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:
- Continuity: Format results in a consistent document layout.
- Efficiency: Once the style has been created, it can be applied to any section of the document without having to be changed.
- Adaptability: If only one style is used consistently within a document, then only this style needs to be adjusted when necessary to edit the whole document.
- Navigation: The navigation function makes it possible to switch quickly between sections of the document. To use this function, go to the view tab and select navigation pane. The section of the document which you are looking at will be highlighted here.
- Automatic table of contents: When using Word styles for headings consistently within one document, it’s possible to automatically create a table of contents which you can customize in just a few clicks.
- Outline: It’s possible to gain an overview of the document using the outline view function in Microsoft Word, which can be found in the view tab. In the outline view it’s possible to move individual sections of a document clearly and with full control. In this view, the headings are arranged hierarchically – if there’s a plus sign on the left side of a heading, it means that it has another text level below it, while a minus sign is followed by continuous text only.
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.