Applying a style causes loss of character formats! Why?

[Rudi]

Hi,

To all the Word experts out there, please could you provide some clarity on this annoying issue?

(See the attached sample document to preview the issue...)

Test.docx

I have a style called: "Gray Courier Quote". It is a Linked (Paragraph and Character) type style. I assume it needed to be this type as I want it to retain specific character formats like bold, italic and underline, whilst still being able to apply a gray shading to the paragraph.

BUT, the text that I'm formatting (which is copied from web pages and pasted using Words "Merge Formatting" option) has mixed results. Some paragraphs retain all emphasis formatting while other paragraphs lose bolding emphasis? This requires me to have to reapply bold after I have applied the style.... an inconsistent and rather annoying exercise!

Does anyone have any advice to avoid this issue happening, or advice to rectify actions I might be overlooking.

Many TX.

[Charles Kenyon]

I hate and discourage use of "linked" styles. I disable them on my computers.
A paragraph style can have character formatting.
If applied to a paragraph that already has character formatting, directly applied or through a character style, it will not change that formatting unless the formatting influences at least 50% (maybe more than 50%) of the text. If more than 50%, then the other formatting is overridden by the paragraph style.

Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/styles.htm

[Jay Freedman]

The Word MVPs have argued against this algorithm for at least the last 15 years, to no avail. The main argument, of course, is that almost no users know about it, so they're left with the same "why?" as Rudi asked. The secondary argument is that even when you know about it, how are you supposed to recognize whether the existing formatting is slightly less than 50% or slightly more than 50%?

We recommended addition of an option to disable the algorithm and provide explicit paste behavior, but as far as I know that's never been on the list for consideration for development.

[Rudi]

TX guys. So I take it then that this annoyance is currently unavoidable?

[ChrisGreaves]

...how are you supposed to recognize whether the existing formatting is slightly less than 50% or slightly more than 50%?

And even if you could determine the Boolean - whether you are above, or below, the 50% mark, that could change with the deletion or insertion of one character. A space character, for example.
Cheers
Chris

[st3333ve]

I do virtually all my style-applying with macros, and that annoying behavior doesn't happen if the macro uses search/replace to change a paragraph's style. Sample code:

Code: Select all

With rngX.Find
	.Style = strOldStyle
	.Replacement.Style = strStyle
	.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceOne
End With