Normal style, do the following:

1. If the Styles and Formatting task pane is not open, click Styles and Formatting on the Formatting toolbar.
2. In the Styles and Formatting task pane, right-click Normal, and then click Modify.
3. To permanently redefine the Normal style, select the Add to template check box.
4. Make any changes that you want.
5. To see more options, click Format, and then click the attribute — such as Font or Numbering — you want to change.
6. Make the changes you want, and then click OK.
7. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for any additional attributes you want to change.

Your access to the document or template to which you want to copy styles, macros, or AutoText entries might be restricted in one of the following ways:

• Protected except for comments or tracked changes   To remove protection, click Unprotect Document on the Tools menu. If the document is protected with a password, you must know the password before you can remove protection from the document.

• Protected with a password to modify   You can open the document or template, but you can't save changes to it without the password.

• Protected as a read-only file   You can open the document or template, but if you change it, you need to give it a different file name to be able to save it.

• Limited to users with network privileges   If the document or template you're trying to access is on a network, you might not have the user privileges necessary to save changes to it.

• Click Styles and Formatting on the Formatting toolbar.

The Style area is available in normal view only. On the View menu, click Normal.

If you still do not see the style area, click Options on the Tools menu, and then click the View tab. In the Style area width box under Outline and Normal options, enter a measurement for the width of the style area, such as 1.2".

By default, formatting that's in use, common heading styles, and styles you have created are displayed in the Styles and Formatting task pane.

• You may have selected All Styles in the Show box. Instead, click Available formatting to restore the default view, Formatting in use to see only the formatting that appears in your document, or click Custom to define the view.

• If Available formatting is selected in the Show box, you may have many overlapping formats that look similar but aren't exactly the same. To provide a more consistent look and to remove overlapping formats, you can check the consistency of formatting.