Attached template changes when document is shared

Question

Hello,

My company uses custom templates for Word documents. These templates are currently shared with our staff using a SharePoint organization asset library (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/organization-assets-library), which makes the templates available to all of our Office 365 group users.

With both methods to distribute our templates, we are running into issues with shared documents on SharePoint. Occasionally, when some users open the document, the document attaches a different template (generally Normal.dotx, but sometimes a template of the same name as the original on the user's computer).

Now, I understand that this should not be a problem, but it IS because formatting in the document is changing when the templates changes. Sometimes the changes are "minor", like heading numbering disappearing (this is only somewhat minor is it causes problems with cross-references), or sometimes more major changes like all fonts changing to a greek font. If multiple users are coauthoring, we'll sometimes see formatting changing every couple of minutes, when the document autosaves to SharePoint. Sometimes it even changes when there is only one users in the document, with the change also happening when the document autosaves. 

We have verified that "Automatically update document styles" is unchecked, and can't figure out why this is happening. It does not seem to be intended or normal Word behaviour, and only happens when the documents are shared on SharePoint.

If anyone has some insights on why we might be experiencing this issue, you help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Valerie

Answer 1

Thank you, Madoc. I'm not a SharePoint admin at my company so I can't post there myself, unfortunately. From what I understand, a ticket was open with Microsoft Support months ago, but no solution has been identified.

Figured it was worth a shot to post here in case someone had landed on a solution.

Cheers,

Valerie

Answer 2

Thanks for your reply, Doug.

I thought I'd ask here just in case, since my issue overlaps between Word and SharePoint. I can't be sure which of the two is causing the problem! I'll try again in SharePoint forums.

Cheers,

Valerie

Answer 3

Hi Valerie,

Sorry for the inconvenience it may have caused.

I did a test from my side, but I cannot reproduce the same problem.

I would like to help you, but the issue mostly happens only to the specific tenant, something needed to be checked from the backend. However, we community support team has limited resources, I’d like you to escalate this issue to the related team by creating a support ticket in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center via Global Admin, the support engineers there have the correct escalation channel and this is the most efficient way to report such a back end issue for Microsoft 365 Online Services. Contact support for business products - Admin Help

Appreciate your understanding.

Best regards,

Madoc

Answer 4

It may be best to ask that question in the SharePoint forum.