Although there are several free alternatives to Word, Microsoft's word processing program continues to be the most widely used in the world. One of the most important features of Word is the styles feature. By using styles, you can set text formatting uniformly across a document, ensuring a document’s fonts, font color, and line spacing are all the same.
Many styles are already preset in Microsoft Word. But how can they be optimally used and adapted when necessary? And how to create new styles? These questions will be answered in the following sections.
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Private registration24/7 supportEmailTo ensure that a document looks uniform and professional, Microsoft offers four types of styles in Word:
These styles determine the appearance of a text in terms of whole paragraph sections, and allow you to format large sections of text. A paragraph style may contain format settings for character style, however it also determines the overall design of a paragraph. In a new Word document, the paragraph style Standard is usually preset for the entire text. Paragraph styles format the following attributes:
In Word, paragraph styles are marked by the ¶ sign in the styles menu (This can be found by clicking the lower most right arrow in the styles gallery on the start tab.)
Character styles determine the appearance of text in terms of individual characters, and are mainly used to format smaller sections of text, e. g. highlighting words. Character styles do not format the features of the entire paragraph, but rather format the following attributes:
Character styles are marked by the a-sign in the styles menu.
Table styles in Word format the following attributes for tables:
List styles in Word format the following attributes for lists:
Preset as well as custom styles make it easier to work on a text document. This is particularly noticeable when editing complex documents, such as final papers or manuscripts. Initially, manual formatting may seem to be easier and quicker, but for longer texts it’s more efficient to use Word styles instead of repeatedly formatting sections of text separately. The following six reasons outline the advantages of using styles in Word:
The default outline view displays all levels of the document. For a better overview, it’s possible to display only two levels, for example. This view is also suitable for making corrections to the structure of a text and moving text sections around within the document swiftly and with ease. If the corresponding levels are marked with a style, they can be quickly and conveniently moved to the desired position using the outline view tools.
In the outline view, text selection is important. If only the heading is selected, but the entire body text is displayed, Word assumes that only the heading is to be moved. If the text is hidden, however, the entire section will be moved.
Preset styles in Word can be found under the style gallery, on the start tab. To apply a style to a section of text from the style gallery, highlight the relevant text and then click on the style you wish to select. The style in use will be marked by a light blue border.
To display additional Word styles, use the down arrow on the right side of the style gallery, or open the style gallery by clicking on the menu arrow.
Alternatively, you can also assign the styles for headings using a shortcut. To do this, use the key combination "alt" and the respective level of the heading, for example:
Heading 1:"Alt" + "1".
Heading 2:"Alt" + "2".
When assigning paragraph styles, the cursor must either be in the paragraph with no characters highlighted, or you must highlight the entire paragraph. If you highlight one section, only that section will be formatted, and not the entire paragraph. This is different when assigning character styles: you must select all relevant characters, as just hovering the cursor over a relevant word will not be enough.
If you want formatting options that are not available in the preset Word styles, you can easily create them yourself and add them to the style gallery:
Alternatively, it’s possible to create a style by highlighting text:
A key advantage in using styles in Word is that it allows you to automatically create a table of contents. To create a table of contents using a style, go to the references tab, and select a style for the table in the table of contents menu. If you change the text structure later, you can update the table of contents by clicking the update table of contents option.
You can also customize the layout and text formatting of a Word style for tables of contents:
The presentation of the text in the table of contents can also be adapted using a Word template:
In Word, you can also change existing styles from the quick style gallery. The adjustment is possible in two ways:
If a Word style has already been applied to the text, you can customize it and include it in the quick Styles gallery:
Adapting the styles automatically adapts all text parts which are assigned to this style.
A Word style from the styles gallery can also be changed manually. This process is possible regardless of the text in the document:
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