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Styles I have created in Word for Mac are unavailable in new documents

Anonymous
2022-11-01T23:31:59+00:00

I have created several custom styles multiple times, and they keep seeming to "disappear" when I close and restart Word for Mac.

I just created a new word document, created 2 new styles in the style pane, with unique paragraph numbering and text / paragraph formatting, and saw them available in the Styles pane. I used them to format text in my document. I saved the document, closed it and Word. When I restarted word and opened that document, they were available in the Styles pane. However, when I created a new document, only one of the 2 styles was available -- even when I selected "List: All Styles" in the dropdown. This keeps happening and is extremely frustrating.

Screenshot 1, showing the 2 new styles I just created - Complaint Numbered Paragraph and Complaint Section Heading.

Screenshot 2, moments later, of a new document. Only "Complaint numbered paragraph" is now available, even though I am showing All styles.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | Other | MacOS

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Bob Jones AKA CyberTaz MVP 435.9K Reputation points
2022-11-02T00:49:58+00:00

Expanding on the Reply from Charles:

When you create a Custom Style it is saved only to the document in which you create it unless you check the box labeled Add to Template in the lower left corner of the Create New Style.../Modify Style dialog. If that box is checked the Style will be available in any new documents based on that template going forward.

As an alternative to using Organizer you can open a document in which the Styles have been stored then go into Format> Style> Modify Style dialog to tick the check box. Organizer is more efficient if there are more than 3-4 Styles to be modified.

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Charles Kenyon 167.5K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2022-11-02T00:10:49+00:00

You need to add the styles to your Normal template.

You can do this by opening your document and using the Organizer to copy them to your Normal template.

According to Word guru John Korchok, one way to access the Organizer on versions of Word for the Mac is:

  1. Choose Tools>Templates and Add-ins.
  2. Click on the Organizer button.

This is similar to the methods in Windows.

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-11-02T13:58:29+00:00

    These suggestions seem to have solved my problem. Thanks very much for your help gentlemen!

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