I've just had some coworkers improve a custom template I'd been babying
along for years, and it's now infested with "char char char" -- I've spent
the past week blundering about the issue.

The best I've found so far is a chunk of macro code -- which I'm not going
to quote or point to right away since it's not mine and I'm not sure it
works.  

But I've just tried it -- it did get rid of the "char char" stuff that had
showed up in the document, and after that, I was able to actually delete it
from the associated template as well.

I don't yet know what it may have done else, so I'm just raising my hand
to say -- uh! -- me too.

I've joined that mailing list where I turned that code up, and I know one
of the people who were working on it (I'm sure all the MVPs know them as
well).

Probably it's published somewhere on the MVP site, that I've missed -- or
will be, if it's being improved yet.

--->  So, does this ring any bells with anyone?
--->  Does it sound likely we CAN root out the "char char"
stuff?

I'm willing to believe it's useful under some circumstances, but I know
for sure it's impossible NOT to have the stuff happen by accident in
shared documents with people who aren't aware of it.

So, extirpation and constant vigilance seems the best approach to me, so
far.

I just went looking and found a chunk of macro, elsewhere, by a couple of
MVPs -- that strips the "char char" stuff out gracefully enough and after
that I'm able to delete these stylish things from my templates as well.

Is this an approach that's going to be published on the MVP site, anyone
know?  I've just joined the antipodean mailing list where I found the
macro in an archive, and I haven't yet been able to ask directly there if
that got taken to the public at some point.