You are a bit off-topic for this newsgroup, but in the Format>Style dialog
there is a box for Automatically Update Styles that you should uncheck.

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Hope this helps.
Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.
Doug Robbins - Word MVP
> When I create a NEW Word 2003 document and want to change the font or
> bold/center, etc. specific text, it changes ALL text (not just highlighted
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> to
> see if this fixes the problem. Any other suggestions are appreciated.