WD: How to Copy Styles from One MacWord Document to Another

• Microsoft Word for Macintosh, versions 4.0, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, 6.0.1

SUMMARY

This article discusses methods of copying styles between two existing documents. You can transfer an entire style sheet (including standard styles and custom styles), or you can transfer individual styles.

MORE INFORMATION

Each Word document has a style sheet, which contains the specific styles for that document. When you open a new document, Word forms the style sheet, consisting of styles as follows:

• Default custom styles (styles that you have named and made default styles)
• Standard styles (styles such as Normal, Heading 1, and Footnote Text, which are built into the Word program)

Copying a Style Sheet into a Document

To copy a style sheet from one document (the source) to another document (the destination), follow these steps:

1. Open the destination document.

2. From the Format menu, choose Styles (in Word 4.0, choose Define Styles).

3. From the File menu, choose Open.

4. Select the source document.

5. Click Open.

Copying Individual Styles into a Document

To copy a custom style into a document, follow these steps:

1. If Paragraph Marks are off, choose Show Paragraph Mark from the View menu (the Edit menu in Word 4.0).

2. In the document containing the style, press RETURN to create a blank line and highlight its paragraph mark.

3. Using the Style box on the ruler, apply the style to the paragraph.

4. With the paragraph mark highlighted, choose Copy from the Edit menu.

5. Open the destination document.

6. From the Edit menu, choose Paste.

Copying a style with the same name does not override the style in the destination document. As a result, this technique does not work for replacing custom or standard styles having the same names in the destination document.

NOTE: Page 188 of "Microsoft Word User's Guide" for Word versions 5.x states that when you copy an entire document, or more than 50 paragraphs of a document, the copied styles override the formats of the same-named styles in the destination document. This does not occur consistently. Microsoft is trying to define this problem more precisely and will post more information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it become available.

Word for Macintosh 6.x

In Word for Macintosh 6.x, you can use the organizer to copy styles from documents or templates. To merge styles created in a Microsoft Word for Macintosh 6.x document with those in another document, open the document to which you want to copy the styles and do the following:

1. From the Format menu, choose Style.

2. Choose the Organizer button.

3. On the To: side of the dialog, choose the Close File button to close the file listed. The Close File button will change to an Open File button, choose this button.

4. Select or type in the name of the file from which you would like to copy styles. You can choose Word Document or Document Template from the List Files of Type box.

5. Choose OK.

6. Select the style or styles you would like to copy to your open document and choose the Copy button. Choose Yes or Yes to All when prompted to overwrite existing styles.

7. When all desired styles have been copied, choose Close.

REFERENCES

Microsoft Word for the Macintosh "User's Guide," versions 5.0 and 5.1, pages 169-196

"Reference to Microsoft Word," version 4.0, pages 340-353