WD98: Text Color Changes When Formatting HTML Body Text

• Microsoft Word 98 Macintosh Edition

SYMPTOMS

If you change the text colors (on the Format menu, click Text Colors) while working on a Web page, the text of your Web page may change to an unexpected color. Text formatted as Auto (on the Format menu, click Font) may remain black and text formatted as Black may change to the text color you select.

CAUSE

When working with Web pages, the default font color is Black, not Auto. Therefore, if you format the font color as Auto, Auto is applied as direct formatting, overriding any changes you make in the future. Text formatted with a font color of Black is labeled as default color, so that when you change the text color, text formatted as Black gets changed to match the new text color.

WORKAROUND

Manually change the font color to the color that you want by following these steps:

1. Select the text to apply a color to.

2. On the Format menu, click Font.

3. Under Color, click to select a color and then click OK.

MORE INFORMATION

This behavior while working on HTML documents is different from the behavior when working on non-HTML documents.

Working with non-HTML documents

With non-HTML documents, text formatted with a color of Auto, will take on the default font color. Any change to the default font color will be reflected in the text formatted with the color of Auto.

Text formatted with a font color of something other than Auto is said to be "directly formatted" with that color. Direct formatting overrides changes in the default font color. For example, if you format text with the color of Black, and then change the default font color to Blue, the text formatted as Black will remain Black. Text formatted with a font color of Auto will change to Blue.

Working with HTML Documents

In HTML documents black color behaves like the Auto color would in a non- HTML document, and Auto color behaves like direct formatting.

For Example:

1. Type the following lines of text and format them with the indicated colors:

        Format this line as Auto color.
        Format this line as Black color.
        Format this line as Blue color.
   

2. Change the default text color. On the Format menu, click Text Colors and change the Body Text Color to red.

3. The results are:

        Format this line as Auto color. --> remains black
        Format this line as Black color. --> changes to red, the new default
        Format this line as Blue color. --> remains blue
   

For additional information about this problem in Microsoft Word for Windows, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q163732
   TITLE     : WD97: Text Color Changes When Formatting HTML Body Text