Problem with Character Styles being overwritten when applying Paragraph Styles

Question

I'm having a problem with Word for Mac regarding styles. I take other people's Word documents, identify local formatting (Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic, for instance, applied by hitting the buttons in the Ribbon), swap those for Character Styles of the same formatting, and then apply Paragraph Styles. Been doing this for years and have and no issues until recently. But starting in February, my Character Styles started being removed, visually, when I apply Paragraph Styles. For instance:

My cursor is in the "iii" line, showing that Bold Italic as a Character Style is applied to that text (while the Bold Character Style is applied to the text "Northeastern Writers"). When I apply a Paragraph Style to that Paragraph, the text looses it's formatting, at least visually:

According to the Current Style readout, the Bold Italic Character Style is still applied, but it no longer shows that it is applied. At some point in February, this started happening. Also in February, I started using an M1 Mac, so it could be Word, or it could be because of Apple Silicon, though that seems unlikely. I updated to Word for Mac 16.59 yesterday and unfortunately, this is still occurring.

I am aware of the "Automatically Update" Style setting, and this is not turned on for the style I applied (Heading- A) or any of my styles:

Nor is the "Automatically update document styles" setting turned on for this Document Template:

Anyone else experiencing this? Can anyone else reproduce this? Finally, any idea on how to make it stop? It's driving me nuts.

I should also point out that this is an intermittent problem. It doesn't happen for every paragraph I apply a Paragraph Style to, but it happens to most.

Answer 1

I have sent a message to the Office team / product group to find out if this is a known issue in recent versions of Word.

Answer 2

Thanks Stefan. I thought maybe my Normal.dotm Template file had gotten corrupt, so I rebuilt it from scratch. Alas, the issue persists in my brand new one. :(

Answer 3

If I set the option to "Prompt to update style" option (at File > Options > Advanced), choosing the "Reapply the formatting of the style to the selection" overrides the character style (but it does not remove the char style from text).

This must be a Windows option. No such setting exists in Word for Mac...there is no File > Options command.

Answer 4

If I set the option to "Prompt to update style" option (at File > Options > Advanced), choosing the "Reapply the formatting of the style to the selection" overrides the character style (but it does not remove the char style from text).

This must be a Windows option. No such setting exists in Word for Mac...there is no File > Options command.

On a Mac, it is Word > Preferences.

Answer 5

Sorry, I should have clarified that the File > Options dialog box is in Word for Windows.

Maybe there is a similar option in Word for Mac Preferences?