Styles in Word - Problems?

What problems have people had using Styles in Word? Is it more trouble than it is worth? Is there much difference between MS Word 2003 and 2007?

Thanks for any feedback.

Deirdra said:

Is it more trouble than it is worth?

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Hi Deirdre,

Ive moved your post from Miscellaneous Non-financial Questions to I.T., Broadband and Digital Cameras which is where this type of question is discussed.

Yes, I think that word styles are a complete dogs dinner! Even if you manage to master ms word styles if you share your documents with others they will end up with a scrambled mish mash.

I think I posted here before on ms styles and if I find the link Ill place it here: .

Try googling the web and google groups for "ms styles" or "microsoft word styles" and you will get some good hits.

aj

Styles in Word are great and will save you plenty of time. Perhaps all you need is some hours spent with a professional (hint: someone like me), with a good book or Office tutorials from Microsoft.

When used properly, you will have no trouble sharing out your documents and all layout will remain the same.

Word 2007 styles are so easy to use and really look amazing - although I am not too keen on the way they are accessed through the 'ribbon.' They are also backward compatible.

If you are using the same styles continuously on various different styles then they are fantastic. Word 2007 takes a good bit of time to get used to compared to the older version(s). As i said, if you will be using various styles frequently then you should learn how to use them. There should be a lot of tutorials on the web available.

What level of experience do you have with computers and with Word itself? What version is it that you are/will be using?

Hi All,

I'm very familiar with Word and reasonably familiar with styles. In this case it will be 2003 that will be used. It is a long term publishing project with many different and possibly non-technical users. I see the potential for many inconsistencies and problems when a program like Word is used for a complicated publishing project.

As d2x2 says "When used properly, you will have no trouble sharing out your documents and all layout will remain the same." I suspect this will not always be the case!

I think, and I may be wrong - that there are some glitches or bugs in 2007 compared to 2003 - for example when you change say part of a paragraph to a new style, there are some problems either with the following paragraphs.

Thanks for any more feedback.

Deirdra said:

I'm very familiar with Word and reasonably familiar with styles. In this case it will be 2003 that will be used. It is a long term publishing project with many different and possibly non-technical users. I see the potential for many inconsistencies and problems when a program like Word is used for a complicated publishing project.

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It may well be worth engaging a professional at the start of the project to provide advice, and to provide a Word template to be used by all users. We've just gone through this in work recently, so every user how has a customised in-house toolbar with buttons for headings/bullets etc. This means that our in-house style guide is 'enforced' as long as everyone uses the new template.