Read a Sample Chapter

[Figures are not included in this sample chapter]

Special Edition Using Microsoft® Word 2000
- 6 -
Streamlining Your Formatting with Styles

In this chapter

• Why Styles Are So Valuable  
  
  
• What Styles Are and How They Work  
  
  
• Understanding Word's Default Styles  
  
  
• Applying an Existing Style  
  
  
• Creating and Changing Styles  
  
  
• Changing Styles  
  
  
• Managing Styles  
  
  
• Troubleshooting
    
• Project: Building a Style System  

Why Styles Are So Valuable

Styles are one of Word's most powerful timesavers, for five important reasons.

First, styles can dramatically reduce the time it takes to format a document--oftenby 90% or more. Second, styles can also help you make sure all your documents lookconsistent, with very little effort on your part. Third, if you export your Worddocument to a desktop publishing program (page 833), most programs can useWord styles to help automate their work. Fourth, if you need to change the way yourstyled docum ent looks, you need to change only a few styles, not hundreds of manualformats.

Finally, it's much easier to take advantage of Word's powerful automation andorganization features if you use styles. For example, Word can automatically buildand update a table of contents based on the styles in your document. Without styles,you would have to manually apply a field to every single item you want to includein your table of contents. In addition to tables of contents, Word styles make iteasier to use all these features:

• Web Publishing. See Chapter 10, "Using Word to Develop Web Content," to learn how Word uses styles in pages saved in HTML as Web pages.

• Outlining. See Chapter 15, "Outlining: The Best Way to Organize a Document," to learn how styles enable you to easily outline and reorganize your document.

• AutoFormat. See Chapter 8, "Automating Your Documents: AutoCorrect, AutoFormat, AutoText, and AutoSummarize," to learn how styles enable you to format your document automatically, all at once.

• AutoSummarize (page 322). See Chapter 8 to learn how styles can help Word build an automatic summary of any document.

• Outline Numbering (page 607). See Chapter 15 to learn how styles enable you to apply automatic outline numbers to your documents and have Word track them automatically.

• Tables of Figures (page 673). See Chapter 17, "Tables of Contents, Figures, Authorities, and Captioning," to learn how styles enable you to b uild and update figure tables automatically.

• Master Documents (page 622). See Chapter 16, "Master Documents: Control and Share Even the Largest Documents," to learn how styles enable you to automatically divide a large document into several subdocuments for easy, team-based editing.

For all these reasons, styles are a great foundation for automating your document.Best of all, Word now makes styles very easy to use. (In fact, as you'll see later,Word's automatic style definition (page 230) feature might enable you to getthe styles you need with almost no effort on your part.)

Surprisingly, many Word users never bother with styles; they are comfortable withWord's easy manual formatting capabilities. Others use a few styles now and then,but don't take full advantage of them. If you fall into either category, this chaptercan help you dramatically improve your productivity.

---

TIP # 97 FROM BILL CAMARDA: If you can't or won't format your document with styles, Word 2000 gives you an alternate way to get some of their automation advantages. As covered in Chapter 15, you can specify outline levels (page 605) for individual blocks of text, and Word can use those outline levels rather than styles.

---

However, it's usually more work to create outline levels than styles; outlinelevels don't work with as many Word features as styles do; and you probably wantthe styles anyway for formatting reasons.

---

NOTE: Word 2000 also provides a new feature, Themes, which can help you establish a consistent format for your document qu ickly. Especially well-suited for Web pages, Themes contain formatting that visually communicates a wide variety of moods and messages, from the very informal "Loose Gesture" to the buttoned-down "Corporate."
When you choose a theme, Word changes the styles in your document to reflect the formatting in the theme, and (if you wish) also adds backgrounds, horizontal lines, and special graphical bullets. Themed documents are by definition HTML documents. If you select a theme for a Word document, Word converts your file to HTML. Before doing so, make sure anyone else who needs to work with your document can use it in HTML format.

---

Themes are covered in detail in the "Using Themes to Change the Styles inYour Template" section of Chapter 7, "Templates, Wizards, and Add-Ins."

What Styles Are and How They Work

In Word, a style is a series of formats that can be applied all at once to oneor more paragraphs, or one or more characters. Rather than apply formats one at atime by clicking toolbar buttons or using keyboard shortcuts or dialog boxes, youchoose a style, and Word automatically applies all the formatting for you. If youwant or need to change the appearance of your entire document, all you have to dois change the styles.

How Styles and Templates Work Together

Styles are intimately linked to another Word feature, templates. As you'lllearn in Chapter 7, templates are patterns for your documents, which can includemany features, including styles, boilerplate text, manually formatted text, graphics,and custom automation tools such as macros and special too lbars.

When you store your styles in a template, the styles are immediately availablewhenever you create a document based on that template. By default, your styles arestored in the Normal template--which makes them available to every document you create.As you'll see in Chapter 7, you can use templates to manage, organize, and distributecollections of styles--and this makes it easy to refine and standardize the lookof all your documents.

• For more information about working with templates, see Chapter 7, "Templates, Wizards, and Add-Ins," p. 257.

Word offers two kinds of styles: paragraph styles and character styles; both canbe stored in your templates. Each type of style is covered next.

Understanding Paragraph Styles

Paragraph styles control the formatting of entire paragraphs. Any manualformatting you can add to a font or paragraph can be included in a paragraph style.If you can find it in one of the following dialog boxes, you can add it to a paragraphstyle by choosing

• Format, Font (Font, Character Spacing, and Animation tabs)

• Format, Paragraph (Indents and Spacing, Line and Page Breaks tabs)

• Format, Tabs (tab stops, alignment, and leaders)

• Format, Borders and Shading (Borders and Shading tabs, but not Page Borders)

• Tools, Language, Set Language (the language in which text should be proofed)

• Format, Bullets and Numbering (Bulleted, Numbered, and Outline Numbered tabs)

Understanding Character Styles

Unli ke paragraph styles, character styles can be built only from the textformatting options available in the Format, Font dialog box, from bordersand shading, and from language formatting.

Chances are, you'll use paragraph styles much more often than character styles.Paragraph styles are easier to create, and they can do more. For certain purposes,however, character styles are indispensable.

For example, you might have a short block of text that must always be formattedin a specific way, such as a company name. With character styles, it's easier tomake sure that this text is always formatted correctly to begin with, and remainsformatted correctly as a document evolves.

---

Don't Overuse Multiple Styles

Avoid using too many typefaces, sizes, and font styles in the same document: This distracts from your message. Use the formatting in your styles to make headings and section titles easy to distinguish--in essence, making your document's outline and structure visible even to readers who see the document in print.

---

How Paragraph and Character Styles Interact

Character styles are superimposed on paragraph styles. When character and paragraphstyles conflict, the font specified in a character style takes precedence. However,if a character style does not specify a formatting attribute and the paragraph styledoes, the paragraph style is applied.

For example, imagine you have a paragraph style named Summary that specifies

12-point Times New Roman italic

Now, imagine you superimpose a character style named Smith, which specifies

14-point Impa ct

You get 14-point Impact just as your character style requests, but you'll alsoget italic because your character style hasn't expressed a preference and your paragraphstyle has. On the other hand, if your paragraph and character styles both specifyitalic, Word assumes you want to preserve some contrast between the two styles, andformats the text as not italic. Therefore, you can't count on a character style beingabsolute.

As is covered in the next section, "How Manual Formatting and Styles Interact,"manual formatting of text overrides both paragraph and character styles.

How Manual Formatting and Styles Interact

Manual formatting is superimposed on both paragraph and character styles. As inthe preceding example, however, Word seeks to maintain contrast. So, if you add italicformatting to a paragraph styled to use italic, Word displays non-italic text.

---

TIP # 98 FROM BILL CAMARDA: To see which formatting elements in a block of text have been created by styles and which have been created by manual formatting, press Shift+F1, and click the What's This mouse pointer on the text that interests you (see Figure 6.1).

---

FIGURE 6.1 Displaying all the paragraph and font formatting associated with a block of text.

To clear all manual formatting and character styles, leaving only paragraph styles,select text and press Ctrl+Spacebar.

Displaying Styles with Your Text

Sometimes you might like to view the styles in your document as you work. Forexample, you may have a set of corporate styles you need to follow. Or, you mighthav e styles that look similar to each other; viewing the style names helps you tellthem apart.

Word's Style Area (see Figure 6.2) enables you to view style names alongside thetext in your document. Style Area works only in Normal view (page xxx) andOutline view (page xxx). To display a Style Area, choose Tools, Options,View. Then, specify a Style Area Width (page 1060) greater than 0 inches.(The default setting, 0", means that Word displays no Style Area. That's whyyou may never have seen one.)

---

TIP # 99 FROM BILL CAMARDA: Try a measurement of 0.8 inches, sufficient to display most style names without reducing the editing area too much.

---

After you have a Style Area, you can resize it with the mouse. To do this, placethe mouse pointer over the border of the Style Area. When the pointer changes toappear as vertical bars, click and drag the border to the width you want.

FIGURE 6.2 Word's Style Area, along the left side of this figure, enables you to view your styles and document at the same time.

Understanding Word's Default Styles

You're using styles whether you know it or not.

Word actually contains more than 90 built-in styles. When you display a new documentand begin entering text, Word enters the text using the Normal style, Word's standardstyle for body copy. (By default, Normal style is 12-point Times New Roman, left-aligned,single-spaced, with an outline level equivalent to body text.) Similarly, wheneveryou use automated features such as AutoFormat (page 313), Tables of Contents,or Indexes, Word applies built-in styles in many pl aces to ensure overall consistency.

All these built-in styles are designed to work together, creating documents thatare consistently formatted--if a bit on the ordinary side. They're all stored togetherin Word's Normal template (page 260), which means they are available to everydocument you create. And, as you'll see later, changing these built-in styles isthe fastest way to change the overall look of all the documents you create.

In the next few sections, you'll learn how to make the most of these built-instyles--and you'll also learn techniques you can use with the styles you create.

Applying an Existing Style

Because Word contains so many built-in styles, the fastest way to add styles toyour document is to use the ones that already exist. To apply an existing style,select the text you want to style. Then click the arrow in the Style box onthe Formatting toolbar, or press Ctrl+Shift+S (see Figure 6.3), and choose the styleyou want from the list that appears.

FIGURE 6.3 Choosing a style from the Style box on the Formatting toolbar.

In Word 2000, the Style box doesn't just list the available styles; it shows themformatted, so you can see what they look like before you apply them.

---

NOTE: While all of Word's built-in styles are available to all your documents, this may not be true of custom styles you create.

---

If you have stored custom styles in more than one template, the custom stylesavailable for your use may vary depending on which templates are currently accessibleto your documents. To learn more about controlling which templates are available tto your documents, see "Attaching a New Template to an Existing Document,"in Chapter 7.

Shortcuts for the Most Common Styles

Five of Word's most widely used styles also have quick keyboard shortcuts:

Style	Keyboard Shortcut	Common Use
Normal	Ctrl+Shift+N	Body text
Heading 1	Alt+Ctrl+1	First-level headings
Heading 2	Alt+Ctrl+2	Second-level headings
Heading 3	Alt+Ctrl+3	Third-level headings
List Bullet	Ctrl+Shift+L	Bulleted lists

Sometimes you want to apply a different paragraph style to a block of text. Youcan always do so by selecting any part of the paragraph and choosing a new stylefrom the Style box.

Because many styles are heading styles, you often find yourself changing stylesto change heading levels. One very effective way to make these changes is to switchinto Outline view and use the Promote and Demote buttons on the Outlining toolbar(covered in detail in Chapter 15). If, however, you're just changing one or two headings,simply click the Style box, and use the up- or down-arrow keys to move to the styleyou want.

---

TIP # 100 FROM BILL CAMARDA: Two additional keys allow you to change heading styles: Alt+Shift+Right arrow demotes (page 597) the paragraph you've selected. For example, if you select a paragraph formatted as Heading 1, pressing Alt+Shift+Right arrow converts the paragraph to Heading 2 style.

---

Conversely, Alt+Shift+Left arrow promotes the paragraph; for example, from Heading3 to Heading 2.

---

TIP # 101 FROM BILL CAMARDA: If you're sure of the style name you want to use, you can simply type it in the Style box. However, if you mistype, Word creates a new style formatted as your text already appears.

---

To minimize clutter, Word typically displays only seven built-in styles in theStyle box of a new document: Normal, Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, and three Tableof Contents (TOC) styles. All the other styles built into Word are still available,however. If you want to apply a style that doesn't appear in the Style box, applyit from the Style dialog box (see Figure 6.4) as follows:

1. Select the paragraph(s) you want to modify.

2. Choose Format, Style.

3. Select All styles from the List box.

4. Sel ect the style you want from the Styles box.

5. Click Apply. The style is applied to the current paragraph(s) you selected.

FIGURE 6.4 You can get more control over styles through the Style dialog box.

Applying Multiple Styles at the Same Time

Maybe you'd rather not have your train of thought interrupted by stopping to applystyles as you write. If so, you can write your document the way you normally do andthen have Word's AutoFormat (page 313) feature apply the styles for you, usingthe built-in styles it recognizes.

---

NOTE: Or you can use AutoFormat As You Type to make similar changes as you type.

---

You learn more about AutoFormat and AutoFormat As You Type (page 320) inChapter 8, but briefly, Word can recognize the following elements and assign stylesto them:

• Headings. If you enter one line of text without a period, ending with a paragraph mark, Word recognizes it as a heading and applies a heading style. If your headings are not already manually numbered or styled, Word typically uses Heading 1.

• If you have already formatted some headings, Word applies the next subordinate heading style beneath your headings. That's useful to know if, for example, only the name of your chapter uses Heading 1 style. Format that one line of copy manually, and Word automatically formats all the other headings it finds as Heading 2. This leaves you with fewer to correct manually.

• Bulleted and numbered lists. AutoFormat can recognize some lines of t ext as belonging to a bulleted or numbered list, and reformat those with built-in list styles. For example, if either AutoFormat or AutoFormat As You Type encounters paragraphs that begin with an asterisk and a space, it will reformat them as items in a bulleted list.

• Body text. AutoFormat takes the remaining paragraphs that it hasn't reformatted in any other way and formats them using Word's built-in Body Text style. Body Text style is identical to Normal style except that 6 points have been added after each paragraph to compensate for the extra paragraph mark AutoFormat automatically removes.

• Letter elements. Depending on where they appear in a letter, Word can recognize salutations, addresses, and other elements, and apply corresponding built-in styles.

To use AutoFormat to apply several styles at once, choose Format, AutoFormat,and click the Options button. Then, on the AutoFormat tab (see Figure 6.5),specify the types of styles you want Word to apply--Headings, Lists,Automatic Bulleted Lists, and/or Other Paragraphs (including Body Text,Inside Address, Salutation, and some other styles). These options are all in theApply area of this tab; if you don't want Word to change any other document elementsaside from these, clear the other check boxes. Click OK twice, and Word AutoFormatsthe document.

FIGURE. 6.5 If you want Word to apply styles autom- atically but make no other changes to your document, check the boxes in the Apply area of the Auto-Format tab, and clear the boxes in the Replace area, as shown.

Word isn't perfect. Double-check the styles Word applies: You may have to do sometweaking. However, if your document's structure isn't too unusual, using AutoFormatcan often save you a good deal of time.

Creating and Changing Styles

Until now, you've learned how to use the existing styles Word provides. If youdo nothing more than use Word's styles, your documents will look consistent; youwill spend less time formatting them, and you'll have access to all the power ofWord's automation features.

However, considering that Word is--by far--the world's most popular word processor,your documents will have a tendency to look a lot like everyone else's. Moreover,you might encounter situations where Word has no applicable built-in style. For example,Word doesn't have a built-in style for chapter summaries, or for tips, or for manyother elements you find in this book.

For these reasons, you should know how to create new styles or change existingones. Fortunately, Word makes this easy to do.

Creating Paragraph Styles Easily with Style by Example

The quickest way to create an entirely new style is to use Word's Style by Examplefeature, as follows:

1. Select and format a block of text the way you want it.

2. Click inside the Style drop-down box on the Formatting toolbar (or press Ctrl+Shift+S).

3. Type the new style name in the Style box and press Enter.

---

NOTE: When you create a style using Style by Example, the style is automatically stored in the template that is currently attached to your document. If you created the document based on the Blank Document template (Word's default setting), this means your custom styles will be stored in the Normal template. If you created the document using a different template, or if you have chosen a different template since you created the document, your new styles will be stored in that template.

To learn more about how styles and templates interact, see "Understanding the Relationship Between Styles and Templates," in Chapter 7.

---

Defining Character Styles

Character styles can't be defined on the Formatting toolbar (although they canbe selected from there after they've been defined). To define a character style,you have to venture into the Style dialog box:

1. Select and format a block of text the way you want it.

2. Select Format, Style.

3. Click New.

4. Enter a style name in the Name box.

5. Choose Character from the Style Type drop-down list. Figure 6.6 shows what the New Style dialog box may look like now.

6. Click OK.

7. Click Apply.

Using Automatic Style Changes

The same AutoFormat technology that enables you to create all your styles at thesame time can also help you change existing styles automatically. For example, becauseWord can recognize a line of type as a heading, it can also recognize when you areformatting a line of type manually to look like a heading. It also can automaticallytransform your manual formatting into a heading style.

Automatic style definition is part of Word's AutoFormat As You Type feature. Touse it, follow the se steps:

1. Choose Format, AutoFormat.

2. Click Options.

3. Click the AutoFormat As You Type tab.

4. In the Apply As You Type area, specify the elements for which you want Word to automatically create styles: Headings, Borders, Tables, Automatic Bulleted Lists (page 316), and/or Automatic Numbered Lists (page 316).

5. Check the Define Styles Based on Your Formatting check box at the bottom of the dialog box.

6. Click OK.

7. Click Close.

After you turn on automatic style definition, pay close attention to it for afew days to make sure that it isn't creating styles you don't want. If the formattingin your documents starts changing in ways you don't like, turn the feature off.

• For more information about enabling or disabling automatic style updates for specific styles, see "Enabling or Preventing Automatic Style Updates," p. 245.

Controlling Styles via the Format Style Dialog Box

Until now, this chapter has focused primarily on the quickest, easiest ways tocreate and use styles. However, Word provides some advanced style capabilities thataren't accessible from the Formatting toolbar or a keyboard shortcut. These capabilitiescan significantly improve your productivity if you spend a few minutes getting toknow them.

Word's central control panel for creating and managing styles is the Style dialogbox (refer to Figure 6.4). From here, you can

• Apply an existing style to selected text. You're most likely to use the Style dialog box to apply built-in styles that don't show up in the Style box on the Formatting toolbar. To apply an existing style, select it from the Styles list and click Apply.

• Review your existing styles and delete any that no longer apply or are redundant. To delete a style, select it from the Styles list and click Delete. However, you can't delete any built-in styles in Word's Normal template.

• Create a new style. As you've learned, you must use the Style dialog box to create character styles. However, you must also use the Style dialog box to create paragraph styles when you want to do any of the following:
  • Use advanced features such as Based On styles or Following Paragraph styles

  • Automatically update your document to reflect style changes

  • Add a style to a template, not just to your current document

  • Create shortcut keys for a style

  • Systematically establish the formatting and attributes for a style

  • Modify an existing style's attributes (or formatting)

  • Move styles among documents and templates, via the Organizer

Throughout the remainder of this chapter, you'll learn more about creating, modifying,and organizing styles, but first, here's a word about displaying them in the Styledialog box.

Choosing the Most Convenient Way to List Your Styles

In the Style dialog box, Word can list styles in the following three ways:

• Styles in use. Word lists only the styles you have already assigned to text in your document. You might use this list to make sure all the styles you've used are consistent with your corporate standards.

• All styles. Word lists every style in every currently open template, including the 90+ styles in the Normal template, plus any other styles you've added to it and any styles in any other template to which your document has access.

• User-defined styles. Word lists only the available styles you have created. You might use this list to manage a system of styles you've developed. Style systems are discussed in detail in the project at the end of this chapter.

Creating a New Style Using the New Style Dialog Box

As you've learned, you sometimes want to create a new style using the Style andNew Style dialog boxes rather than Style by Example. Earlier in the chapter, yousaw how to create a character style this way. Now you can take a closer look at severalother options available to you.

First, choose Format, Style and click New to display theNew Style dialog box. At the top, you see the style Name and Style Typeboxes you encountered earlier. Enter the style name you want and choose either Paragraphor Character as your style type.

Working with Based On Styles

Next, if you want, you can specify the existing style that your new style is tobe based on. By default, most built-in Word styles are based on the Normal style,and unless you make a change, your new style is based on it also. Of course, Worduses the formats you specify, but where you do not specify a setting, Word makesassumptions based on the Normal style, which includes the following:

• Font: Times New Roman

• Size: 12-point

• Proofing Language: English (United States), unless you change the Regional Settings in the Windows Control Panel

• Character scale: 100%

• Alignment: Flush left

• Line spacing: Single

• Pagination: Widow/Orphan Control

• Outline level: Body Text

At times, you might have a different style you would like to use as the basisfor your new style--one with formatting that closely resembles the style you arecreating.

For example, you might want to base all your headings on your Heading 1 style.That way, if you change the font in Heading 1, all the other headings change automatically.

With the New Style dialog box open, click the Based On box, and choosethe style you want to use as the basis for your new style. If you are working witha Paragraph style, you can choose from all the styles available to your current document.

If you are working with a Character style, your choices are more limited. Theyinclude several styles associated with Web pages, including Emphasis and Strong.These are styles that Web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer and NetscapeNavigator have long used to control the display of text on Web and intranet (page384) sites.

---

TIP # 102 FROM BILL CAMARDA: If the Based On style you want to use appears in the Formatting toolbar, here's a quicker way to get the same result:

1. Format a block of text using the Based On style.
2. Reformat the text to reflect any changes you want to make.
3. Click in the Style box.
4. Type the new style name and press Enter.

---

Using Based On Styles to Transform the Look of Your Documents

Based On styles enable you to create a unique look for all your documents withlittle effort. All you have to do is change the Normal style, which underlies allWord's styles.

For example, if you're bored with Times New Roman, you can change the Normal styleto a somewhat more interesting font, such as Garamond. That change cascades throughall the styles that are based on the Normal style--except for those that alreadyspecify a different font, such as Arial.

Once you make a change such as this, you probably need to make a few other changesas well. Some of Word's styles, although they are based on Normal, also specify theirown fonts. For example, Heading 1 uses the Arial font. Consider changing these stylesto specify a font that complements the one you've now chosen for text.

---

TIP # 103 FROM BILL CAMARDA: If you choose a serif font for text, generally choose a sans serif font for some or all of your headings. Serif fonts have tiny tails at the ends of each letter to improve readability; sans serif fonts don't.

---

Serif and sans serif fonts complement each other well and often are used in combinationto make book and newspaper designs more attractive. .

You should note one more thing about choosing fonts for your styles. Differentfonts have different widths. Times New Roman is unusually narrow, which simply meansthat more words fit on a line w hen you're using it. If you choose a wider font, suchas Bookman, you may find you've lengthened a long document by several pages.

Choosing a Following Paragraph Style

Think about your documents for a moment. In most cases, after you type a heading,you usually type body text. After you type the first element in a list, you usuallytype another list element. Word paragraph styles take advantage of this. When youspecify a paragraph style, you can also specify the style that should be used inthe paragraph that follows it .

By default, the Following Paragraph style is Normal. These steps show you howto specify a different one:

1. Open the New Style dialog box (refer to Figure 6.6).

2. Click in the Style for Following Paragraph drop-down box.

3. Choose the style you want to use.

4. When you're finished with the settings in the New Style dialog box, click OK.

After you've set a Following Paragraph style, Word applies it automatically asyou work. When you press Enter at the end of one paragraph, Word applies the FollowingParagraph style to the next paragraph.

Creating Style Formats from the New Style Dialog Box

You already know that you can quickly establish a style's formats using Styleby Example. You might, however, want convenient, centralized access to every formattingoption associated with a new style, so you can systematically create all your formattingat the same time. Word gives you that access.

With the New Style dialog box open, click the Format button. A list offormatting categories appears (see Figure 6.7). Choose the category you wa nt, anda dialog box appears containing your choices. In most cases, this dialog box is identicalto the one you would use elsewhere to create manual formatting. For example, clickingFont displays the Font tabbed dialog box with three tabs: Font, CharacterSpacing, and Animation (page 85).

You can now systematically walk through each dialog box, establishing the settingsyou want your style to have. This is a great way to make sure you don't forget animportant setting that might be easy to overlook if you used Style by Example.

Template or Document? Where to Store Your Styles

By default, Word adds your new style to your current document only. If you changea built-in style, that change also applies in only your existing document. However,you sometimes want to make the style available for many documents. You can do thisby adding the style to the template associated with the document in which you areworking.

It's easy to add a style to a template. With the Style dialog box open, clickNew to create a new style. From the New Style dialog box, create the stylesettings you want. Then, check the Add to Template check box, and click OK.

It's not quite as easy to decide whether you should add a style to your template.Here's what you need to know. Unless you have chosen another template, you are probablyworking in the Normal template. If you add a new style to the Normal template, youmake it available to every document you create.

If you change a built-in style, you likewise change it globally, meaning thatit is changed for all documents using this particular style. Be careful not to introduceinconsistencies with existing documents that use Word's default styles.

• To learn more about how templates and styles work together, see "Understanding the Relationship Between Styles and Template," p. 265.

FIGURE 6.7 You can choose a category of formatting to apply by clicking the Format button in the New Style dialog box.

---

CAUTION: Because the styles in your document aren't included in your template unless you check the Add to Template check box, it's possible for different documents using the same template to have varying styles with the same style names.

---

---

TIP: See the project later in this chapter for a quick and easy alternative: creating a separate template specifically for your new and revised styles.

---

Enabling or Preventing Automatic Style Updates

As you've learned, Word can create new styles automatically by transforming yourmanual formatting into styles as you type. If you want, Word can also change yourstyles automatically for you whenever you manually reformat them.

In some circumstances, this is a great shortcut, because you can manually reformatone line and your entire document is updated to match. However, it's not always appropriate.Imagine that one of your headings refers to the title of a book, which should beformatted in italic. If Word is automatically updating your styles, all the headingsusing this style change, even those that shouldn't be italicized.

Word enables you to specify which styles qualify for automatic updating. To seta new style for automatic updating, first cre ate the style by clicking Newin the Style dialog box. From the New Style dialog box, establish the style settingsyou want. Then, check the Automatically Update check box, and click OK.

If you want to automatically update a style that already exists, display the Styledialog box and click Modify. The Modify Style dialog box opens; check theAutomatically Update check box, and click OK.

Changing Styles

In the past few pages, you've learned how to create new styles. However, you canalso make changes in existing styles. You can do so through the Style dialog box,or through the Style box on the Formatting toolbar.

Changing a Style Through the Style Dialog Box

If you want to systematically review and adjust the formatting of a style, usethe Style dialog box. To do so, choose Format, Style. In the Styleslist, choose the style you want to change, and click Modify.

The Modify Style dialog box opens (see Figure 6.8). As you can see, it looks muchlike the New Style dialog box. However, the existing style you've already chosenis listed in the Name box. The style's current settings are also listed inthe Description area of the dialog box, and their appearance in your document ispreviewed in the Preview area.

As soon as you change a style, Word applies the change throughout your documentanywhere you used the style--or anywhere you used a style based on it. If you addthe changed style to a template, the change takes effect in all new documents basedon that template.

However, the changes are not made automatically in existing documents. First,you have to save the changes by saving the templa te. Then, when you open an existingdocument based on that template, you have to tell Word that you want to update thestyles.

To update styles based on the template, first open a document based on the templateyou've changed. Next, choose Tools, Templates and Add-Ins, and checkthe Automatically Update Document Styles check box. Click OK and Word reformatsthe document to reflect any style changes you saved in the template.

Changing a Style Through the Formatting Toolbar

If you want to make a simple change to a style, such as changing a font size oradding italics, use the Style box on the Formatting toolbar. Reformat the style asyou want it to appear, click inside the Style box, and press Enter.

The Modify Style dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 6.9. (This is a different"Modify Style" dialog box than the one you accessed through Format,Style.) To change the style, make sure the Update the Style to ReflectRecent Changes button is selected, and click OK.

FIGURE 6.8 The Modify Style dialog box looks and works just like the New Style dialog box you've already seen.

FIGURE 6.9 This dialog box confirms that you want to update a style.

---

NOTE: You can also use this dialog box to eliminate manual formatting you've added to a block of text. Select the text, click inside the Style box, and press Enter. When the Modify Style dialog box appears, select Reapply the Formatting of the Style to the Selection, and click OK.

---

This technique only works with styles for w hich Automatically Update is turnedoff. If Automatically Update is turned on, the style will automatically be changedto reflect your formatting before you have a chance to instruct Word to do so. Tolearn how to turn off Automatically Update, see "Enabling or Preventing AutomaticStyle Updates," earlier in this chapter.

If Word is changing styles on its own, in ways you don't like, see "Whatto Do If Styles Suddenly Change When You Don't Expect Them To," in "Troubleshooting"at the end of this chapter.

If styles you create appear different from the way you expect, see "Whatto Do If Styles Look Different Than You Expect," in "Troubleshooting"at the end of this chapter.

Creating Keyboard Shortcuts for Your Styles

Earlier, you learned that Word comes with built-in keyboard shortcuts for thethree highest-level heading styles, Normal style, and List style. You may discoverother styles, new or existing, that you find yourself using quite often. To assigna keyboard shortcut to any style, follow these steps:

1. Choose Format, Style.

2. If you are adding a keyboard shortcut to an existing style, click Modify. If you are creating the style, click New instead.

3. Click Shortcut Key. The Customize Keyboard dialog box opens (see Figure 6.10).

FIGURE 6.10 You can create a convenient keyboard shortcut for any style you expect to use often.

4. Press the keyboard shortcut combination you want to use. The combination appears in the Press New Shortcut Key box. If that combination is already in use, the current use is listed beneath the box where the keyboard combination is displayed.

5. If the combination you've chosen is acceptable to you, click Assign. If not, press another keyboard combination, and when you're satisfied, click Assign.

• For more information on creating custom keyboard shortcuts, see "Creating New Keyboard Shortcuts," p. 1050.

Managing Styles

Before you start accumulating new and changed styles, you should give a littlethought to how you'll manage them. Managing styles involves the following:

• Deciding which styles should be placed in templates, and organizing those styles in the templates associated with specific kinds of work

• Naming styles so you and your colleagues understand their purpose

• Occasionally moving styles or deleting styles you no longer use

You can perform some management tasks in the Style dialog boxes you've alreadystudied. For other tasks, such as moving styles between templates, you use the Organizer,which is described later in this chapter.

How to Choose Style Names

Spend a few moments thinking about how to name your styles. Keep the followingtips in mind:

• Name your styles based on their function, not their appearance. Don't name a style Arial 48 Bold; what if you decide to change its appearance someday? Rather, name it based on how you expect to use it--for example, Front Page Headline.

• Keep your style names as consistent as possible. Imagine you use a set of styles for only projects involving Omega Corp. Consider starting each style name with O. That way, they'll all be listed together--and you'll be less likely to inadvertently use them in projects that don't involve Omega.

Quick and Easy Style Names with Aliases

You've just seen some advantages to creating relatively long style names thatclearly explain the purpose of each style. However, what if you also like to typeyour style names in the Style box to select them? It takes too long to type a longname, and if you make a mistake, Word creates a new style, which isn't what you wantto happen.

You can have it both ways. Use aliases. An alias is an abbreviated stylename that Word recognizes in place of the full style name. For example, if you havea style named Major Headline, you might want to use the alias MH.

To create an alias, display the New Style dialog box. Type the style's full name,add a comma, and then type your alias. For example, to create the style DocumentSummary and assign the alias DS at the same time, enter

Document Summary,DS

Both the full name and alias appear in the Style box, but you can select the styleby typing only the alias.

---

TIP # 104 FROM BILL CAMARDA: You can create aliases for existing styles by adding them in the Name box of the Modify Style dialog box.

---

Keeping Track of Styles with the Organizer

The Organizer (see Figure 6.11) is Word's control center for copying, deleting,and renaming styles. To display the organizer, choose Format, Styleand click Organizer. The Organizer opens with the Styles tab displayed.

FIGURE 6.11 You can use the Organizer to move styles between documents or templates.

---

TIP # 105 FROM BILL CAMARDA: The procedures you'll learn for working with styles in the Organizer also work for moving AutoText entries, Toolbars, and Macro Project Items.

---

• For more information about working with AutoText entries, see "AutoText: The Complete Boilerplate Resource," p. 303.

• For more information about creating and managing custom toolbars, see "Customizing Toolbars," p. 1034.

• For more information about macro project items, see Chapter 32, "Getting Started with VBA," p. 1183.

When the Organizer opens, it displays two windows. The left window, named afterthe document that is currently active, lists all the styles contained in that document.The right window corresponds to the Normal template (NORMAL.DOT).

Copying Styles

When you open the Organizer, it is already set to copy styles from the currentdocument to the Normal template. All you need to do is select the style you wantto copy and click Copy (or press Enter). If you're not sure whether you wantto copy a style, you can review the style's contents, which are displayed beneathits window.

You can also copy styles in the opposite direction, from the Normal template tothe current document. Click a style in the right window. The arrow inside the Copybutton switches direction, now facing the Document window.

---

NOTE: You'll often want to copy styles to different templates, not just different documents. To learn how, see "Working with Different Documents and Templates," later in this chapter.

---

If you copy a style to a destination that already has a style of the same name,Word displays a warning dialog box asking whether you're sure you want to do so.Click Yes to confirm; click Yes to All if you're sure you want to overwriteany other styles as well.

---

TIP # 106 FROM BILL CAMARDA: If you'd like to copy a style from one document to another, and the style name isn't already used by the destination document, try this shortcut. Select some text that's already formatted using the style and copy it. Then simply paste it into the other document.

---

The style comes along with it and is now listed on the Style box along with allother styles in this document. It'll still be there even after you delete the textassociated with the style.

Renaming Styles

Sometimes you might want to rename a style. For example, you might be settingup several styles associated with a specific project and template, and you want themall to begin with the same letter or word. To rename a style, select it in the Organizer,and click Rename. Then, enter the new name in the Rename dialog box (see Figure6.12) and click OK.

FIGURE 6.12 The Rename dialog box displays the current name, which can be edited or replaced as you want.

Working with Different Documents and Templates

Until now, you've used the Organizer only to move styles between the current documentand the NORMAL.DO T template. However, the Organizer can be used to move styles betweenany documents or templates. You simply need to place the appropriate documents ortemplates in the left and right windows. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Beneath either the left or right window, click the Close File button. The window becomes empty, and the button has changed to read Open File.

2. Click the Open File button. Word displays the Open dialog box, showing your current list of document templates stored in the Templates folder. If you want a template, navigate to it, select the template, and click Open. If you want a document instead, choose Word document in the Files of Type box. Then navigate to the document you want to use and click Open.

3. Repeat the same process in the other window to display the appropriate document or template there.

You can now copy, delete, or rename styles just as you've already learned in thischapter.

---

TIP# 107 FROM BILL CAMARDA: Because the Organizer's Open File button displays the same Open dialog box you normally use to open files, you have full access to the extensive file search capabilities covered in Chapter 1, "Word: Take the Controls."

---

---

TIP # 108 FROM BILL CAMARDA: If you're organizing a template with several specific styles, you can create all the styles in a new, blank document, delete the styled text, and save the remaining blank document as a template. Then, use that template whenever you want to access those styles.

---

Word Styles and Desktop Publishing Pro grams

If you export files for use in separate desktop publishing programs, most of theseprograms can recognize Word styles. The designer working with that software is likelyto want to change the specific formatting associated with each style, but the stylesthemselves already exist, eliminating time-consuming "tagging."

Microsoft Publisher 2000 can import Word 2000 files directly; Adobe PageMakercan do so with an optional filter, currently available at www.adobe.com/supportservice/custsupport/download.html. At this writing, QuarkXPress provides a "beta test" versionof its Word 2000/Word 97 filter at www.quark.com/files/xtquarkxts_40.html, but doesoffer a released version of a Word 6/95 filter.

No filter is perfect. Even the best of them don't support all of Word's myriadfeatures. For example, PageMaker 6.5's Word filter doesn't support character styles.Instead, it reformats that text as if you had manually formatted it. However, itdoes a very nice job with paragraph styles.

For all these caveats, though, using Word styles in desktop publishing can stillsave significant time and money.

Troubleshooting

What to Do If Styles Suddenly Change When You Don't Expect Them To

Check in Format, Style, New Style to see whether AutomaticallyUpdate is turned on for that style. If it is, Word may have misinterpreted a manualformatting change as an instruction to change the style. Clear the check box.

If this doesn't solve the problem, did you change a style on which other stylesare based? If so, those styles change as well, sometimes unexpectedly.

If your styles are still changing improperly, is a templa te that your documentdepends upon missing? Assume your document uses a template stored on a network drive.If you open a Word document while the server is temporarily unavailable, Word mayuse styles with the same name from the Normal template stored on your hard disk.

What to Do If Styles Look Different Than You Expect

Perhaps you added manual formatting inadvertently, or imported text that alreadyhad manual formatting. Press Shift+F1 and click the text to see whether it has anyunexpected manual formatting. If so, select the text and press Ctrl+Spacebar to eliminateit. Another possibility is that you have attached a different template to a document,or opened it as part of a master document that contains the same style names butformats those styles differently.

Project: Building a Style System

The real power of styles is in how they work together. In this project, you'llbuild a style system: a set of interlocking styles used for a specific purpose.

You might build a style system for your company or organization, or for all workassociated with a specific client. You might translate your company's design guidelinesinto a Word style system, so you can create low-cost brochures, white papers, andother documents without calling upon a professional designer.

For whatever purpose you use them, however, they can enhance both your resultsand your productivity. Simply put, style systems provide an easy-to-use frameworkfor constructing high-quality, consistent documents.

Step #1: Create Based On styles for your body text and headings.

The first step in creating your style system is to establish the underlying styleson which you want to base your other styles. The fonts you choose for these BasedOn styles ripple through all the styles in your style system, going a long way towardestablishing the overall look of your documents. The example system uses two BasedOn styles: one for body copy and another for headings. A complete style system mightcontain more. To create the Based On style for body text:

1. Open a blank document and format a paragraph of text (Normal style) as you want all your standard body copy to look. (The example uses the Georgia font, 12 point.)

2. Click inside the Style box on the Formatting toolbar and press Enter.

3. In the Modify Style dialog box (refer to Figure 6.9), choose Update the Style to Reflect Recent Changes, and click OK.

4. Format a paragraph using the Heading 1 style.

5. Repeat steps 1-3 to adapt the existing style for use as your second Based On style. Our heading example uses a sans-serif font that complements Georgia, 24-point Tahoma. (Both Georgia and Tahoma are available free from Microsoft's Web site.)

---

TIP # 109 FROM BILL CAMARDA: Remember to include paragraph formatting in your Based On styles. For example, the example adds 8 points of spacing after the paragraph. This saves space in the finished document compared with adding an entire line of space--and people don't have to add an extra "carriage return" after each paragraph.

---

Adapting Word's built-in Normal style for body text means that every style basedon Normal is automatically adjusted. So, for example, captions, footnotes, an d listsbased on Normal are now formatted in Georgia rather than Times New Roman. (Becauseevery built-in Word style is based on Normal, they are all now changed, except forstyles that specifically contain a style name other than Normal.)

---

NOTE: Because you have adapted an existing style, any attributes you don't change manually remain as Microsoft created them. For example, the built-in Heading 1 style includes 12 points before and 3 points after each paragraph.

---

Step #2: Create new styles that build on your Based On styles.

Now that you have two Based On styles, you can easily use them to create new styles.Now, create a new Quote style, to be used whenever you want to insert a quotation.

Select a paragraph formatted as Normal, and manually reformat it as you want yourquotes to appear. In this example, format the quotes as 12-point italic, with a 1-inchleft and right indent. Then, name the style by clicking the Style box, typing Quote,and pressing Enter (see Figure 6.13).

FIGURE 6.13

Because the text you started with was already formatted as Normal, Word automaticallyuses Normal as the Based On style. As a result, any attributes of the Normal styleyou haven't changed, such as the use of the Georgia font, are carried over to thenew style automatically.

Step #3: Modify your heading styles so they're based on Heading 1 rather thanNormal.

In this style system, assume that you've decided that Heading 2, Heading 3, andother heading styles should be based on the new Heading 1 style, not the Normal style.Therefore, modify the existing Heading 2 style, as follows. Cho ose Format,Style, select Heading 2 from the Styles list, and click Modify.Then, in the Based On drop-down box, choose Heading 1.

Heading 2 is now based on Heading 1 rather than Normal. Now, change Heading 2'sfont size and style, as follows:

1. Click Format, Font to display the Font dialog box.

2. Choose Tahoma as the font you want to use. (The original Heading 2 style was based on Normal+Arial. You no longer want to use Arial; you want the same font you used in Heading 1. The only way to tell Word this is to manually select Tahoma. Noticing that you've chosen the same font as your Based On style uses, Word doesn't actually add Tahoma to your style, but it does remove Arial.)

3. Clear any settings you don't want to include in your new style.

4. In our example, set Font Style to Bold Italic and Size to 20 point.

5. Click OK.

Heading 2 is now based on Heading 1, but is slightly smaller and formatted asBold Italic rather than Bold. In this example, follow the same steps to format Heading3 as Tahoma 16-point Regular.

Step #4: Make sure styles for following paragraphs are correct.

Because you used Word's built-in Normal and Heading styles as a starting point,you benefit from the intelligence Word has already built into them. For instance,Word assumes that the paragraph after any Heading is likely to be formatted as Normal--thatis, formatted as body copy. Similarly, Word expects the paragraph after a paragraphof Normal text to also be Normal. Word is usually right.

However, for styles you create manually, you need to make sure that Word usesthe correct styles for following paragraphs. For instance, you created a Quote style.Word assumes the paragraph following a Quote is also a Quote. But most of our quotationsare only one paragraph long, followed by Normal body copy. To adjust the style accordingly,choose Format, Style. Select Quote in the Styles scroll box,and click Modify. Select Normal in the Style for Following Paragraphbox, and click OK.

Step #5: Check to see how the changes you've made have affected other styles.

In the document in which you're working, add and format text in the styles youuse most. If you find a style that's inconsistent with your new style system, oryou sim ply don't like the new appearance of a style, modify it.

Step #6: Store the finished style system in its own template.

You've finished creating your style system. At the moment, though, it's storedonly in your current document. In our example, you'll create a new template thatcontains these new styles--a template from which you can work whenever you want touse these styles. This helps you stay organized, and also gives you the most flexibility.Select all the text in the document (Ctrl+A) and delete it. You don't need that textany more, now that you've created your styles with it. Save the file as a documenttemplate with a new filename.