MS Word 2000 - Cut & Paste Problem

[hencab]

Hi. When I cut and paste from one document to another, I sometimes loose formatting (bold, font size, left justified, etc.) I think it has something to do with the Styles of one document being different from the Styles of another document. Is there a way around this? Help!

 

[SavvyLady]

Should be able to change the format again by (1)highlighting what you pasted & (2)check the settings & apply the format you want.......... then (3) click off to the side of it when you have it set to what you want.....thats what I do in e-mail.

hope that'll work for you
Savvy

 

[Anne Troy]

Couple reasons for this, hen.

1. You have a style, for instance, MyStyle, in your document and you copy and paste it into a new document and all is fine. This occurs because the style, MyStyle, is copied to the new document along with the text. Ok.

2. You have some text that has the Normal style on it, but it's been bolded, italicized, etc. You copy to a new document and it takes on the Normal style formatting in the NEW document. Ok.

Tip: Turn your show/hide button on. When you select text to be copied, copy the following paragraph return with it. Formatting is stored in the paragraph return. That's why you sometimes lose formatting: as you delete text, suddenly the whole paragraph loses its bold formatting or indent, etc.

Font/paragraph formatting is stored in the paragraph return.
Likewise, headers and footers, margins, etc., are stored in section breaks (if there are any), and this is why people lose their headers and footers sometimes.

Hope this helps.

 

[hencab]

Hi SavvyLady and Dreamboat. Thank you both for posting a reply. Dreamboat addresses my problem bit closer than SavvyLady. But hey SavvyLady, thanks a lot for taking the time. I reallly appreciate it.

Dreamboat, I hear what you are saying but I used Edit > Select All, copied the whole selection and then pasted it to another document. I still lost formatting.

Let me give you some back ground on my problem. I have this document (let's call it the Main Document) that has 10 sections. Each section is worked on by a different person. We combine all 10 sections to come up with the Main Document. Every now and then a section get's updated so the Maind Document also needs to be updated. When I copy a section and paste it to the main document I loose formatting. I noticed that the Style settings (e.g. Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.) in the Main Document are different from the sections' Style settings. For example, when I copy an item from a section with a Heading 1 Style (which is formatted to left justify, bold, 16 pt) and paste it to the Main Document, the pasted item takes on the Main Document's Heading 1 Style (which might be centered, italic, 12 pt). I then have to manually reformat the pasted item to left justify, bold, 16 pt. Very frustrating and really a waste of time.

I hope I was able to properly explain my problem so you can help me out.

 

[Anne Troy]

My point exactly, Hen.

Here's how I'd get around it.

Open new Section document.
Hit Format-Styles, then click on the Organizer button.
On the right-hand window, close Normal.dot.
The Close button now says Open; hit it.
Open your Main document.
On the right, click on the first style name. Hit Shift-End to select them all.
Hit the Copy<< button to copy them over to the Section document.
Close/Ok/whatever.
Hopefully, all of your text will now have YOUR styles instead of THEIR styles.
If so, copy/paste away, hen.

Let me know if it doesn't work, I've got another workaround brewin'...

I'll check back in a little bit just in case you reply.

 

[SavvyLady]

Just glad it works whichever you did

 

[hencab]

Hi Dreamboat. Interesting solution (Format > Styles > Organizer > Etc.) But I need to retain the formatting of the Section Document when I copy & paste it into the Main Document. For now I am using Format Painter. A bit of work of though.

Klaus from Woody's Lounge (another forum) has an interesting suggestion. He suggests ... "For large chunks of text that you want to copy/paste, and that should look the same as in the document you copy from, you might also try 'Edit > Paste Special > Microsoft Word Document Object'. This inserts the formatted text as a separate doc with a separate set of styles." ...

What's your other solution that you're brewin?

 

[Anne Troy]

Doesn't apply if you MUST use two different sets of styles.

Only thing I can thing of is to rename your styles in Main file to have (perhaps) and M in front of them, like MHeading1, etc.

Sorry, hen, but it's beyond me why you're bothering to put them in the same file if you're not using one set of styles.

 

[hencab]

Hi Dreamboat. I don't want to use 2 different set of Styles. In fact, I don't use Sytles at all. My problem is that I have to work on a document which was created by someone else. Let's call this Document1. Now, Document1 has 10 sections. Each section is edited and updated by someone else. So Document 1 can have 10 different people working on it. 10 different people all with his or her own set of styles. Now, when I try to update a section of Document1, I encounter this copy & paste situation. I guess we all have to use the same styles to avoid this. Unfortunately, I have no control over everyone. For those that I do have control over, what do I do so that we all have the same style settings?

 

[Anne Troy]

You do SO have control, LOL. (But I DO understand--I used to have to work with writers. I finally layed down the law and said "I create the template first--you guys type into it. Gave them instructions and everything. Then, we began having our client--which you prolly don't have to worry about--approve the template before we began writing; worked really well.)

Save your MAIN document as a document template--do NOT change the file location. Hit ctrl-a and delete all the contents. Save the file again and close it. Hit File-New and there's your template, which you may have renamed to so indicate that it's your template.

Now, email the template to everyone. Tell them to save the file to their desktop and double-click it when they want to write something up for inclusion in your Main doc. And/or email them with the instructions (copy mine above) on how to use the organizer and to take the styles from your template into their document. And/or to Hit Tools-Templates and Add-ins and to hit Attach, browse to their desktop, pick your template, hit Automatically update styles and hit ok.

Use your fist, Hen; go on strike; whatever works! Well, you prolly can't do it, but I have to tell you how anyway.

 

[hencab]

Dreamboat, I agree. I have to get everyone on the same page. As always, you give GREAT advice. Thanks a lot!

 

[Anne Troy]

Good luck! I will be with you in spirit! LOL