Can't Select Style Instances

Thanks for the reply, Andrew.

I don't really wish to remove the style or its formatting. I know I can remove a paragraph's formatting by using the method you suggested. The goal is to place the cursor inside any paragraph to see what style the student has used, and then to make sure he or she has been consistent throughout the document. This is the first case where I couldn't see which style was used by placing my cursor inside a paragraph out of hundreds of assignments. Very strange!

It's exactly like the behavior you would see if the student had not used any styles but direct formatting instead. That's what I thought at first but that isn't correct because if I right-click a style in the Quick Styles Gallery, I can select all instances where that style was used. I just can't do the reverse - and that's to place my cursor inside a paragraph and look at the Styles Gallery to see which style was used. No style is selected.

Thanks again.

Lee, ^Q will only reset the paragraph to its selected style. Assuming what you want is to remove that style, what you can do is while the paragraph is selected click "Clear All" at the top of the Styles box. That should take you back to the Normal style.

Lee,

If I were you, I would press Ctrl+A, Ctrl+Spacebar, Ctrl+Q and see what that does for you. If that doesn't give you back control, then the only other thing I can think of is that, perhaps, the document is corrupted (or on the verge thereof) and you might want to copy the text to Notepad and then back into a new Word document.

-Allen

Hi Allen and thanks for the quick reply.

I tried your suggestion before asking this forum and no matter which paragraph I place my cursor in, the style in the Styles box remains on Subtle Emphasis. In the Options dialog box, I have chosen All Styles to be displayed.

The only anomaly I can find is, he has based two out of three styles on List Paragraph, which is wrong. I instruct my students to very seldom base one style on another due to the sometimes destructive nature of the parent-child relationship with styles. I tell them it's all right to use this function as long as they know the implications.

I've never seen this in Word after 10 years of teaching. More thoughts welcome. Thanks.

Lee,

Display the Styles task pane at the right side of the screen. When you put the insertion point in a paragraph, the style in effect at that point should appear in the task pane. Understand, though, that it could be either of two styles that are shown -- the paragraph style OR the character style (if a character style is applied).

-Allen

Great post, Allen!

On a related note, I mark my students' assignments from a technical writing course that I teach. I came across an assignment where the student had used four styles for his document. Normally, I can place my cursor inside any paragraph and the corresponding style is selected in the Styles Gallery and Quick Styles Gallery. In this case, no styles were selected. On right-clicking the style > Modify, everything looks normal. Assuming the student used a licensed copy of Word (.docx format), why aren't those styles selected when I place my cursor inside any paragraph? I'm stumped! Many thanks.