Infestation of Char Char formatting

[Mary]

Recently documents based on one of our regularly-used Word templates have
been beset by the styles changing to Char Char. The affected documents seem
to originate from one user's computer. For example, on Friday I worked on a
document where all our usual styles were correctly applied. He then made
some minor changes and returned the document to me. When a paragraph is
selected almost anywhere in that document, the style box on the toolbar and
the selected style in the formatting pane show Char Char. In this 70 page
document, the only place where the original styles are still listed seems to
be the header, footer and TOC. The attributes of this Char Char style are
Normal + Font: (Default) Verdana, 10pt, Line spacing: Exactly 12 pt, Space
After: 8pt. The attributes of our Normal style are: Font: (Default) Arial,
11pt, English (U.S.), Left, Line spacing; single, Space After: 6pt,
Widow/Orphan control. The paragraphs that are listed as Char Char still look
as they should stylewise -- Heading 1's, bullets, etc. look as they should
and there is no sign of Verdana in the document. I tried using the Find and
Replace function to root out the style. I tried searching for style Char
Char (which was listed in Style dropdown) but Word says "search item not
found."

When I first encountered one of the affected documents last week, I tried to
overcome it by pasting all content into a new document based on template
using paste special as unformatted text but the Char Char still infested the
new document. I think it may have come over with a graphic.

I've googled the MS Word newsgroups to see if anyone has a solution for this
issue but thus far I've found none. In our case, we are seeing all the
styles being replaced by Char Char rather than the more frequent problem of
having Char appended to Style names. Any suggestions on how to remove the
Char Char from documents and how to stop it occuring in the future?

We are using Office 2003 on Windows XP.

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Mary:

The Char Char bug bites worst in Word 2002 (Word XP). However, there is a
service pack available that alleviates some of the problems. Check that the
bad machine has the most recent service pack applied.

The Char Char bug is normally caused by a combination of "Keep track of
formatting" and users running in Page Layout mode with their paragraph marks
turned off.

If the user selects text in a paragraph, but does not select the paragraph
mark at the end of it, then applies a style, Word creates a new style
containing only the Character formatting properties and applies that instead
of the style chosen. The new style has the same name as the style the user
chose, with "Char" appended at the end.

This new style is known as a "Linked Style". It appears in the style task
pane along with the original style, and unless the task pane is set very
wide, looks identical.

If the next time the user wants to format something, they choose the Char
style instead, but they still have not selected a whole paragraph, Word
creates another linked style: "Char Char". And so on.

To fix this, you must first turn OFF "Keep track of formatting" and
secondly, restrict the Task Pane to showing only the original styles.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP030844491033.aspx

You must then restrict the Task Pane to showing only the styles you want
used: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP010447461033.aspx
And http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010349211033.aspx

I was hoping there would be a description of how to restrict the list of
styles displayed there. Shauna has an excellent write-up here:
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/sfpane/StylesAndFormattingPane.html

Hope this helps

On 13/3/06 5:06 PM, in article OPLt8QmR...@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl, "Mary"
<leckavre...@yahoo.com> wrote:

--

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

John McGhie <jo...@mcghie.name>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

To add to what John has said about preventing Char Char infestation, see
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister/MyFavTip.htm#CharStyl for help
on exterminating it.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]" <jo...@mcghie.name> wrote in
message news:C03B942F.3194C%jo...@mcghie.name...

[Janicek]

You mention having the most recent service pak. My machine has Ver5.1.2600
Service Pack 2 Built 2600. Near as I can tell, this is the latest service
pack. Yet the Char problem persists. So, aside from the other settings that
you mention in your reply to Mary, should I assume that the problem will not
be further resolved in XP?

Jan

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Jan

My experience is that once Word 2002 is fully patched (that now means
Service Pack 3), you may still see (eg) "Heading 1 Char", but you won't see
(eg) "Heading 1 Char Char Char".

But that only applies to *new* documents or documents based on a template
that is itself not suffering from the Char Char infestation. Applying the
service packs won't change old documents; but it will prevent new documents
from being a problem.

And just to reiterate the problem: In Word 2002 or Word 2003 if you select
*part* of a paragraph and apply a paragraph style just to that part, then
Word creates a "Char" style that is a kind of pseudo-paragraph style,
pseudo-character style. It does this because it needs to distinguish (say)
"Heading 1", the real paragraph style that has properties that only apply to
a paragraph style (eg line spacing), from "Heading 1 Char", the more-or-less
character style that does not have paragraph-type properties.

If, however, you select *all* of the paragraph, or just click in the
paragraph and select nothing, then no "Char" style is created.

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

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