Style Issues

Q. When I assemble a document, or insert a document into an existing document, the fonts, styles and layout in the resulting document are different from what I had in the source document. Why?

A. This typically happens when a style name in the source document matches a style name in the receiving document (or template). When that happens, the receiving document controls. That gives you the (unexpected) result.

For instance, every document has a paragraph style named "Normal." If the receiving document has the Normal style defined to display text as 12-pt Ariel, and the document being inserted has the Normal style defined to display text as 10-pt Times New Roman, then any paragraphs in the original document formatted with the Normal style will adopt the 12-pt Ariel formatting when inserted in the receiving document.

Pathagoras attempts to minimize the occurrence of these style 'changes.' When a document is assembled, the 'base' styles are taken directly from the first source document that was called during the assembly routine. The styles of the receiving document are transformed into the styles of the source document, thereby preserving the integrity of the 'original' (souce document) styles. But if the second or subsequent documents called during an assembly session have identically named, but not identically defined, styles, then formatting of the receiving document will (by immutable rule) control.

The only one way around this problem is to make sure that the document being inserted never uses the same style names as the receiving document, unless a style 'switch' is desired. This, obviously, can be a lot of work, but in the long run, the time spent is worth is.

A more detailed explanation:

Every paragraph, every sentence, every word and every character of every document has a style associated with it. The style shows in the Style box (actually a dropdown list) in the upper left side of the Word screen.

•	Click anywhere in a document and the style of that particular section of the document shows in the Style box.

•	Add bolding or numbering or indenting to text and Word finds a matching style in its list, or creates a new one. Regardless, the new style shows in the Style box.

•	If you want to apply an existing style to a piece of text, highlight the text and then click the Style box dropdown list. Select the style you want.

The good news: it is easy to fix the problem. A bit of understanding is helpful, and this understanding may cause you to work on either the source documents or the normal.dot template to bring them into 'sync.' However, whether you understand what is happening, or not, or whether you choose to sync the styles and attributes, or not, the 'fix' is easy and practically automatic.

There are five basic groups of styles within a standard document. The below lists the groups and a few of the attributes associated with each style:

•	Normal Text: Font, Font Size, and Spacing between paragraphs

•	Body Text: Font, Font Size and Spacing between paragraphs (Typically body text the same as normal text, but with extra space at the end of each paragraph to give a more formal look.)

•	Heading: Font, Font Size, Indenting, Numbering, Numbering Style

•	Lists: Font, Font Size, Spacing between list items, numbering vs. bullets, numbering style, outline numbering, bullet style

•	Special Purpose: Any and all of the attributes listed in the previous 4 items, and potentially many more.

If you look at the styles (either click the Styles list in the upper left side of the screen or click "Format | Styles and Formatting") connected to a particular document, you almost always will see many more than 5 items in the list. However, if you study the composition of each style, you will see that the other styles are simply variations of one of the above, with the differences being noted as a appendage.

It is these attributes that cause the problem. Pathagoras attempts to avoid the problems when documents are assembled, and will generally be successful when at least all of the documents in the same book contain the same formatting and style names. But if the documents within a book contain identical style names, but the styles don't have the identical attributes, then formatting difficulties will arise. You should examine the contents of each file in a folder that has been mapped to a book to insure this consistency.

The problems are even more pronounced when you use documents created in Word 2003 and before in Word2007. The Normal template that ships with Word2007 is quite different from the Normal template that shipped with earlier versions. Therefore, when Pathagoras assembles your standard 2003 and prior documents into the Normal template of Word2007, your results will not look like the original document. But while the result is more pronounced, the fix is still the same.