TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Hiding the template file was my latest tactic, but it still has some
caveats. It appears as though Word will look to NORMAL.DOT if it can't find
the document's template. And even the most streamlined NORMAL.DOT still
insists on having styles for the built-in heading and normal styles which
will clobber the ones in the document.
I've even created an AutoOpen macro in NORMAL.DOT which disables
"Automatically Update Document Styles". All to no avail. It seems MSWord
updates the styles even before it runs the AutoOpen macro.
I'm beginning to wonder if there even are any document styles stored
in the document when this cursed feature is enabled.
> >Does anyone know how to prevent ..."Automatically Update Document
> Styles...
> >from doing this... I should have never enabled this "helpful" little
> feature
> >in the first place...
>
> Just a hunch, I've never had to actually try this, but it's worth a shot.
> Temporarily, either move or rename the stylesheet, then open the doc and
> clear the checkbox. In theory, if Word can't find the style sheet it can't
> update the styles and will use what's present in the doc.
>
> Good luck! HTH!
> -Sue Gallagher
>