Problem
In a template document created in Word 2003, table styles behave correctly when new rows are added by WordWriter. However, if a new template document is created in Word 2007 with the new table styles, these styles do not persist as expected when saved in the binary (.doc) format. This can easily be demonstrated with the banded coloring styles which are displayed as alternating row coloring.
After processing with WordTemplate, the additional rows in the table will have a solid background color instead of a banded styling. MS Word itself shows the same behavior when adding rows to a table styled with the new 2007 styles and saved to the 97-2003 binary file format (.doc). This appears to be a compatability issue at the file format level, with Word not fully supporting the new table styles in the binary file format.
Banded styles behave as expected with OOXML (.docx) files, which have been supported by WordTemplate since version 4.0.
Solution
Option 1: Save the file as .doc before applying table formatting
When Word 2007 opens a .doc file, it opens in compatibility mode which only makes available features that are supported for that format. However, when Word 2007 creates a new document, it doesn’t know which format the user will choose to save it in, so all options are shown, including those which aren’t compatible with the binary format.
The easiest solution would be to save the file as 97-2003 binary file format (.doc) before applying any table formatting. Once the file has been saved, only the styles compatible with the binary format will be available and you can use them freely. If you have already created a template file with 2007 formatting, simply reapply the styling to the tables after the file has been saved in binary format.
Option 2: Use the OOXML file format
Alternatively, with WordWriter 4.0 and above, the other good solution is to use the OOXML (.docx) file format. The resulting populated table will be as you expect when using that file format. The feature is supported in the file format level, so you can place your data marker in such formatted table and it will expand and maintain the selected style.
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