Trying To Impose Consistency In Word Documents

I’ve been dealing with a lot of large Word documents lately (which makes me painfully miss FrameMaker). Large documents with a lot of styles. Multiple contributors. Multiple reviewers.

Document authoring conditions like these can be a real chore for whoever is responsible for editing them and performing final production checks on them. Why? Because of the opportunity for inconsistent styles to not just sneak in here and there but to crowd out any true semblance of consistency.

Not wanting to seem like Style Gallery Cop, I gave folks the benefit of the doubt. I took advantage of a Word 2003 feature that keeps track of formatting issues as they arise, similar to how the spelling and grammar tool keeps track of misspellings and sentence fragments (sort of…).

1. Open the Word document or template in question.
2. Go to the Tools > Options menu item. This opens the Options window.
3. Click on the Edit tab. 
4. Click on the checkbox next to Keep track of formatting. 
5. Click on the checkbox next to Mark formatting inconsistencies. 
6. Save your new settings.

It’s a useful feature. There is a group of users that appreciate the power of styles and the polish they bring to documents. Who will take time to correct an inconsistency when it’s flagged for them.

Of course, if the users you work with repeatedly overlook the green squiggly lines under spelling and grammar problems…