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Microsoft Office 2016 Word: Find/Replace instances of a modified style

Anonymous
2018-12-23T10:06:35+00:00

I have a document that has included a number or paragraphs that have been formatted historically with variations of particular style definitions. I want to eliminate those style variations and use only my defined styles.

The style panel shows, for example, that

  Style-X has 2400 instances in the document

     and there is another style:

       Style-X plus left 3mm   (obviously a formatting error from long distant past - which I wish to correct to another style)

       Selecting "Style_X plus left 3mm"in the style gallery  shows that my document has 4 instances of that variant of Style-X

        - Deleting the variant "Style-X plus left 3mm" has no effect

        - Selecting all instances of "Style-X plus left 3mm" and marking them as Style-Xhas no effect

       Any attempt to use advanced search to find paragraphs of a given style is limited to find only paragraphs of an unmodified style such as Style-X. Advanced search appears unable to find instances of "Style-X plus ..."

I've tried creating a diagnostic style and changing the 4 instances to that style so I can search for that - without success.

QUESTION:

How can I tidy up this document to restrict style usage to only unmodified versions of my style definitions - preferably including a process that allows me to check and correct all instances of each modified style ?

Thanks jb

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Suzanne S Barnhill 277.1K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2018-12-23T13:12:29+00:00

    If you select all instances of the style-plus and press Ctrl+Q and Ctrl+Spacebar, does this restore the basic style?

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  2. Suzanne S Barnhill 277.1K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2018-12-27T15:24:41+00:00

    You can't "delete" the items that are actually "formatting" rather than a style because they will reappear as soon as you apply that direct formatting again (as long as you are displaying formatting in the Styles pane (you can opt not to do so, as I do). It's possible that the elusive two instances are in an unused header or footer; see http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com/SpecialFind.htm#SkippedText for an example.

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  3. Suzanne S Barnhill 277.1K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2018-12-24T23:55:21+00:00

    Okay, first of all, these are not styles; they're "formatting." If you have them displayed in the Styles pane (which you can select in the Style Pane Options dialog), then you should be able to use "Select all x instance" in the Styles pane. That is what I assumed you were doing.

    When you have all x instances selected, click the title bar of the document to return focus to the document without unselecting the paragraphs, then press Ctrl+Q and Ctrl+Spacebar.

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-12-26T06:56:39+00:00

    Okay, first of all, these are not styles; they're "formatting." If you have them displayed in the Styles pane (which you can select in the Style Pane Options dialog), then you should be able to use "Select all x instance" in the Styles pane. That is what I assumed you were doing.

    When you have all x instances selected, click the title bar of the document to return focus to the document without unselecting the paragraphs, then press Ctrl+Q and Ctrl+Spacebar.

    Thanks for your efforts to resolve my problem.

    TEST FOUR:

    • When I select a paragraph that is formatted Style-X, then that style is selected automatically on the styles pane.
    • I cursor down arrow on the styles styles pane to move down to the format "Style-X + left: 3mm"  The paragraph in Style-X is still selected.
    • I use the drop-down menu of the format "Style-X + left: 3mm" to select all 2 occurrences
      • TEST 4A: Right Mouse button on "Style-X + left: 3mm" - select Delete and then confirm the delete request
      • Look again at the format "Style-X + left: 3mm" and see there are still 2 occurrences
      • TEST4B: Same result if I change focus to the text pane and use Ctrl+Q after attempting to select all occurrences
      • TEST4C: If I apply format "Style-X + left: 3mm" to a para by selecting the paragraph and then selecting the format*,*Ctrl+Q will revert the para to the style "StyleX"

    I note that the ciunt of occurrences of the format "Style-X + left: 3mm" remains unchanged when I apply that format to the paragraph.

    QUESTION: Is there any way to find the text that has  been affected by the modified style - that is the text that is formatted as "Style-X + left: 3mm" ?    If I could do that, then I could tidy my document and not worry about what appears to be inconsistent behaviour by Word 2016.

    MANY THANKS.  JB

    eave my selection use the "Select all instances" option on the pull-down for the modified style i.e. for "StyleX + left: 3mm"

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  5. Anonymous
    2018-12-24T22:54:41+00:00

    If you select all instances of the style-plus and press Ctrl+Q and Ctrl+Spacebar, does this restore the basic style?

    (Thanks for the response  - Happy Christmas!) 

    Note that I have no idea where in the 200 page document the wrongly formatted paragraphs are located it's a bit hard to analyse things sytstematically. (Advanced search for style occurrences can only locate unmodified style occurrences).

    * The errant style I'm trying to eliminate is a modification of my personal "Procedure" Style and is

    "Procedure + left: 3mm" for which the pull-down tells me I have two instances somewhere in my 200 or so pages.

    My test process:

    * After a paragraph of Normal style I add a new para:  "Test para" and leave my cursor at that paragraph

    * That appears as Normal style as expected

    * When I look at the pulldown list for the relevant style (the arrow on right of the style name in the style panel)

      - I see for the number of instances of the Style Normal  has NOT incremented to include the new paragraph I've added  - that another anomaly I notice for the first time?

    - The number of instances of the style "Procedure + left: 3mm" is 2

    TEST ONE* I select the "Test para" and note it is Normal style

    * I apply the "Procedure + left: 3mm" style by selecting that from the styles panel

      - the "Test para" is now formatted as expected - "Procedure + left: 3mm"

      - the count of occurrences of "Procedure + left: 3mm" remains at 2 - ?

      - the count of occurrences of "Procedure" is 2416 instances

    * The shortcut Ctrl+Q reverts the style of "Test para" to the basic style: "Procedure"

      -  the count of occurrences of "Procedure + left: 3mm" remains at 2 - ??

    * The shortcut Ctrl-spacebar appears to have no effect (isn't that supposed to close the style panel?).

    TEST TWO

    * If I use the pulldown to select all instances of "Procedure + left: 3mm" and then use Ctrl-Q, the count remains at 2 - ???

    TEST THREE

    * If I again select all instances and "delete" that style variant - nothing happens ????

    I'm told that I still have 2 occurrences and the style variant still appears in my list

    STATUS

    So, I may or may not have any actual occurrences of the rogue style variant. I don't know where they are and I can't get rid of the rogue style  (it's not the onlyone...) ARGGGHHH

    Normal

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