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other books
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Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word
Last edited by Charles Kenyon on
Monday 07 August 2006
What You Will Learn
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
Additional Written (and Web) Resources
 | Word for Law Firms by Payne
Consulting Group:
|
|
Tips for Understanding Styles in Word 2002 by Shauna Kelly, MVP |
|
|
How Styles in Microsoft Word Cascade by Shauna Kelly, MVP |
|
|
To Style or Not to Style by
Microsystems Engineering |
|
| Styles
in a Networked Environment - newsgroup discussion |
|
| Create
a Template Part 2, John McGhie, MVP. |
|
| What
Happens When Styles in a Template and Document Don't Match?
(Microsoft) |
|
| Quickly
Reorganize Long Documents Using Outline View (Microsoft) |
|
| Template Basics in Microsoft Word |
|
|
The
Seven Laws of Styles by Bob Blacksberg in his "Word of Law" column in
Woody's Office Watch |
|
|
Use
No Empty Paragraphs by Bob Blacksberg |
|
|
Typing:
Get Over It! by Bob Blacksberg |
|
|
(Keyboard) Shortcuts to Styles by Bob Blacksberg |
|
| What is the difference between the normal style and the Body Text style? |
|
| Letterhead
System - styles used to format letters and letterhead |
|
| Letterhead
Textboxes and Styles Tutorial - two-page template download that
demonstrates use of
| Styles that are based on each other and use the style for
following paragraph feature |
| Use of the StyleRef field to insert information from the body of
a letter into the continuation page headers automatically |
| The AutoText list restricted by styles for the salutation and
closing. |
| Textboxes in headers and footers to reserve space for preprinted
letterhead |
| Insertion of a date
automatically that will not change when you open the document at a
later date |
| Insertion of the typist's name as signer automatically by
accessing the Author document property. |
|
|
| Using
Styles in Letterhead and in Headers and Footers by Charles Kenyon
- cascading styles - style for next paragraph - the StyleRef field |
|
|
StyleRef Field
Tutorial by Charles Kenyon |
|
| IncludeText
Field Tutorial - 2 documents with IncludeText links demonstrating
switches, interaction of styles, and use of hidden Page field for continuous
page numbering of separate documents. |
|
| AutoText
Sampler - styles used to organize AutoText - see also... |
|
|
Why does text change format when I copy it into another document?
by Shauna Kelly, MVP |
|
|
What happens when I send my document to someone else, will the
formatting change? by Shauna Kelly, MVP |
|
|
How
to add pop-up lists to any Word document by Bill Coan, MVP.
|
|
| Newsgroup
discussion of where styles live and style inheritance - starts
with message 8 posted by Howard Kaikow - worth the read |
|
| Getting
Started With Styles by Dian Chapman, MVP (another tutorial page
but shorter than this one) |
|
| A Global StyleSheet in Microsoft Word?
by Charles Kyle Kenyon |
|
| Word
is always making changes I don't expect. How can I get more control
over my formatting? by Suzanne S. Barnhill, MVP, and Dave Rado,
MVP. |
|
|
So You
Want to Write a Book Using Microsoft Word - extensive tutorial
by MVP Daiya Mitchell with overview of Styles,
Templates and
Sections and the interactions among these tool/features.
Excellent! Not just for those who want to write books! |
|
| (Advanced) How
to safely update a document's styles from its template without using
the Organizer (and how to make the Tools + Templates and Add-ins
dialog safe) by Dave Rado, Margaret Aldis, Ian Sharpe and Beth
Melton. |
|
| How
to Apply a Style in Microsoft Word by Shauna Kelly |
|
| How
to Modify a Style in Microsoft Word by Shauna Kelly |
|
| Why
Does Text Change Format When I Copy It Into a Different Document?
by Shauna Kelly |
|
| How
Styles in Word Cascade by Shauna Kelly |
|
|
Table Styles Not Useful by Shauna Kelly |
|
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Formatting applied to one paragraph affects entire document by
Suzanne S. Barnhill, MVP |
|
|
Useful StyleRef Field Tricks by Suzanne S. Barnhill, MVP |
|
|
Styles DropDown Keyboard
Access Add-In - (For Word 2002+) Simple Add-In to give keyboard
(Ctrl-Shift-S) access to the Styles DropDown in the Formatting
Toolbar |
|
|
Styles Dialog Box Add-In
- (For Word 2003+) Simple Add-In to give menu access to the Styles
Dialog Box |
|
|
How to put Word 2002 (and 2003) back the way they were in Word
97-2000 by Suzanne S. Barnhill, MVP (getting access to the
Styles dialog box instead of the Task Pane) |
|
|
How to Control Bullets in Microsoft Word by Shauna Kelly, MVP.
Bullets and outline numbering are very much related in Word. You use
styles to implement either in a reliable way. |
|
| OutlineNumbering
by Shauna Kelly, MVP (see note above) |
|
|
Changing the formatting rules with compatibility options - these
can change how Word treats formatting in styles. |
|
| This chapter
in Word format. |
|
 
(this guide table of contents) ------- (MS
Word New Users FAQ)
Styles Add-In - CK Note
Stylizer
- I haven't tried this but you may want to give it a look. It's blurb
says: "Stylizer was developed to make it easy for any user of Word to
reformat documents properly, through the intelligent application of
Styles, and the automation of routine formatting tasks." This is from
Levit & James.
Styles Dialog Box - For
Word 2003+ Simple Add-In to give menu access to the Styles Dialog Box.
This Add-In is needed for people using the following Add-In to give
keyboard access to the Styles Drop-Down.
Styles Drop-Down
keyboard access. In Word 2002+ the Styles drop-down (in the formatting
toolbar) cannot be accessed from the keyboard. This Add-In changes the
Ctrl-Shift-S command back to give keyboard access to this toolbar.
(Without the Add-In, Ctrl-Shift-S pops up the Styles Dialog Box.{
Styles are arguably the most important feature in Microsoft Word. Why?
Because everything that you do in Word has a style attached. The
definition of a style is two-fold. First, you can think of a style as a
set of pre-defined formatting instructions that you can use repeatedly
throughout the document. Let's say each heading in a document must be
centered, uppercase, bold, and a slightly larger font size. Each time you
need to apply formatting to the heading, you have to go through the entire
process to get the text the way you want it. If you store the formatting
commands in a style, you can apply that style any time you need it without
having to do all of the reformatting.
Possibly more important however is that styles are used to "tag" or
identify parts of a document. An example of this is whether text is part
of a heading, a footnote, a hyperlink, or body text. These are all
examples of styles in Word.
If you're concerned about whether or not you need to learn styles, we
can put it rather simply: you do. Styles are the architecture upon which
Word is based. Just about everything in Word is style-driven. In fact,
many people in the industry refer to Word as a "style-driven" program.
Styles allow for quick formatting modifications throughout the document
and can be tied into numbering to make working with outline numbered lists
easier.
|
|
CK
Note: For long documents,
documents that are likely to be heavily edited, and documents that may
form the basis for other documents, follow the basic rule that to change
formatting use Format => Styles... Do not apply direct formatting. You
will save yourself, and others, untold hours of hair-tearing. For shorter
one-use documents, direct formatting is OK; you'll only regret not using
styles about one time in six, on the other five out of the six, you'll
save a bit of time. If you create document templates
with direct formatting, you deserve what will happen to you when someone
finds out (and it won't be nice). In my opinion, using direct formatting
in document templates intended for use by others rates the words malicious
and/or incompetent. If the templates are for your own use,
you deserve the loss of days, months, even years from your life that
you'll spend fighting with Word and trying to figure out why your
documents look so bad.
Trying to use Word without understanding and using styles is like
pushing on a string. I resisted learning and using styles for years
and now regret every day of those years because although that string
was still very hard to push, it kept getting longer and longer, and
had some very important projects tied to it! Once you understand
styles and the Word concept of organizing things into Chinese boxes
everything falls into place and instead of pushing a string, you can
push a button that turns on the very powerful text processing
machine known as Microsoft Word and it will start doing your work
for you instead of running around behind you trying to undo what you
just thought you did. |
There are several reasons for using styles in a document:
| Consistency — When you use styles to format your
document, each section is formatted the same and therefore, provides a
professional, clean-looking document. |
| Easier to Modify — If you use styles in your document
consistently, you only need to update a given style once if you want to
change the characteristics of all text formatted in that style. |
| Efficiency — You can create a style once, and then apply
it to any section in the document without having to format each section
individually. |
| Table of Contents — Styles can be used to generate a
table of contents quickly. |
| Faster Navigation — Using styles lets you quickly move
to different sections in a document using the Document Map feature. |
| Working in Outline View — Styles allow you to outline
and organize your document's main topics with ease. |
| Legal Outline Numbering – Numbering, when linked to styles,
allows you to generate and update consistent outline numbering in legal
documents, even ones with complicated numbering schemes like municipal
law, tax law, and mergers and acquisitions documents. |
| Efficiency of Word — Files which are predominantly
manually formatted are less efficient than those which have formatting
that has been imposed by styles: manually formatted files, such a
converted documents which have been File, Opened, are bloated in file
size (bytes) and do not render to the screen efficiently when you scroll
through them. This is because Word is a styles-based application: it
first reads the attributes of the underlying style, then has to
broadcast anything contrary (e.g. manually formatted on top of that). As
such, a lengthy document that has been predominantly manually formatted,
will behave sluggishly because Word has to work harder at managing it.
Additionally, the print formatting processes are equally labored as
opposed to using styles. |
| HTML AND XML — What lies ahead? A fully structured,
styled document will move into HTML and XML incredibly well. |
Styles are an essential part of Microsoft Word. In fact, everything you
type into a document has a style attached to it, whether you design the
style or not.
When you start Microsoft Word, the new blank document is based on the
Normal template, and text that you type uses the Normal style. This means
that when you start typing, Word uses the font name, font size, line
spacing, indentation, text alignment, and other formats currently defined
for the Normal style. The Normal style is the base style for the Normal
template, meaning that it's a building block for other styles in the
template. Whenever you start typing in a new document, unless you specify
otherwise, you are typing in the Normal style.
Paragraph vs. Character Styles
There are two types of styles in Microsoft Word;
character and paragraph. Paragraph styles are
used more frequently than character styles, and they are easier to create.
It's important to understand both, however, since understanding styles is
so important.
|
CK
Note: In Word 2002, there is also a hybrid
"character and paragraph" style that isn't discussed in
this article. Also introduced with Word 2002 are Table Styles. I
don't use them and haven't found them helpful. For a discussion of
their shortcomings, see
Shauna Kelly's article.
|
Character styles can be applied to individual words — even (you
guessed it) single characters. Character formatting is built from the
formatting options available from the Format menu, by selecting Font;
settings from the Tools menu, by selecting Language, and then selecting
Set Language; and in certain cases from the Format menu by selecting
Borders and Shading, and looking on the Borders and Shading tabs of the
Borders and Shading dialog box. The following table shows the formatting
that can be in a style.
A paragraph style contains both font and paragraph formatting which
makes it more flexible than a character style. When you apply a paragraph
style the formatting affects the entire paragraph. For example, when you
center text, you cannot center a single word. Instead, the entire
paragraph is centered. Other types of paragraph-level formats that styles
control are line spacing (single-space, double-space, etc.), text
alignment, bullets, numbers, indents, tabs and borders.
| Formatting |
Character Style |
Paragraph Style |
| Font |
Yes |
Yes |
| Tabs |
No |
Yes |
| Border |
Yes |
Yes |
| Spacing |
No |
Yes |
| Alignment |
No |
Yes |
| Indents |
No |
Yes |
| Shading |
Yes |
Yes |
| Language |
Yes |
Yes |
| Numbering |
No |
Yes |
Styles are listed in two places: the Style drop-down box on the
Formatting toolbar and from the Format menu by choosing Style.
View Styles with the Style Box
The Style box is the button at the far-left side of the Formatting
toolbar. It can be activated by clicking the drop-down arrow to the right
of the words in the box, or by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+S on the keyboard.
 |
Tip Keyboard users can press CTRL+SHIFT+S and
then click the up or down arrow keys on the keyboard to move through
the list of available styles. Pressing F4 on the keyboard once
inside the Style box activates the drop-down list, which you can
then traverse with arrow keys. |
|
CK Note This does not work in
Word 2002 or later. A macro is needed, assign it to the key
combination. You can download an Add-In that does this from my
downloads page. |
|
Note If you're using Word 2000, the default is
for the Standard and Formatting toolbars to share one row. For this
chapter, you may find it helpful to turn off this feature. From the
Tools menu, choose Customize and select the Options tab. Uncheck
Standard and Formatting toolbars share one row and click
OK. |
Practice: View a List of Styles
- Create a new blank document.
- Locate the Style box on the Formatting toolbar. If the toolbar is
not visible, alternate-click any toolbar and choose Formatting.
|
Note In Word 2000, styles are listed in
alphabetical order. In Word 97 styles listed in the drop-down list
are not displayed in alphabetical order. Word 97 lists styles in the
following order in the Style Box list:
| Heading styles |
| Normal style |
| User-defined styles in alphabetical order |
| Body Text styles |
| List styles |
| All other styles listed alphabetically. |
|
- Click the Style box drop-down arrow to the right of the button. A
list of styles available in the active document displays.
While only a few styles show in this list by default, later you'll
learn how to access all available styles.
The list and quantity of styles that displays in the Style list depends
on which template you used to create the active document. If you click the
New button on the Standard toolbar, you get a blank document based on
Word's default template, Normal.dot. Different types of documents need
different styles. What works in a pleading may not be useful in a letter,
fax or memo.
Styles can also share the same name in various templates but have
different attributes. For example, in a pleading the Body Text style may
be double-spaced, where in a letter, Body Text may be single-spaced.
Another way to see the styles available in the current template is by
selecting the Format menu, and then choosing Style. The Style dialog box
is shown in the following figure.
When you select a Style from the list on the left side of the Style
box, you see a preview and description of the style formatting on the
right.
Practice: Access the Style Dialog Box
- From the Format menu, choose Style.
- Change the List to display All Styles if necessary.
- Select a style from the list and view the Character preview,
Paragraph preview, and Description.
- Click Cancel or press ESC to close the Style dialog box.
Lists of styles available in this template or all open templates are
shown in the Style dialog box.
Listing All of the Styles
When you click the Style button's drop-down arrow, only the styles in
use in the current template displays in the list of styles. If you wish to
see a list of all of the styles that are available to you in Word, you can
do so in one of two different ways. Hold SHIFT and click the style
drop-down arrow. This displays all styles available. There are
approximately 125 styles to choose from, excluding any user-defined
styles. It's also possible to list all styles by selecting All Styles from
the Style dialog box's List control in the bottom left corner.
Practice: View All Styles
- Create a new blank document.
- Click the Style drop-down arrow. Notice how many styles are
available.
- Click with the mouse in the document to deselect the Style drop-down
list.
- Hold SHIFT and click the Style drop-down arrow again.
- More styles are available when you hold down the SHIFT key.
The same rules that apply to direct formatting of text apply to style
formatting of text. If you want to apply a text attribute to a single
word, you can click anywhere in the word and select a formatting option
such as bold, italics or underline — Word applies the selected format
to the entire word. Similarly, if you want to format multiple words you
must first select the multiple words. The same is true for applying
character styles. To apply a character style, you can click in the middle
of any word and select the character style to format the entire word. If
you want to change a group of words you must first select the text before
applying the character style.
Applying formatting to paragraphs is a little different. Just click
anywhere in a paragraph and apply direct formats such as dragging the
ruler to change indentation — since paragraph formats affect an
entire paragraph, you don't have to select the paragraph. If you want to
affect multiple paragraphs, you must first select the multiple paragraphs.
And, similar to applying text formatting and character styles, to apply a
paragraph style, click within the paragraph and apply the paragraph style.
Or, select multiple paragraphs to apply the same style to each of the
selected paragraphs.
|
|
CK
Note: As of Word 2002
(and later) if you attempt to apply a paragraph style to selected
text within a paragraph, you get a new character style with the same
name. The character formatting from the paragraph style is applied,
but not the paragraph formatting. A new hybrid character style
with the same name but with "char" appended is created. To
apply a paragraph style to a single paragraph, click within the
paragraph without selecting text. |
Practice: Apply Styles
- Type the following text into a new document.
Profitability
Report
Entire Firm
Individual Departments
Bankruptcy
Corporate
Health Care
Immigration
Trust and Estate
- Click anywhere within the first line, Profitability Report.
- Click the Style drop-down arrow and select Heading 1.
- Select the two paragraphs: Entire Firm and Individual Departments.
- Apply Heading 2 style to the selected text.
- Apply Heading 3 style to the department names.
There are several keyboard shortcuts that are useful in applying
styles:
| Keyboard Shortcut |
Style Name |
| CTRL+ALT+1 |
Heading 1 |
| CTRL+ALT+2 |
Heading 2 |
| CTRL+ALT+3 |
Heading 3 |
| CTRL+SHIFT+L |
List Bullet |
| CTRL+SHIFT+N |
Normal |
| CTRL+SHIFT+S |
Activates the Style Drop-Down List |
|
Tip The above shortcut keys are standard in
Word documents. You can also assign a shortcut key combination to
any other styles that you use regularly. This topic is covered in
the section Assign a Keyboard Shortcut To a
Style. |
Display Paragraph Style Names in Normal View
Sometimes it's useful to see what style has been applied to text within
a document. You can turn on Word's Style Area feature to see what
paragraph styles have been applied throughout the document. The Style Area
is a re-sizeable pane on the left side of the window that lists the
paragraph style applied to each paragraph. It is only available in Normal
View.
Practice: Display Applied Paragraph Style Names
- From the View menu, choose Normal.
- From the Tools menu, choose Options and select the View tab.
- Locate the Style area width box.
- Click the up spin box arrow until it's set to 1.0, or type 1.0 in
the box.
- Click OK to close the Options dialog box.
|
Tip To make the Style area width larger or
smaller without redisplaying the Options dialog box, click and drag
the line that separates the style name from the text of the
document. |
- From the Tools menu, choose Options, and select the View tab and set
the Style area width back to 0.
- Click OK.
(What you get. - CK
Note)
Printing a List of Styles and their Formatting (CK
Addition)
You can print a list of the styles in use in a document along with the
formatting that goes into that style by selecting "Styles" in the "Print What"
box on the Print Dialog Box instead of printing the document.
Let's say you just finished applying styles to a long agreement only to
find that you applied the Heading 2 style where you should have applied
the Heading 1 style. This can easily be remedied by using Word's Find and
Replace feature. Instead of searching for text, however, you can tell Word
to search and replace text formatted with a specific style.
Practice: Find and Replace Styles
- From the Edit menu, choose Replace. If you prefer keyboard
shortcuts, press CTRL+H.
- Click More on the Replace tab, if necessary, to display additional
options along the bottom portion of the dialog box. If a button says
Less, the window is already expanded.
- Delete any text, if necessary, that may appear in the Find what and
Replace with boxes.
- Click in the Find what box and click Format.
- Select Style.
- Select Heading 2 in the Find what style list and click OK.
- Click in the Replace with box and click Format.
- Select Style.
- Select Heading 1 and click OK. Note that while there is no text
within each edit box (Find and Replace), just below each box is a
message that Word will find and replace styles that are applied to text
within the document.
- Click Replace All, then click OK, and finally, click Close.
If you try to use the Find and Replace feature again, make sure to
click within each box (Find and Replace) and click No Formatting to reset
what Word is to search for.
Create, Modify and Locate Your Own Styles
Now that you understand what a style is and what it can do, it's time
to create some styles of your own. Not only can you create your own
styles, you can modify existing styles to achieve the result you need.
Create a New Style
The easiest way to create a new style is to format text with the
attributes that you want to apply to the style. It doesn't matter what you
type, only what type of paragraph and character formatting that you have
applied to the text. Formatting is the only thing that is applied when you
apply a style. Although you can create styles that have more advanced
attributes such as being followed by an entirely different style, the
following exercise shows you just how easy the process can be.
Practice: Create a Style
- Type your first name on a separate line in a document.
- Select your name and make the font Blue.
- Change the font size to 24-points.
- Apply Bold and Underline formatting to the text.
- Center the paragraph.
- From the Formatting toolbar, click in the Styles box (where the
style name Normal is usually displayed).
- Type your first name.
- Press ENTER. This step is important. If you do not press ENTER your
style is not created.
- Click the Style drop-down list. You should see your newly created
style.
- Test this by typing "This is a test" and applying the new
style.
You can use the Style dialog box to create or modify a style. Another
option for creating and modifying styles is shown in the following
exercise. You create a new style by typing text and formatting it, and
then from the Format menu, choose Style.
Practice: Create a Style Using The Style Dialog Box
- Type the following text:
Styles help users in law firms master Microsoft Word. (press
ENTER)
Everything in Word is based on a style.
- Select the text "Styles help users in law firms master Microsoft Word."
and the paragraph mark (
 )
that follows.
- Center the paragraph and apply a 14-point font.
- From the Format menu, choose Style.
- Click New.
- Type My Style as the Name.
- Click OK, and then click Apply.
Modifying Existing Styles
There are two ways to modify an existing style. One of these methods is
through the Style dialog box. However, an easier method is by changing the
style by example using the Style drop-down toolbar button. The Style
drop-down is useful if changes have already been manually made to a
paragraph formatted in the style to be changed. If this is not the case,
styles can be changed using the Style dialog box.
Practice: Two Methods to Modifying a Style
- Add several paragraphs to the document from the previous exercise.
- Apply the style that you created to the new text.
- Select the text Styles help users in law firms master Microsoft
Word.
- From the Format menu, choose Style.
- Click Modify.
- Click Format, and then select Font.
- Change the font color to Blue and the font size to 20-points.
- Close the dialog box and apply the changes that you've made by
clicking Apply. Notice that all text formatted with My Style updates to
show the recent change.
- Select the text Microsoft Word.
- Change the font size to 36.
- Click on the style name in the white part of the Style toolbar
button (not the drop-down arrow) and press ENTER. It's important to
press ENTER and not move the mouse up or down the list of style names.
This tells Word that you are working with the current style where the
mouse is active. If this step was done correctly, the following Modify
Style dialog box should display.
- You can either choose to Update the style to reflect recent changes,
or Reapply the formatting of the style to the selection (go back to the
original style format). Choose Update the style to reflect recent
changes? And click OK.
|
CK
Note: This behavior
changed in Word 2002. You can modify Word to go back to the previous
behavior. Check the box for "Prompt to update style" on the Edit tab
of Tools > Options.
You can download an Add-In that restores the CTRL+SHIFT+S
behavior from my
downloads page. |
|
Tip A keyboard shortcut is to press
CTRL+SHIFT+S (to put you in the style drop down box), and then press
ENTER, which will bring up the above dialog. |
The style is changed to reflect the formatting of the selected text and
this method is referred to as modifying by example. Notice how all
paragraphs with the style are updated automatically.
 |
Warning We do not recommend selecting the
Automatically update the style box especially in a legal environment
where multiple users work on the same document. This feature will
update the style each time you make a formatting change in a
paragraph that has a style attached. |
A lot of confusion can come from not knowing where styles are stored
and when they are available in documents. When new documents are created,
the new documents are based on templates. The styles contained within
these templates are copied to the new document. Changes made to styles in
the document as well as new styles that you create only affect that one
new document by default. If you want the change or addition to be added to
the template, you have to tell Word to do so.
Practice: Add it to the Template
- From the Format menu, choose Style.
- Click Modify.
- Check the option to Add to template. This makes the style available
for any new documents that are based on that template.
The style is added to the currently open template.
|
Note Documents that have previously been
created based on this template are not affected when you add a style
to the template. To automatically update style changes in templates
and files previously created based on the same template, from the
Tools menu, choose Templates and Add-Ins. Select the option to
Automatically update document styles and click OK. We recommend not
checking this option. It can produce unexpected results, especially
in legal documents that must conform to court
rules.
CK
Note: For an excellent tutorial on styles and a methodical look at basing styles
on one another and reasons not to base styles on normal, see John McGhie's
Create
a Template Part 2. For a sample demonstrating styles based on
one another, use of the style for following paragraph feature, and the
AutoTextList field restricted by styles download the Letterhead
Textboxes and Styles Tutorial by Charles Kenyon.
|
Assign a Keyboard Shortcut To a Style
If you create your own styles, it's especially helpful to assign a
keyboard shortcut to them to make them easier to apply. You can also apply
shortcuts to commonly used styles.
Practice: Assign a Keyboard Shortcut to The Quote Style
- In a blank line on your document, change the left indent to 1", and
the right- indent to 5".
- Enter some text.
- Click somewhere within the indented paragraph. You will create a
quote style that is very common in most law firms.
- From the Format menu, choose Style.
- Click New.
- In the Name box, type Quote.
- As Style type, select Paragraph.
- Based on should be Normal (your default style).
- Click Shortcut Key.
- In the Press new shortcut key box, press the keyboard combination
ALT+Q. (Always make sure that the shortcut key you have chosen is not in
use somewhere else.)
- Click Assign.
- Click OK, and then click Close.
- Click anywhere within your document and press ALT+Q. The Quote
paragraph style is applied.
Now you can apply the Quote style using ALT+ Q or through the Style
menu.
|
Note If you want to add a shortcut key to a
style that already exists, Word lets you do that, too. From the
Format menu, choose Style. Select the style to which you want to add
a shortcut key and click Modify. Click Shortcut Key and follow the
steps from the above exercise. |
Following a Style with Another Style
If you apply a paragraph format in Word, it keeps that format until
another one is chosen. This is true for styles as well. If you use the "My
Style" style (created in the previous exercise), Word continues to use
that style each time you begin a new paragraph until another style is
chosen. Sometimes the style is only needed for one paragraph at a time
(for example a heading style). To cut down the amount of times the user
needs to use the Style menu; you can choose which style should be used in
the paragraph that follows the new style. For example, after the Heading
style, when you press ENTER, you can have the next paragraph automatically
formatted with a Body Text style.
Practice: Follow a Style With Another Style
(Save Users Time & Frustration)
- From the Format menu, choose Style.
- Select Quote style from the list of styles.
- Click Modify.
- Select Normal style from the Style for following paragraph list.
- Click OK, and then click Close.
Notice the style of the new paragraph automatically changes to the
Normal style when you press enter after a paragraph formatted with the
"quote" style.
CK Note: See Letterhead
Textboxes and Styles Tutorial for an example of styles that use
the "Style for following paragraph" feature to good effect.
Using the Organizer to Copy Styles
You can copy styles between documents or templates. One of the most
effective ways to do this is through the Organizer. The Organizer is a
tool built into Word that allows you to quickly copy Styles, AutoText,
Toolbars and Macros. You can access the Organizer in one of two ways: from
the Format menu, choose Style and click Organizer; or from the Tools menu,
choose Templates and Add-Ins and click Organizer.
Practice: Copy Styles Using the Organizer
- From the Tools menu, choose Templates and Add-Ins.
- Click Organizer.
- Select the appropriate tab for items that you want to copy. For
example, to copy styles from one document or template to another select
the Styles tab.
- To copy styles from your current document to the Normal.dot template
which makes the style available each time you start Word, select the
styles and click Copy.
- Click Close.
|
Note If a style name that you are copying
already exists, you are asked if you want to replace
it.
Charles
Kenyon Note
I have found it best when copying styles using the organizer to copy
them three times if any of the styles is based on other styles or is
followed by other styles. I'm not sure why this makes a
difference, but I've found that clicking on that copy button three
times means that these relationships continue in the destination
template. I know that when I copy them only once, they do not and
the styles are then followed by the Normal style. See this Knowledge
Base article Q113106
for possible explanation.
You can use a global template as a stylesheet if you include a
macro to copy the styles into your document. See A Global StyleSheet in Microsoft Word?
for an example of such a macro.
If you have defined one of the built-in styles just the way you
want but would prefer to be using a style of your own for this
purpose, copying the formatting to your new style without it being
based on the existing style. If you are comfortable editing vba
macros, you can record a macro that calls up the style modification
dialog and goes through each of the various format dialogs and
closes them. Then create your new style and edit the macro to refect
the name of your new style rather than the one in which it was
recorded. Run the macro and the new style should match your original
one.
Much simpler is using one of the tools that comes in the WOPR
Add-In. The Style Duplicator lets you create a new style with the
same definition as an existing one. The WOPR Add-In is only
available with
Que "Special Edition" books about Office and is worth the price
of the books by itself. |
Another way to copy styles is to simply copy and paste paragraphs
created in another document containing the style you're looking for. All
paragraph formatting is contained in the paragraph mark at the end of
each paragraph. Make sure when you select and copy the paragraph text
that you include the paragraph marker at the end of the selected
paragraph. Then, when you paste it into the target document, the
selected paragraph formatting and paragraph style are added to your
target document.
|
CK
Note:
If you use Autotext
entries contained in a global template that
are formatted using a style in that global template, those styles will
be copied as well. (For this to work with paragraph styles a paragraph
marker in the style must be a part of the autotext entry.) This
method of copying styles by copying text with a paragraph marker
only works if the style being copied in is not already "in use"
in the document receiving the copied text. Otherwise the style
definition in the target document governs. |
(CK
addition here to Navigating With the Document Map)
If you do this
and the style already exists in the new receiving document, the existing
style in the receiving document is used, not modified. This makes it
much easier to maintain consistency within a document but can lead to
real headaches if the people who formatted the documents weren't
conscious of style use.
In this case if you wanted to copy the
style you would want to use the Organizer. Character styles are
also copied this way. This gets complex. Sorry about that. Despite this
complexity, use of styles for formatting is the key to using Word.
If you have text in two different documents that you want to
combine, and you want to retain the formatting from each rather than
having one style system format the text from both documents, you can.
You can use Paste Special ... as Word Document
Object. This creates a
document within a document, with its own set of styles.
Otherwise, if you just want to copy the text, you will need to make some changes to one of the documents before you
do the insertion, though. The thing is that if your styles have
different names in the two documents, then the formatting will be
retained when the text is inserted. So, you'll want to rename the
styles in one (or both) of your documents.
None of the built-in styles can be renamed, though. If you have the
WOPR Add-In, you can copy styles withi | | |
. Applies to all the text within the end paragraph mark of
where your pointer is positioned.
. Applies at the character level—to blocks of words and
letters.
. Provides a consistent look to lists.
. Provides a consistent look to tables.