Re: Styles in word

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Without interrupting John's advice on your specific situation: you might
like to look at the section on styles beginning on page 89 of some notes on
the way I use Word for the Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will", which are
available as a free download from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html). My practices are
very similar to his.The notes are formatted following those practices.

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

Note: In Word 2008, which I don't use yet, some of this information may not
apply, or may be accessible through a different interface. If that causes
problems, post back and someone will help you further.

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
=============

On 13/11/08 10:44 AM, in article
56E5F5B5-9043-4672-9D49-948A6880A2E8@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Bod"
<Bod@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Fantastic post. Thanks.
I had problems with the Normal style being changed (affecting drawing
objects; tables), so in our new templates, I created a style called
"Ordinary" (sits next to Normal in a list) which can have the line spacing:
before:6pt.
I've noticed that if some of the document was typed using the Normal style,
then when I want to bulk-change those sections to Ordinary, it messes with
bulleted lists.
Should I change the "Body Text" style to "before:6pt" instead of creating
this Ordinary style?

"John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macinto" wrote:

Yeah: It's a big questions, and everyone has their own pet foibles here.

To make the decision, you need to understand Object orientation" and
"Inheritance".

Word is heavily object-oriented. That means everything in a document is
treated as an "object", which means it has "properties" and "behaviours".
Since we're talking about Styles, the main "behaviour" we are interested in
is that a style causes all text to which the style is applied to be
formatted with the formatting contained within the style.

Note: I said "The formatting contained within the style". In Word, a
"paragraph" is an object. Any paragraph MUST have one style applied to it,
it CAN have as many as three more. It MUST have a paragraph style, it may
also have a Character style, a List style and a Table style.

The "properties" of a style describe the formatting that it applies. Font
Name is a property, as is Font size, colour, left indent, right indent etc.

Just because a style "can" have a particular property, does not mean that it
*does* have that property. "Language" is a property of both Paragraph and
Character styles: it may be set in either or neither.

Styles have a precedence: Table overrides List overrides Character
overrides Paragraph. In later versions of Word, "Direct" formatting is also
created as a style internally, and it overrides all of the above.

"Inheritance" simply describes the ability of objects to be nested, and for
the nested objects to inherit from their containing parents. As far as
styles are concerned, the containing object is always "The Document", so a
style moved from one place to another will inherit the properties of the
same-named style in the destination document.

However, styles can also be defined in hierarchies, using the "based on"
property. If they are, any give property (e.g. Font Name) will be inherited
all the way down the chain to the end.

You might define Heading 1 to be based on Normal style, Heading 2 based on
Heading 1, Heading 3 based on Heading 2, etc, all the way down to Heading 9.

If you then change Normal style from Times New Roman to Arial font, Normal,
and Heading 1 all the way through to Heading 9 will instantly switch to
Arial font. The Size, on the other hand, is probably set for each style in
the Heading series, so if you change the size ion any of the series, that
change will not be reflected down the chain. In Styles, inheritance works
only downwards: grandparent, parent, child...

In a blank new template, every style is Based On Normal style: there are no
hierarchies. This is a good idea if you intend to use only one font in the
document, and wish to change that font during the document's life. For
example: you may have a document that is to be both printed and displayed on
the web. You might change Normal style to Times New Roman for printing, and
to Verdana for the web. The entire document will change each time you do.

How you set your Based On hierarchies depends on what you want to achieve.
However, documentation professionals usually end up with something like
this:

You have four hierarchies:
1) Headings
2) Body Text
3) Lists
4) None of the above

Heading 1 is based on No Style, Headings 2 to 9 are based on the one above
in each case. In a default template, the Heading styles are all based on
Normal, which is a stupid way to set them. If you set no other hierarchies,
set the Heading styles to break the link from Normal!!

While playing around with the Heading series of styles, you will see that
the Outline Level property is greyed out for these styles. That's your
indication that the Heading 1 through 9 series have special properties that
make things such as TOC and Heading numbering reliable. These properties
are hard-coded and can't be changed, but everything else can be.

Body Text is based on No Style, and all other body styles (body indent,
list, List Indent etc...) are all based on Body Text

Lists (List Number 1 to 9, List Bullet 1 to 9, List 1 to 9, List Continue,
etc) are usually based on the one above. So: List Number is based on Body
Text, List Number 2 to 9 are based on the one above. Whenever you apply
bullets or numbering to a series of styles, they MUST be based on the one
above.

The "None of the above" bucket includes all styles for which you do not want
inheritance to operate, or don't care if it does. Examples would be the TOC
styles, and the Header and Footer styles. The TOC styles are a special
case: unless you are using a TOC format of "From Template", it doesn't
matter what settings you make in the TOC styles, because Word will overwrite
those settings each time it generates the TOC. That means you can't control
the formatting of the TOC because Word is. So most professionals would set
the TOC format to "From Template", in which case the TOC styles can be based
on anything you like EXCEPT one of the numbered styles or one of the Heading
styles.

Styles for things such as the Front Cover are based on No Style, because you
do not want these changing when anything else changes. In the front matter,
you will want one or two styles that do not appear ion the TOC. These
styles must not be based on the heading styles, otherwise they will be
picked up by the TOC.

Most professionals break the link to Normal style for all of their styles.
This is a big help when dealing with text from other authors that may not be
formatted correctly. A professional would then reserve Normal style as an
indication that the text has "yet to be formatted". At some point in the
production cycle, you would then set Normal style to a colour of Shocking
Pink, which enables you to see at a glance which bits of text don't have the
correct styles applied :-) (There are some areas where you cannot get rid
of Normal style, because it's the base style for a Word document: the
row-ends of a table are one such: they will always have Normal Style).

When you've fixed your formatting, you then put Normal back to a sensible
colour :-)

There" Now you know all there is about setting "Based On". Your first
efforts will be fraught with frustration, like ours have been. Keep at it:
mastering this is well worth it... :-)

Hope this helps

On 12/7/05 6:52 AM, in article
EDEE87D1-C4BB-4F59-BA4D-F69D5C56BC67@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, "neildw"
<neildw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

When creating a new style in Word 2003, what defines the choice for the
'Style based on' option.

I'm having some problems with this, any advice would be appreciated

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <john@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410




.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Styles in word
    ... "Inheritance" simply describes the ability of objects to be nested, ... You might define Heading 1 to be based on Normal style, ... If you then change Normal style from Times New Roman to Arial font, Normal, ... Examples would be the TOC ...
    (microsoft.public.mac.office.word)
  • Re: Need hidden headings in TOC
    ... Word picks up direct font formatting in the TOC, ... I'd expect heading styles formatted as Hidden, ... Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org ...
    (microsoft.public.word.docmanagement)
  • Re: Need hidden headings in TOC
    ... If Word picks up direct font formatting in the TOC, as you say, and I ... If the headings had the Hidden format applied as direct formatting, ... I'd expect heading styles formatted as Hidden, ... Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org ...
    (microsoft.public.word.docmanagement)
  • Re: Table of Contents, 3rd level is Bold for only the # only
    ... As direct formatting (by directly formatting the heading text) or by adding ... Note that direct formatting will be reflected in the TOC. ... AND THE BOLD BOX ON THE RIBBON WAS NOT HIGHLIGHTED. ...
    (microsoft.public.word.newusers)
  • RE: nomal style show up in Document Map
    ... I would never have thought of that because I had Heading 1 already. ... Select all 9 thousand paragraphs formatted with the Normal style in the ... Change the paragraph formatting setting for outline level ...
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