Gremlins changing outline level (Word 2002 SP-2)

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I’m working on a 30-page document with 3 heading levels, various other styles and no direct paragraph formatting. Twice in the last couple of days I’ve returned to that open document (or maybe, the first time it happened, opened the document) to find that various of the non-heading paragraphs had had their outline levels changed from Body Text to Level 1 through direct formatting. I couldn’t find any pattern to the changed paragraphs. Several paragraphs with, e.g., the Body Text style were affected (i.e., had their outline level changed to Level 1) while other paragraphs of the Body Text style were left alone. Scattered paragraphs of several custom styles also had the same change.

In both cases the Document Map was displayed (which is why the problem was immediately evident). Is the Document Map a Feature To Avoid? Or does anyone know of another likely or possible cause for these out-of-the-blue changes?

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The Document Map applies Level 1 to incorrect paragraphs. If you open a document based on a template that contains text with the Normal style applied, the Document Map views the Normal style even when Show Heading 1 has been selected. With AutoFormat activated, the Normal style’s outline level setting changes from Body text to Level 1.

Workarounds
Method 1: Undo Automatic Formatting (Ctrl+Z) immediately after opening a document.
Method 2: Define a Custom Style, rather than using normal.
Method 3: Play with AutoFormat so it doesn’t apply headings.
Hope this helps,

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(Edited by st3333ve on 13-Jul-04 00:02. )

Subsequent to making my initial post, I did a little Googling and now understand that the Document Map will (in come cases, at least) do some AutoFormatting involving outline levels (whether you like it or not). I note that none of the paragraphs that got messed with in my document were Normal style (although they were indirectly based on Normal — as were many paragraphs that didn’t get messed with).

I hadn’t changed any of the option settings in the AutoFormat tab (as distinquished from the AutoFormat As You Type tab) because I thought those settings were irrelevant since I wasn’t planning to (intentionally) use the AutoFormat feature. With that change made, is Document Map generally considered a safe feature to use, or has it been known to mess with documents in other ways as well?

The behind-your-back aspect of that AutoFormatting behavior, by a feature that most users wouldn’t think of as one that would modify their documents in any way, is truly amazing to me. If Document Map is just one of several features that have that kind of surprise hidden inside (and I don’t mean a feature like AutoFormat itself, that might do hideous things to your document, but only if you ask it to), I’d appreciate it if someone would post a quick list of them for the benefit of us Word newbies.

FOLLOW-UP REPORT:

Since posting the foregoing, I’ve done some further experimenting and can report the following:

1. I completely broke the links to Normal for every style in my document, and unchecked all the boxes in the AutoFormat tab (other than the 2 at the bottom). Neither of those changes had any impact on Document Map’s behavior, which I can now see happens as soon as I put the Document Map in effect (or when the document opens, if it opens with Document Map in effect).

2. There is a pattern of sorts to the paragraphs whose outline levels get boosted from Body Text to Level 1. For some reason no paragraphs are affected for the first 8 pages of the document (even though there are Heading 1 and Heading 2 paragraphs on those pages). Then, starting on the 9th page and continuing to the end, almost every non-heading paragraph that immediately precedes a Heading 1 or Heading 2 paragraph has its outline level boosted from Body Text to Level 1.

I can see that Ctrl-Z undoes the changes if you’re anticipating them and remember to do it immediately, but does anyone know of a way to prevent the AutoFormatting from happening in the first place? (If not, I’ll be inclined to avoid Document Map.)

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I’ve done some more playing around & see that the AutoFormat (nor AutoFormat as you type) is not relevant. In fact, if you have the Document Map open & then open your document, you can’t even use undo. In that situation, if you make NO changes & close your document (& Document Map), then the Level 1 outline levels will revert back to body text the next time that you open your document. BUT, if you make any edits, the Level 1 changes can’t be undone (except by going through & manually changing them back to body text (or using Find/Replace).

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Thanks for these posts, guys. I’ve been experiencing the DM gremlins, too, and came here for answers. I have a suggestion, though. The two styles that confuse DM in my documents are Table Title and Figure Caption; I use these to help build a Table of Contents, and they have keystroke short cuts assigned to them (ALT-T and ALT-F). So when the DM decides those two styles should be Level Heading 1, I use the DM to find them, and then ALT-T and ALT-F to fix them. Takes me a minute or two, even on a document with 150 pages in it.

The DM is far too useful for me to stop using it because it acts a little weird now and again. I use it to track the TOC in large documents, and then I use it to convert the styles to bookmarks when I print to Adobe Acrobat. This is a totally killer app combination, assuming there is such a thing.

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Hi Kris:
FYI, you can use Find/Replace to correct this even more quickly.
Find: go to Format, pick your style (e.g. Table Title), pick the paragraph attribute (level 1).
Replace: go to Format, pick the same style (Table Title), & click Replace All.
Since your style is defined as body text level, the level 1 attribute will be removed. Repeat this for Figure Caption. This should take you seconds, rather than minutes.

Actually, you can find your style & just replace it with itself (i.e. use Find: Table Title style, replace Table Title style).

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Cool! Thanks, Phil. Hey, not to change the subject, I was poking around looking for the Acrobat/Word interface threads (if any), and ran across a couple of references to GhostWord. I went to the website suggested but don’t really understand what GhostScript, etc. is. Is there a good reference site you can point me to where I can figure out if this might help us out?

Kris

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Hi Kris:
I’m not familiar with GhostWord at all. You might try posting in the Software forum.

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Oops (blush). I think that’s one of the reasons the word ‘new’ is in my identification…

thanks, I’ll do that.

Kris

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Google on “Ghostword”. You’ll find lots of information.

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Google on “Ghostword”. You’ll find lots of information.

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Oops (blush). I think that’s one of the reasons the word ‘new’ is in my identification…

thanks, I’ll do that.

Kris

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Hi Kris:
I’m not familiar with GhostWord at all. You might try posting in the Software forum.

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Cool! Thanks, Phil. Hey, not to change the subject, I was poking around looking for the Acrobat/Word interface threads (if any), and ran across a couple of references to GhostWord. I went to the website suggested but don’t really understand what GhostScript, etc. is. Is there a good reference site you can point me to where I can figure out if this might help us out?

Kris

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HI Phil,

Using document map has me a little concerned. While we are not experiencing the difficulty described in this post we have a number of very large documents based on a template. All staff using the template are experienced and NEVER apply direct formatting always using the designed styles, however often on re-opening a document we find the infamous char char char styles throughout. This has been driving us nuts for months. We clean up the documents and whammy it happens again. Seems to me that if using the document map could cause a change in level of a style it could have other impacts on style definitions.

After reading this post I did a bit of digging around but could not find any definitive answers except to see document map grouped with those other word nasties – master documents, versioning, auto save.

Would really like some more information on this as the convenience of using document map when dealing with our large documents is significant but may be outweighed by the above problems.

Hope you can help.

Cheers

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Hi Karen:
I can’t be positive, but I don’t think the Document Map is causing char char styles. As far as those styles go, take a look at the thread surrounding post 338015 & the macro supplied in star post 362594 for deleting them. Generally, & this is from memory as I haven’t used Word 2002, char char styles develop if “Keep track of formatting” is checked & direct formatting is applied.
Hope this helps,

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Thanks for your response Phil…. the two posts you mentioned were invaluable in assisting us to clean up documents. What we can’t figure out is what is happening in the first place to cause these things to occur. I swear I have started a new document based on a template, only used the styles in the template, then when I reopen it the infamous char char styles are there grrrr…..

Also some posts on the web seem to indicate that using the document map could have some influence on corrupting a document, so if there is any chance of that I need to find out about it.

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Thanks for your response Phil…. the two posts you mentioned were invaluable in assisting us to clean up documents. What we can’t figure out is what is happening in the first place to cause these things to occur. I swear I have started a new document based on a template, only used the styles in the template, then when I reopen it the infamous char char styles are there grrrr…..

Also some posts on the web seem to indicate that using the document map could have some influence on corrupting a document, so if there is any chance of that I need to find out about it.

Reply | Quote

Hi Karen:
I can’t be positive, but I don’t think the Document Map is causing char char styles. As far as those styles go, take a look at the thread surrounding post 338015 & the macro supplied in star post 362594 for deleting them. Generally, & this is from memory as I haven’t used Word 2002, char char styles develop if “Keep track of formatting” is checked & direct formatting is applied.
Hope this helps,

Reply | Quote

HI Phil,

Using document map has me a little concerned. While we are not experiencing the difficulty described in this post we have a number of very large documents based on a template. All staff using the template are experienced and NEVER apply direct formatting always using the designed styles, however often on re-opening a document we find the infamous char char char styles throughout. This has been driving us nuts for months. We clean up the documents and whammy it happens again. Seems to me that if using the document map could cause a change in level of a style it could have other impacts on style definitions.

After reading this post I did a bit of digging around but could not find any definitive answers except to see document map grouped with those other word nasties – master documents, versioning, auto save.

Would really like some more information on this as the convenience of using document map when dealing with our large documents is significant but may be outweighed by the above problems.

Hope you can help.

Cheers

Reply | Quote

Hi Kris:
FYI, you can use Find/Replace to correct this even more quickly.
Find: go to Format, pick your style (e.g. Table Title), pick the paragraph attribute (level 1).
Replace: go to Format, pick the same style (Table Title), & click Replace All.
Since your style is defined as body text level, the level 1 attribute will be removed. Repeat this for Figure Caption. This should take you seconds, rather than minutes.

Actually, you can find your style & just replace it with itself (i.e. use Find: Table Title style, replace Table Title style).

Reply | Quote

I’ve done some more playing around & see that the AutoFormat (nor AutoFormat as you type) is not relevant. In fact, if you have the Document Map open & then open your document, you can’t even use undo. In that situation, if you make NO changes & close your document (& Document Map), then the Level 1 outline levels will revert back to body text the next time that you open your document. BUT, if you make any edits, the Level 1 changes can’t be undone (except by going through & manually changing them back to body text (or using Find/Replace).

Reply | Quote

(Edited by st3333ve on 13-Jul-04 00:02. )

Subsequent to making my initial post, I did a little Googling and now understand that the Document Map will (in come cases, at least) do some AutoFormatting involving outline levels (whether you like it or not). I note that none of the paragraphs that got messed with in my document were Normal style (although they were indirectly based on Normal — as were many paragraphs that didn’t get messed with).

I hadn’t changed any of the option settings in the AutoFormat tab (as distinquished from the AutoFormat As You Type tab) because I thought those settings were irrelevant since I wasn’t planning to (intentionally) use the AutoFormat feature. With that change made, is Document Map generally considered a safe feature to use, or has it been known to mess with documents in other ways as well?

The behind-your-back aspect of that AutoFormatting behavior, by a feature that most users wouldn’t think of as one that would modify their documents in any way, is truly amazing to me. If Document Map is just one of several features that have that kind of surprise hidden inside (and I don’t mean a feature like AutoFormat itself, that might do hideous things to your document, but only if you ask it to), I’d appreciate it if someone would post a quick list of them for the benefit of us Word newbies.

FOLLOW-UP REPORT:

Since posting the foregoing, I’ve done some further experimenting and can report the following:

1. I completely broke the links to Normal for every style in my document, and unchecked all the boxes in the AutoFormat tab (other than the 2 at the bottom). Neither of those changes had any impact on Document Map’s behavior, which I can now see happens as soon as I put the Document Map in effect (or when the document opens, if it opens with Document Map in effect).

2. There is a pattern of sorts to the paragraphs whose outline levels get boosted from Body Text to Level 1. For some reason no paragraphs are affected for the first 8 pages of the document (even though there are Heading 1 and Heading 2 paragraphs on those pages). Then, starting on the 9th page and continuing to the end, almost every non-heading paragraph that immediately precedes a Heading 1 or Heading 2 paragraph has its outline level boosted from Body Text to Level 1.

I can see that Ctrl-Z undoes the changes if you’re anticipating them and remember to do it immediately, but does anyone know of a way to prevent the AutoFormatting from happening in the first place? (If not, I’ll be inclined to avoid Document Map.)

Reply | Quote

The Document Map applies Level 1 to incorrect paragraphs. If you open a document based on a template that contains text with the Normal style applied, the Document Map views the Normal style even when Show Heading 1 has been selected. With AutoFormat activated, the Normal style’s outline level setting changes from Body text to Level 1.

Workarounds
Method 1: Undo Automatic Formatting (Ctrl+Z) immediately after opening a document.
Method 2: Define a Custom Style, rather than using normal.
Method 3: Play with AutoFormat so it doesn’t apply headings.
Hope this helps,

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Hi

Does anyone know whether these reformatting problems persist in Word 2003?

Thanks
Dale

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Yes, they do. The developers say that it’s “by design” and probably won’t change it

I’ve used the macro below to fix the AutoFormatting done by the Document Map.

The macro resets all paragraph’s outline level to the outline level defined in the style.
Since I doubt that anybody would apply another level manually on purpose (except for Document Map), that should work fine.

Dim myPara As Paragraph
For Each myPara In ActiveDocument.Paragraphs
  myPara.OutlineLevel = _
    myPara.style.ParagraphFormat.OutlineLevel
Next myPara

Klaus

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I used Document Map for the first time today and yes the Gremlins attacked the document.

I checked the Help and found Yes the gremlins are by design!

I’m just wondering about a simple fix. I never use direct formatting. If I use Select All ^A, followed by Reset Paragraph, will this fix all the outline levels without affecting any character formatting?

If so, I could use it when I first notice the gremlins, unlike ^Z which must be used immediately after the Doc Map is opened.

Regards,
Judith

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> If I use Select All ^A, followed by Reset Paragraph, will this fix all the outline levels without affecting any character formatting?

Yes, if you don’t mind to remove manual paragraph formatting.
Say “page break before” or “keep with next” (which I pretty often use to force nice pagebreaks).
Or manual restarts (on numbered paragraph styles).
Or all the numbering (if it wasn’t applied through a style).
…

Klaus

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Thanks Klaus,

I missed those problems. Thanks for listing them.

I’ve just added your macro to my “Fix Up Bugs” toolkit.

I come from a Markup background and NEVER use direct character formatting – Styles for everything!
I have mostly managed to avoid numbered lists (so no resets) and usually don’t worry whether the sub-headings start new pages or not.
Which is why I didn’t think of Restart Numbering as direct formatting.
Thanks for the warning.
Judith

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