How do I keep from Automatically Updating Style in my Word for all of my Styles without having to change it in every document?

Hi Charles,

This seems very helpful. But I am severely unfamiliar with Macros.

I am working from a file that is a "templated document" that we use company wide. If I have Track Changes on to help bold items when I make a change to the document automatically (which is what my company needs to capture) - the document can sometimes go haywire. It throws footers out of whack, bulleted points, bolds the entire document.... and many other formatting issues.

This did not happen before the update... The office received an office update and after that update went company wide... everyone's settings got defaulted. Now, when you open the documents, they automatically get thrown into Styles Automatically Updating... etc. When you go to your undo button (say I copy from one page and want to paste on the next) just by copying and pasting, it throws in an "Automatically Update Styles" into my Undo list to Undo.

I want to stop that feature from happening. The only way I knew how to do it was Manually go into to Modify each style to unclick the box for Automatically Update Style... But I am having to do it for EVERY document when using our companies template... for EVERY style. Would this Macro you're suggesting stop me from having to do that? I looked up Macros before reaching out to this thread and I just couldn't figure it out, as it was a Macro I had to basically do from Scratch instead of just one I could select. I appreciate the help!

Run the macro in your template and distribute it again.

You would need to run it in any documents based on the template as distributed before. You could include it as an AutoOpen macro in your custom template and as long as the documents remain attached to the template, it would run on the existing documents.

If at all possible, I would turn off the Tracking for fomatting changes.

If this is something you need, you do, but it can add a lot of surplus to the Track Changes.

You will have very strange-looking documents until changes are accepted if you have automatically numbered or bulleted paragraphs.

I added the following to my original response:

• Install/Employ VBA Procedures (Macros) by Greg Maxey
• Instructions for Installing Macros from Forums or Websites by Graham Mayor, MVP

These are two different sets of instructions on using macros you find online. They essentially give the same information using different words, examples, and screenshots. Either one should be enough for you to be able to use it.

Go to the Developer tab of the ribbon and click on Document Template and uncheck the box for "Automatically update document styles"

If you do not see the Developer tab on the ribbon, go to File>Options>Customize Ribbon and check the box for Developer on the right hand side of the dialog

When using a template, I can paste or type with track changes on or off and for some reason, Automatically Update Style will happen and I have to undo all of my work. I understand by unclicking Automatically Update Style under modify style works, but I have to do this for every style, for every document, every time. I want this solution to be permanent. We recently got an Office update at work and this is happening.

Addressing the assumption I made in my first answer, I am assuming that when you use the word "template" you are meaning a template file in Word jargon sense. That is, a .dotx or .dotm file used to create new documents, and not a model document in .docx or .docm format.

Templates in Microsoft Word

When using a template, I can paste or type with track changes on or off and for some reason, Automatically Update Style will happen and I have to undo all of my work. I understand by unclicking Automatically Update Style under modify style works, but I have to do this for every style, for every document, every time. I want this solution to be permanent. We recently got an Office update at work and this is happening.

I am assuming that when you use the word "template" you are meaning a template file in Word jargon sense. That is, a .dotx or .dotm file used to create new documents, and not a model document in .docx or .docm format.

Templates in Microsoft Word

Automatically Update Style is an individual style setting and you will have to do it for all styles in existing documents.

For new documents, you can simply modify those in the Normal template.or your own custom template.

You probably do want to retain the default Automatically Update setting for your TOC Styles.

It is possible to reset all of your styles in a document using a Macro.

Here is such a macro. You could Open your Normal template and run it on that if you wish.

Sub StylesTOCAutoUpdate()

    'Charles Kenyon

' https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/how-do-i-keep-from-automatically-updating-style-in/55ff38b8-b83f-4bd8-9f73-0acb5fd241af

    'Changes all the TOC styles and the Table of Authorities/Figures styles to Automatically Update, others not

    ' This should be the default setting

    '

    Dim aStyle As Style

    On Error Resume Next

    For Each aStyle In ActiveDocument.Styles

        Select Case aStyle.NameLocal

            Case "Table of Authorities", "Table of Figures", "TOC 1", "TOC 2", "TOC 3", "TOC 4", "TOC 5", "TOC 6", "TOC 7", "TOC 8", "TOC 9"

                Let aStyle.AutomaticallyUpdate = True

            Case Else

                Let aStyle.AutomaticallyUpdate = False

        End Select

    Next aStyle

    Set aStyle = Nothing

    On Error GoTo -1

End Sub

• Install/Employ VBA Procedures (Macros) by Greg Maxey
• Instructions for Installing Macros from Forums or Websites by Graham Mayor, MVP

You may want to add the following two lines to the macro, as well. They turn off the document setting to update styles from the template. This should be off by default, although it is not related to the problem you ask about.

    ActiveDocument.UpdateStylesOnOpen = False

    ActiveDocument.Saved = False    ' allows saving of this change even if no other changes to the template

You can assign a keyboard shortcut to a macro to make it easier to run on demand.

Assigning Keyboard Shortcuts in Microsoft Word 2007-2021 (365)

If you want the macro to run whenever you open a document so you do not have to remember to run it on older documents, you could name it AutoOpen instead of StylesTOCAutoUpdate.