How can I avoid getting "Body Text,Body Text Char" style definitions (Word 2002)?

Try checking under Tools, AutoCorrect, AutoFormat as You Type, make sure "Define styles based on my formatting" is UNCHECKED.

It is unchecked on all systems I use so that can't be the cause. /Eric

Have you deleted or renamed all instances found of normal.dot?

Also, try Dreamboat's suggestions found here:
http://www.theofficeexperts.com/word.htm

Let us know

You may also want to read this:

http://www.glencoe.com/ps/computered/pas/article.php4?articleId=422

I've both deleted and renamed normal.dot to no effect (that was my first attempt to work out what was happening). The Glencoe article is fairly introductory for Word styles: for the type of work I typically do, I don't create styles on the fly from existing formatting.

The problem does not occur with Word 97, but if an affected file is opened in Word 97, the "... Char" styles do appear so it appears Word 2002 is somehow defining an unwanted new character style. When I save an affected file as RTF, then examine it in an editor, the character style definition does appear. For example:

{\*\cs52 \additive \fs24\lang4105\langfe1033\langnp4105\langfenp1033 \sbasedon10 Body Text Char1;}

In this case, Word 2002 has apparently created a new character style (52) with the name "Body Text Char1" based on style 10 (the Default Paragraph Font). It is additive to the underlying paragraph style but in 12 pt size with English (Canada) as the language.

Moreover, whatever is causing it is also renaming the "Body Text" style to "Body Text,Body Text Char". I can change the name back to "Body Text" but the character style definition is still there. What is weird is that it appears not to be used: the task pane shows no occurrences of it and if I delete it there is no apparent effect.

Eric

I've found some information about this - apparently it's a character style - not paragraph style -- here's from a couple sources:


Tip for Word 2002 and 2003
In Word 2002 and Word 2003, you can apply a paragraph style to part of a paragraph. This creates a kind of hybrid part-paragraph part-character style with a name like "Heading 1 Char" or "Body Text Char".
Be very careful.
To apply a style to some specific text, select it. To apply a style to a whole paragraph, either put your cursor in the paragraph without selecting any text. Or, select all the paragraph including the paragraph marker.


(I also note with no small amount of glee that the poor 'Softies who
wrote the Publisher 2003 Reviewer's Guide,
http://www.microsoft.com/office/publisher/prodinfo/guide.mspx, got bit
by the Word 2002/2003 style naming bug/inanity which produced styles
called (I kid you not) Body Text, Body Text Char1, Body Text Char Char,
Body Text Char1 Char Char, Body Text Char Char Char Char and Body Text
Char, Body Text Char1 Char, Body Text Char Char Char, Body Text Char1
Char Char Char, Body Text Char Char Char Char Char among others. The
Outlook 2003 Reviewer's Guide mentioned earlier has a deleted style
called F Char Char Char Char Char Char Char Char Char Char Char Char
Char Char. I feel your pain, folks!)

from Woodys


Don't know what the answer is....but will keep poking around - maybe Dreamboat can help??

Yes, I had determined that character styles must play a role in this but I think that is only part of the problem. if you use the Task Pane with the Styles and Formatting window, the style names include an icon at the far right to indicate the type (paragraph, character, table, list, table, or none [for formatting in use when direct formatting has been used]). What puzzles me is that Word creates the character style (i.e. "Body Text Char") but <i>also</i> appends the same 'name' to the paragraph style (so you end up with the paragraph style "Body Text" becoming "Body Text,Body Text Char".

I have noticed that the new Word (2002 at least, perhaps 2000 also) "allows" me to tag highlighted content within a paragraph with attributes of a different paragraph style -- for example, if you highlight a few words within a "Body Text" paragraph and apply the "Heading 2" style, those words will take on the style of Heading 2 <i>but the paragraph formatting is still controlled by the Body Text definition</i>. This is risky IMHO, and can be very hard to detect in a document. Moreover, it doesn't work as you might expect: if you built a table of contents after doing the above, the words tagged with the Heading 2 style within the paragraph would not appear with the rest of the Heading 2 tagged paragraphs as TOC 2 entries. (You can overcome this "deficiency" if you need it in run-in subheads by using the poorly-documented Style Separator feature (Ctrl-Alt-Return) but I fear I'm veering off topic...)

I went back through several affected documents and could not find instances of the 'char char' type styles being explicitly used: if I delete the style definitions, it has no effect on the document; nor does it seem to matter if I rename the appended paragraph styles to their original names. Very puzzling behaviour...

Okay, I think I found myself an explanation -- if not a solution -- on a page by Cindy Meister (at http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister/MyFavTip.htm#CharStyl). Apparently the "problem occurs when you apply a paragraph style to a selection of characters, rather than to an entire paragraph". She includes a bit of VBA to delete the character style that gets linked to the paragraph style.

It isn't what I'd hoped but I guess I can live with it -- and follow up with a suggestion to Microsoft to correct the problem.

Now how do I remove or delete this question? (Or do I need to? I'm not clear what the protocol is here...)

Go to Community Support and request a refund of points.