Format Painter affects unselected items!

I'm using Word 2007. I've defined several styles that use bullets. I'll describe the problem as it applies to the style that has a normal round bullet, a left indent of 0.0", and a hanging indent of 0.25".

When I use Format Painter to pick up the bullet style and apply it to a paragraph that has no bullets, the bullet and indent appear as desired. The problem is that at the same time the desired change happens on the unbulleted paragraph, all the other bullets of the same style in the document suddenly acquire an indent of 0.6"! The hanging indent is unaffected. The behavior is the same whether the initial style copy is done with the cursor just in the bulleted paragraph or with the entire paragraph selected and whether or not application of the fomat painter is just a click in the target paragraph or selection of the entire paragraph.

On checking the style, I find that it has been changed to show a 0.6" indent. No new style is created.

Clicking the Undo button does not put the indent back to 0.0" I can go back into the style and change the indent to 0.0" and all undesired indents are returned to that measurement.

Any ideas for what may cause this problem will be appreciated. I know I can avoid it by always applying the style using the Styles window, but I do like using the Format Painter.

I cannot give an explanation for the change to the definition of the style, but other ways of apply styles are to:

  1. use CTRL+SHIFT+s to display the Apply Style dialog
  2. Add the Style to the Styles Gallery as a Quick Style
  3. Having applied it once, use F4 (repeat an action) in the other locations where you want to apply it.
Hope this helps,
Doug Robbins - MVP Office Apps & Services (Word)
dougrobbinsmvp@gmail.com
It's time to replace ‘Diversity, Equity & Inclusion’ with ‘Excellence, Opportunity & Civility’ - V Ramaswamy

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Last updated January 5, 2024 Views 231 Applies to: