I've encountered a problem with Microsoft WORD that I've not seen before - when I have several related documents, all formatted the same way - Courier New font, 12 pt, double spaced, no space after paragraphs. But when I copy one document into another, some of the formatting changes even if I paste-special-unformatted (and then I also lose other format changes in the pasted document, such as italics and centered text and, in some places but not all, tab indenting). Has anyone had similar problems, and if so, is there a shortcut way to deal with it? Or am I going to have to reformat my entire project, line by line?
Are all the styles you use in both documents in the (same) template document? Or do you have styles defined within each document?
Are you using the same template in all the documents? With the same style definitions? I've had a situation like that, when in one doc I was using the Body Text style for everything, and the other I was using Normal style. I copied one to the other, and the Normal style was different in the one I copied to, so the formatting was off. This is one of the bitchiest things about Word. Trying to set up a proper story-format template can be a tricky and tedious process.
All documents start from the generic "blank document", which I immediately convert to my font, double space, no space after para. In nearly all of the files in question, everything remains in "normal" style. However, in one document, I put the chapter title in bold (don't remember why, but I did) and that part is now classified as "heading". I wonder if that's what's throwing me off. Edit: Tried changing the heading to "normal" style and then adjusting the font settings. Looks okay, but when I copy it into the other document as formatted text, everything changes.