Styles

The Style formatting functionality within Word can be used to create groups of text that you would like to have consistent formatting throughout the document. For example, you may have a heading and an outline paragraph font. Instead of just typing into a blank document and then reaching for the font tab or hitting ctrl-B on a selection of text, consider creating a new style.

By properly assigning a style to these groups of text, you can get a couple of key benefits:

1) If you decide to change the style of that group of text later (make font smaller, change paragraph spacing, etc) you can just update the style and (theoretically*) all the locations that were assigned that style will magically update to your new format.

2) If you apply styles appropriately to headings you can easily create a Table of Contents.

Some tips on creating styles…

• I’ve found it is best to create new styles for your template instead of modifying the default styles. For example, create a new style and call it “LL-Heading 1” instead of just updating Heading 1. It makes it easier to deal with if you get a bug or something later and cleaner for cutting and pasting from other documents.

• It is usually easier for the user if you clear all the default styles out of the Style Gallery and just keep the main styles you are defining per your style guide. For example, include a heading, outline paragraph, a plain text, a bullet, and a caption.

There is a ton to learn with styles, so if you are new to using and managing styles, start simple and work your way up to more complexity. I highly recommend using learn.microsoft.com to seek out specific instructions as it will always be most up to date with current software versions.

*I say theoretically because it usually works, but sometimes if you are revising documents Word does funny things based on previous formatting activities that can be hard to figure out!