How to Copy Paragraph Styles Between Word Documents
Introduction
You have to copy paragraph styles between two separate MS Word documents.
Problem
You’d like to export the paragraph styles from one document (A) to another (B) since you like the styles of document A better.
How would you do it?
Solution
ANSWER: By using the style organizer.
Imagine you have these two Word documents:
(Click the images to enlarge them)
We would like the document on the left (WRITING — or “Document B”) to look exactly like the one on the right (PAINTING — or “Document A”).
In other words, we would like to export the paragraph styles of the PAINTING (A) document to the WRITING (B) document.
1) Select the WRITING document (or “Document B”).
2) Click and select the Developer tag.
3) Click the Document Template icon to display the Templates and Add-Ins dialog box:
4) Click the Organizer button to display the Organizer dialog box:
5) Click Close File (on the left) to close the Normal.dotm template.
6) Click Open File, browse and find the PAINTING file to display its paragraph styles in the right pane:
7) Select all the paragraph styles that you would like to export from the document on the RIGHT (Painting) to the document on the LEFT (Writing).
8) Click Copy. Word will ask you whether you’d like to replace the style with the same name in the Writing document. Say YES each time the Word prompts you with the warning because you would actually like the styles of one document (Painting) to replace the styles of the other (Writing).
9) After that, the two documents will look exactly the same as far as the styles are concerned since they would be sharing the same paragraph style definitions:
Update for MS Word 365
We would like the PLAIN document on the left (“Document B”) to look exactly like the one on the right (“Document A”).
In other words, we would like to copy or export the paragraph styles of Document (A) to Document (B):
1) Select the PLAIN document (or “Document B”).
2) Click and select the Developer tag.
3) Click the Document Template icon to display the Templates and Add-Ins dialog box:
4) Click the Organizer button to display the Organizer dialog box:
5) Click Close File (on the left) to close the Normal.dotm template.
6) Click Open File, browse and find the PAINTING file (Document A or SAMPLE_PAGE_1) to display its paragraph styles in the right pane:
7) Select all the paragraph styles that you would like to export from the document on the RIGHT (SAMPLE_PAGE_1) to the document on the LEFT (SAMPLE_PAGE_2).
8) Click Copy. Word will ask you whether you’d like to replace the style with the same name in the Writing document. Say YES each time the Word prompts you with the warning.
9) After that, the two documents will look exactly the same as far as the styles are concerned since they now share the same paragraph style definitions:
MORE INFO
Dear Sir, is it not more easier to make a template file *.dot or *.dotm (macro enabled file) which easily implements its styles along with the document in the system it is opened instead of the one system set styles getting scrambled in another system when styles are not exported and imported?
Just my opinion based on the experience I had.