My format changed without me!

My format to a story I had submitted changed without me knowing it. I went back to it to change the smart quotes to straight quotes and found that some of the sentences were now bolded and in Arial 13.

The indents were gone and the double spacing was now single.

Does anyone know what might have caused this?

It didn't look like that when I submitted it, and I hope they didn't get it like that. That would surely be a rejection, they probably won't even take the time to read it.

I just find it strange that it changed without me changing it.

Maryn said:

Wow. This is the original document, in your word processing program, which was changed? I have no idea how changing your quotes could result in this. I assume it will help the more knowledgeable people to know what word processing program you use, and what version (such as Word 2003, like that).

Did you view the document after you changed the quotes, or just save and close, trusting it to be all right?

When you open a new blank document, what is the default font and size? Is it Arial 13, by any chance?

And, silly as it sounds, do you have a cat, or small kids, who might have touched the keyboard or mouse when the document was open?

Maryn, agreeing this is strange indeed

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I have Word 2000, I know- it's a little outdated. New documents start in Times New 12. I change the title to the size I want it later. I have cats, but they're not allowed in my room where my computer is.

This is the original doc., saved and in a file. The bolded sentences that were in Arial 13 were only the first sentences in about every other five paragraphs. *shrug*

I made sure that it was ready for submitting, then saved it. The problem is, that was the first time I submitted it. The next time I sumitted it, the mag wanted the same format and I don't remember if I just sent it to them or if I scanned the document first. :/ I didn't know it could change after it was saved.

Matera the Mad said:

Check to see exactly what formatting has been applied to the changed doc. (What version of Word/MS Office do you have? Knowing this can help us help you, because the menus and access to dialogs change over the years) For instance, highlight (select) a bolded part and see if the paragraph is formatted as a heading. Or show the Styles task pane, which will indicate the style of any selected text.

It is wise to keep incremental backups. After making changes to a doc, first save it and then save it AS thisdoc-date.doc in a backup folder. This gives you a number of backups (that need less fixing) to choose from when something goes horrible. It can make Bad Word Moments a lot easier to take. Excess backups can be deleted periodically.

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Unfortunately, I just changed it all back right then and there without looking at the format, but only the first word in the sentence was capitalized even though all of it was bolded. I will take your advice on backups.

It didn't take too long to fix, replaced indents, bolded sentences, and put it back into double spacing.

I just find it odd that a saved doc. would just change format.

Thanks Maryn and Matera!

I'll make sure to look over the documents before submitting them. Hopefully it was a one time deal, but I will definitely keep an eye out for changes.

I just thought that if I could get an idea of how it happened in the first place, that I might be able to prevent it from happening again. Just one of those weird things, I suppose.