This note shows you how to format your document with just a few keystrokes.

You can
set up headings to look just the way you want, change the appearance of an entire
document quickly and easily, and even create tables of contents at the touch of a
button.
All this can be done very simply by using Words styles.

What is a style?
A style is a set of formatting instructions. When you apply a style, Word will format the
text according to how that style has been defined. For example, you can use a style to
make heading text large and bold.

Why use styles?

It is possible to apply formatting simply by selecting the text and using the tools in the
Font and Paragraph groups on the Home tab this is known as direct formatting.
However, it takes time, particularly if you are applying several attributes, and you may
not always make the same selections every time. Using styles ensures that your
formatting is consistent throughout the document.
Styles can save you time if you want to change your documents appearance
modifying a style changes all the text formatted with that style. Using styles also lets
you take advantage of powerful features such as tables of contents, multilevel list
numbering, style sets, themes and the navigation pane.
Word contains dozens of built-in styles ready for you to use immediately. The most
useful of these are the Heading styles. You can modify these built-in styles to suit
yourself, and you can even create your own custom styles for special formatting.

Formatting with styles in Word 2010

Formatting with styles in Word 2010

Types of style
There are two main types of style:
Paragraph

The most important style of all. Use this to format a whole paragraph
at a time. Paragraph styles are indicated by the symbol .
The paragraph styles Heading 1 to Heading 9 are very powerful, since
they work automatically with multilevel list numbering, tables of
contents and cross-references.

Character

Use these to format specific text within a paragraph.

Word uses character styles to automatically format inbuilt features
such as hyperlinks and page numbering. So when you type a web
address and it turns blue and underlined that is a character style at
work.

If you require this document in an alternative format, such as larger print,

please email is.skills@ed.ac.uk

3738-2013

There are three other less common types:

Linked

A linked style can be applied to an entire paragraph or to selected text only.

When you apply it to selected text, none of the paragraph formatting (alignment,
indentation etc.) is used it behaves like a character style.

Table

Used to format tables. Table styles include borders and shading as well as font and
paragraph attributes.

List

List styles are used to format multilevel lists, and include bullets, numbers and
indentation settings.

Applying styles
Using the Quick Styles gallery
The easiest way to apply styles is to use the Quick Styles gallery on the Home tab.
Click on the More
button to see the full
gallery.

Paragraph styles are indicated by the symbol in front of the name. To apply a paragraph style,
there is no need to select the text simply click anywhere in the paragraph and choose from the
gallery. Live preview will show you how the paragraph will look before you select the style.
To apply a character style, first select the text then click on the style name.

Note: Styles are everywhere in Word they are at the heart of virtually
everything you do. When you start typing, you are already using a style the
default paragraph style called Normal. This is an important one, and it is
used as the basis for many of the other built-in styles.

Using the Styles pane

The Quick Styles gallery is useful for fast application, but it only displays a small subset of the
styles available. To really work with styles, you need to use the Styles pane. To display it, click on
the dialog box launcher in the Styles group.

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To apply a style, click in the paragraph (or for character styles, select the
text), and click on the style name. Note that in the pane, character styles
are indicated by the symbol .
Live preview is not available from here, so to see how the formatting will
look when applied, click the Show Preview option.
You can also elect not to use the linked styles feature by clicking
Disable Linked Styles.
You can use the buttons at the bottom to create a New Style ,
examine the formatting with the Style Inspector , and import and
export styles through Manage Styles .

Tip: The Styles pane can be moved around by

dragging the title bar. It can also be docked to the right or
left of the screen. To dock it, double-click on the title bar.

By default, you will see the same styles in the Styles pane as appear in the Quick Styles gallery.
To change what you see in the pane, click Options at the bottom to display the Style Pane
Options dialog box.
In Select styles to show, choose from Recommended, In use, In current document, or All
styles.
Recommended

Words predefined list of styles.

In use

Lists only the styles actually

applied in the current document.

In current
document

Lists the styles in use as well as

ones but are not currently in use
but have been applied at some
point.

All styles

Full list of styles.

In Select how list is sorted, you can define the order that styles are listed in the pane. Changing
this to Alphabetical makes it easier to locate a specific style.
You can choose what formatting to display in Select formatting to show as styles. For example,
with Font formatting selected, any direct formatting you apply, such as bold or italic, will appear
as an entry in the pane. Since this can make the Styles pane very cluttered, it is a good idea to
leave all the options in this section deselected.
You can also choose when and how to display style names. The most useful option is Show next
heading when previous level is used. This means that Heading 3 will appear in the Styles pane
when you apply Heading 2, Heading 4 when you apply Heading 3, etc.
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Using a linked style

A linked style is indicated by the symbol

. So when would you use this?

Most of the time you will use it like a normal paragraph style by applying it to a full paragraph.
However, it can be useful if you want run-in headings where the first few words of a paragraph are
formatted as a heading, and the rest as body text. The built-in Heading styles are all linked styles,
so simply select the text and apply the style.
You can also use it where you have a long heading and only want part of it to appear in a table of
contents. In this case, after applying the Heading style to the selected text, you can manually
format the rest of the text with the same attributes so that it looks like one heading. When you
create your table of contents, however, only the text formatted with the Heading style will be
displayed.

Modifying styles
The power of styles is that you can modify them any way you want. Perhaps you think Heading 1
isnt big enough, or you want to use a different font type. Change the style, and all the text
formatted with the style changes to match.

Using the dialog box

In the Styles pane, move your cursor to the style name and click the down arrow. Choose Modify
from the drop-down menu to display the Modify Style dialog box.
You can change basic font and paragraph
attributes in the Formatting section.
For a full list of options, click on the Format
button (indicated). You can then access the
settings for all formatting, such as font,
paragraph, tabs and borders.

Beware: Never use the Automatically

update option. If this is selected, Word will
update your style every time you apply
manual formatting to a paragraph where
the style is applied. The therapy you will
need is too expensive!

You can also modify a style directly from the Quick Styles gallery. Right-click on the style name
and select Modify.

Modifying by example
Another way to modify a style is to format a section of text as you want the style to look. Select the
text and right-click on the style name in either the Quick Styles gallery or the Styles pane and
select Update <style name> to Match Selection. The style will also be applied to the selected
text.
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Creating a style
If you find you are repeatedly applying the same direct formatting to blocks of text in a document,
but there isnt a built-in style that suits, you can create your own.
There are two ways to create a style from the Styles pane: the New Style button, or the Manage
Styles button. New Style applies the style directly to the text; Manage Styles creates the style,
but does not apply it.

Using the New Style button

Click in the paragraph you want the style applied to, and click on New Style
Create New Style from Formatting dialog box.

to display the

Give your style a name. Use a descriptive name to make it easy to identify.
Watch out for the Style based on box. When you base one style on another, changes to the
parent style will affect your new (child) style. For example, modifying the font of the parent style will
also change the font of the child style. This is known as cascading styles. If you dont want this to
happen, select (no style) from the drop-down.
The Style for following paragraph option tells Word the style to use after you press the [Enter]
key to end your paragraph. Word assumes you will be continuing to type in the same style, but for
a heading or a quotation, you are likely to want to return to whatever style you are using for the
body of the document (usually the Normal paragraph style). Select the style from the list.
Complete the formatting as you require, using the options from the Format menu.

Using the Manage Styles button

Click on text formatted with the style you want to use as a basis for your new style and on Manage
Styles to display the Manage Styles dialog box.
Check that the correct style is selected and click on
New Style to display the Create New Style from
Formatting dialog box.
Select any other attributes you require.
The new style will appear in the Styles pane and in the
Quick Styles gallery, but will not be applied to the text.

Tip: This is useful when you want more

than one set of headings for example, one
with numbering, and one without.

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Checking your styles

Although you can see the style applied to text highlighted in the Quick Styles gallery and the Styles
pane, it is often useful to get an overview by displaying the style area pane. This can help you to
troubleshoot if you are having problems with your formatting.
First, set the style area pane width. Click on the File tab and on Options. Click on Advanced and
scroll to the Display section. Enter a value in Style area pane width in Draft and Outline views
three centimetres is usually enough.
Click on the View tab and on Draft. The style area pane displays on the left.
The style name appears against each paragraph. You can use this
to identify issues.
Return to Print Layout view when you are finished.

Styles and numbered headings

The most common form of numbering for headings is the multilevel (or outline) list, as in the
example below:
1 Heading
1.1 Heading
1.2 Heading
1.2.1 Heading
2 Heading
2.1 Heading
2.2 Heading
2.2.1 Heading
To apply numbering, the easiest way is to use a built-in layout that is linked to the Heading styles.
First, format at least one paragraph as Heading 1. Click in the paragraph, and on the Home tab,
click on the Multilevel List button
Library.

in the Paragraph group, then select a layout from the List

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The layouts linked to the Heading styles include the style

names in the thumbnails. The most commonly used is the
layout highlighted in the screenshot.

You will see that in the Styles pane all the Heading styles now include a number format. To apply
numbering to a heading, all you need to do is apply the style.
For information on how to modify the formatting of a multilevel list, see the note: Creating
Numbered Headings in Word 2010 in our Documents Catalogue at
www.ed.ac.uk/is/skills/documents-catalogue

Navigating with styles

If you are working with a long document, and you have applied the Heading styles, you can use the
Navigation pane to help you move around quickly. To display the pane, click on the View tab and
select Navigation Pane in the Show group.
The pane displays text formatted with the built-in Heading styles only
other styles do not appear. Click on the heading to jump to the location in
the document.
You can also use the pane to reorganise your document quickly and
easily. Simply drag a heading to another location in the pane Word will
move both the heading and its content.
You can expand or collapse headings. You can even print a heading and
its content, add new headings before or after, and promote or demote
headings to other levels by right-clicking and choosing from the menu.

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Creating tables of contents the fast way

If you have used styles for your headings, you can build a table of contents with just a few clicks of
the mouse.
Click on the References tab and on Table of Contents. Choose a built-in layout, or select Insert
Table of Contents for the full range of options. Word creates the table of contents using the text
formatted with the Heading styles. You can choose how many levels of heading to display.
You can change how the text in the table is formatted through Modify, and you can also include
styles other than the Heading styles through Options.
For information on creating and modifying a table of contents, see the note: Creating a Table of
Contents in Word 2010 in our Documents Catalogue.

Getting creative styles, style sets and themes

If you are a budding desktop publisher, you can use styles, style sets and themes to produce
different design combinations.
Rather than having to create new styles for different types of publication, you can change a
documents appearance by using a style set.
Once you have applied styles, click on Change Styles and select Style Set. Then choose a set
from the list.

When you choose a style set, Word changes the formatting of all the styles in your document. The
change is for the current document only.
As well as a style set, you can use a theme. Themes include predefined schemes for fonts, colours
and graphics.
To apply a theme, click on the Page Layout tab and select Themes.

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Document with Modern style set applied

With Paper theme applied to Modern style set

You can take your document design even further by changing the fonts and colours used. For
example, if you like the colours in a particular theme, but not the fonts, you can apply a different
font set.
On the Home tab, click on Change Styles in the Styles group and point to Fonts. Choose a font
from the list.
Similarly, if you like the fonts but not the colours, click on Change Styles and point to Colors.

Saving your styles to use again

When you modify a style, or create a new style, the changes apply to the current document only. If
you want to use your styles in other documents, you have several options:
Modify Words default template
With the Modify Style dialog box open, select New documents based on this template at the
bottom to save the changes to the default template (called Normal.dotm). Note that the changes
will apply to every new document you create, so be sure this is what you want to do.
If you change your mind, you can restore the default settings. Close Word, then open Windows
Explorer and navigate to the folder C:\Users\your UUN\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates
and rename the file Normal.dotm. When you reopen Word, the template is recreated.
Create a master copy
With the document containing the styles open, delete all the content (make sure you have saved it
first!). A quick way to do this is to press [Ctrl] and [A] to select everything then press [Delete].
When you have a blank document, click on the File tab and select Save As to save it with a new
name.
Create a template
Again, delete the content, click on File and choose Save As, but this time, click on Save as type
and select Word Template (*.dotx).
In the Save As dialog box, give the file a name, select the folder Microsoft Word > Templates in
the navigation panel on the left and click Save. To use your new template, click on the File tab and
select New, then click on My templates and choose the file.
Copy individual styles
If you want to reuse several styles in another document, you can click on Manage Styles in the
Styles pane and on Import/Export to display the Organizer. Use the Close File and Open File
buttons to open the documents you are copying the styles from and to, select the styles and click
on Copy.
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Tip: If you want to reuse a single style, a much easier method is to copy
the paragraph formatted with the style and paste it into another document.
Make sure you copy the paragraph mark at the end, since this is where Word
stores all the formatting. To see the mark, click on the Show/Hide button
in the Paragraph group on the Home tab. In fact, all you really need is the
paragraph mark itself you dont even need to copy the text!

Resources
For more information on Word features and functions, see the Working with Text section on our
Documents Catalogue at www.ed.ac.uk/is/skills/documents-catalogue
For information on our training courses, see www.ed.ac.uk/is/skills/taught

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