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Body Text vs Normal



 
 
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  #11  
Old March 3rd, 2006, 02:01 PM posted to microsoft.public.word.formatting.longdocs
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Default Body Text vs Normal

Hi Adrian

Adrian wrote:
Regarding having to reformat docs that have text boxes, let's assume that,
like you say, the author chose to use Normal for such text boxes.

Now, if my template body text is "Body Text" and I don't want Normal in my
documents, I'm going to have to reformat these text boxes anyway, right?


My (admittedly not very strong) reasoning in this case is: I don't
really care whether such a textbox contains Normal if I use Bodytext
(and build up many styles upon bt), so if the formatting and/or
positioning of those boxes is not plain _ugly_, I will not want to
reformat it.

I can still change my bt style and this ripples through the document,
and if I get really lucky, I don't have to touch the textboxes. But if
normal is used for bt also, then the textboxes will most probably reflow
differently.

And, you are right, when you set up a template and do not want to use
Normal, then you have to touch a lot of styles and break the connection
to Normal (set it to "none" with a few styles, to bt in some, maybe to a
heading style for that hierarchy -- though I've seen this discouraged
before, probably of fear of spreading numbering dependencies that way).
But this makes sure you have really looked into all styles you intend to
use ... ;-)

Greetinx
Robert
--
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  #12  
Old March 3rd, 2006, 04:57 PM posted to microsoft.public.word.formatting.longdocs
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Default Body Text vs Normal

The argument table styles is an especially strong one, but I think the
problem arises from changing the font or font size of Normal rather than
paragraph formatting. I haven't really paid close attention because I don't
use "table styles" but do use specific styles for Table Heading and Table
Text.

--
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.

"Jonathan West" wrote in message
...
Hi Adrian,

I have made a standard practice of using Body Text and leaving Normal

alone
as thoroughly as possible for some years, since I discovered that if you

set
Normal to have anything other than 0pt paragraph spacing before & after,
envelopes tend to come out printed double-spaced.

I decided that as I could never tell when someone would attempt to select

an
address in a document based on any kind of template and print an envelope
from it, I was far better off not having to remember to explicitly include
all the envelope styles in my templates and set them back to 0pt paragraph
spacing.

In addition, if you attempt to use Table styles, (I rarely do because many
of my customers still require Office 2000 compatibility) I understand the
Table style definitions sometimes go all strange on you if the Normal

style
is set away from the factory default.

--
Regards
Jonathan West - Word MVP
www.intelligentdocuments.co.uk
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Keep your VBA code safe, sign the ClassicVB petition www.classicvb.org

"Adrian" wrote in message
...
Hi,



My company has undergone a few mergers and I am now tasked with
standardizing our style sheets across offices. I'd like some advice on
this.



The templates I have been using till now use "Normal" as body text

rather
than a specific style called "Body Text" or similar. (One of our offices
uses "Body Text".) Most tech authors seem to advocate staying away from
Normal, but I don't see any problem with it as long as you follow these
simple rules:



i. You base any styles you don't want to change if Normal changes on "no
style" or another style.



ii. If more than one person will work on the same master document, you
EITHER give strict orders never to select "Automatically update document
styles" in the Templates dialog box OR you make sure that everyone in

the
authoring team has the same definition of "Normal" in their "Normal"
template OR you attach the document to a template on a shared network
folder that you know will always be available, and in which the "Normal"
style matches that of the document.



I don't see any problem with copy/pasting from other documents or emails
that use Normal, particularly with the latest versions of Word where you
get a dropdown menu that allows you to choose whether to retain source

or
target formatting when you paste. To me this is easier than reformatting
imported Normal text as Body Text. Even if somebody accidentally chooses
"retain source formatting" when pasting, as far as I can see you can
easily tidy this up by selecting "Automatically update document styles",
saving, and then clearing this setting (or by selecting the offending

text
and clicking ctrl + space).



Does this make sense?



IMO, the arguments against using Normal are pretty weak. That said, I
don't think the arguments against Body Text are strong either; six of

one
and half a dozen of the other.



In any case, is there any good reason to use "Body Text", but still base
it on "Normal"? I have seen this in some templates, but it just doesn't
make any sense to me.



Thanks,



Adrian




  #13  
Old March 9th, 2006, 05:56 AM posted to microsoft.public.word.formatting.longdocs
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Default Body Text vs Normal

The argument table styles is an especially strong one, but I
think the problem arises from changing the font or font size of
Normal rather than paragraph formatting. [...]


I think the issue is with both font and character formatting. Only users
tend to run into issues with font formatting more often.

And if you change the paragraph formatting of Normal, table styles will
likely be only a small part of your troubles eg.

I'd love to use Normal as the default, since most Word docs use it anyway,
and you would have the least work to do reformatting.
Unfortunately, that has become less of an option because of the issues with
table styles.

BTW, I've heard from Stuart Stuple that table styles ignore settings in the
document default -- which I assume is "(no style)"? -- rather than those in
"Normal". That contradicts my experience, but I haven't had time to
investigate.

Klaus



"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:
The argument table styles is an especially strong one, but I think the
problem arises from changing the font or font size of Normal rather than
paragraph formatting. I haven't really paid close attention because I
don't
use "table styles" but do use specific styles for Table Heading and Table
Text.

--
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.



  #14  
Old March 9th, 2006, 06:01 AM posted to microsoft.public.word.formatting.longdocs
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Posts: n/a
Default Body Text vs Normal

I forget exactly what Stuart said about this except that it was going
to be either changed or made a lot clearer in Word 2007.

--
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.

"Klaus Linke" wrote in message
...
The argument table styles is an especially strong one, but I
think the problem arises from changing the font or font size of
Normal rather than paragraph formatting. [...]


I think the issue is with both font and character formatting. Only users
tend to run into issues with font formatting more often.

And if you change the paragraph formatting of Normal, table styles will
likely be only a small part of your troubles eg.

I'd love to use Normal as the default, since most Word docs use it anyway,
and you would have the least work to do reformatting.
Unfortunately, that has become less of an option because of the issues

with
table styles.

BTW, I've heard from Stuart Stuple that table styles ignore settings in

the
document default -- which I assume is "(no style)"? -- rather than those

in
"Normal". That contradicts my experience, but I haven't had time to
investigate.

Klaus



"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:
The argument table styles is an especially strong one, but I think

the
problem arises from changing the font or font size of Normal rather than
paragraph formatting. I haven't really paid close attention because I
don't
use "table styles" but do use specific styles for Table Heading and

Table
Text.

--
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.




 




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