Something for the toolbox (excuse the long code-listing!):
I often have to clean up docs that are (supposed to be) using styles.
Two things make that a difficult task:
Formatting done “by hand” is difficult to distinguish from formatting done by using styles.
Selectively returning some formatting properties (font, size, shading, space before …) to their default values is hard to do.
If you set all paragraph styles to look like the “Normal” style (wdStyleNormal; “Standard” in german Word), and all character styles to look like the Default Paragraph Style, then all manual formatting will be obnoxiously visible 
(… this is also great to show authors the “errors of their ways” 
).
The macro will produce a new document with such “empty” styles.
Running the following macro on a document formatted with styles will make it look like a plain text file; copying the contents into an old version — or copying the styles (from the template or from an old version) to the document — will make the formatting instantly reappear.
You can also use this macro to selectively remove manual formatting:
– run the macro,
– select all text,
– set the formatting of some property (font, underline, borders, indent …) to the default value of the “Normal” style,
– save the doc (important! … Word does some cleaning up when saving)
– copy back the styles.
Sub NewDocEmptyStyles()
' (Save the new file before copying back the styles!)
Dim myStyle As Style
Dim DlgSaveAs As Dialog
Set DlgSaveAs = Dialogs(wdDialogFileSaveAs)
OldFile = ActiveDocument.Name
Documents.Add NewTemplate:=False, DocumentType:=0
NewFile = ActiveDocument.Name
For Each myStyle In Documents(OldFile).Styles
If (myStyle.InUse = True And myStyle.BuiltIn = False) Then
If myStyle.Type = wdStyleTypeParagraph Then
If myStyle Documents(OldFile).Styles(wdStyleNormal) Then
Documents(NewFile).Styles.Add Name:=myStyle.NameLocal, Type:=wdStyleTypeParagraph
Documents(NewFile).Styles(myStyle).BaseStyle = wdStyleNormal
End If
Else
If myStyle Documents(OldFile).Styles(wdStyleDefaultParagraphFont) Then
Documents(NewFile).Styles.Add Name:=myStyle.NameLocal, Type:=wdStyleTypeCharacter
Documents(NewFile).Styles(myStyle).BaseStyle = wdStyleDefaultParagraphFont
End If
End If
End If
Next myStyle
Documents(OldFile).Select
Selection.WholeStory
Selection.Copy
Documents(NewFile).Activate
Selection.Paste
For Each myStyle In Documents(NewFile).Styles
If (myStyle.InUse = True And myStyle.BuiltIn = True) Then
If myStyle.Type = wdStyleTypeParagraph Then
If myStyle Documents(NewFile).Styles(wdStyleNormal) Then
RememberOutlineLevel = myStyle.ParagraphFormat.OutlineLevel
myStyle.BaseStyle = Documents(NewFile).Styles(wdStyleNormal)
myStyle.Font = Documents(NewFile).Styles(wdStyleNormal).Font
myStyle.ParagraphFormat = Documents(NewFile).Styles(wdStyleNormal).ParagraphFormat
myStyle.ParagraphFormat.OutlineLevel = RememberOutlineLevel
End If
End If
End If
Next myStyle
Documents(NewFile).Activate
DlgSaveAs.Show
End Sub
You can even hide the built-in heading styles and “Normal” style:
Klaus
