para style in table justification strangeness

Using Win 2k, Word XP
A number of docs have tables with multiple paragraphs in each of
several cells. The test seems to 'want' to be justified.

When I apply a style to any of the paragraphs, the alignment of the
style seems to be ignored, and the text is aligned as 'justified'.

If I then apply 'CTRL-Q' to the paragraph, it reverts to the style
setting of left-justified.
Apply the same style to the paragraph again, it becomes justified
again...

I would rather not convert all the tables to text, as there are a bunch
of files here. Is this a "table style" issue?

Thanks
Jay

OK, I found some part of it.
The tables had a style applied which contained a paragraph alignment of
"justified".
lovely.
It would have been nice if Help would at least mention how to apply or
modify a table style.
It seems that you select the rightmost column (the 'end of row' markers
outside the table border) and then apply styles to the table itself.
Anyway, comments still welcome.
Anything tricky about applying or removing styles from VBA?