Word: Style Basics
This
document is taken directly from the Word Help files. Here is a sample
file that uses styles.
Microsoft Office Word
2007 makes it easy to benefit from styles without having to know much about
them. However, you may want to know how styles work behind the scenes, or you
may want to know what's new with styles in Office Word 2007.
This article explains
how styles work to save you time and make your document look good, and it
discusses the relationship between styles and two new features in Word 2007:
Quick Styles and themes.
In this article
Styles
save time and make your document look good
Styles,
Quick Style sets, and themes: putting the pieces together
Styles
save time and make your document look good
One of the great
things about using a word processor is that you can create documents that look
professionally typeset.
Headings are in a font that contrasts
with body text.
Paragraphs are separated with just enough
white space.
Elements such as bulleted lists are
indented.
Emphasized text is in a contrasting
color.
The document may even
include special elements such as a table of contents.
Using direct
formatting
Word provides several
ways for you to achieve each of these effects in your document. For example, to
format headings, you can select the text, apply bold formatting, and then apply
a slightly larger font size than the size that you use for the body text.
Applying formatting in
this manner is known as direct formatting. The process of applying
direct formatting can be tedious. It's easy to make mistakes, and you might not
get a good looking document. In the example in the previous paragraph, you must
repeat the direct formatting process for each heading, and you must be careful
to select the same font size every time.
If you want
subheadings, you must decide how to differentiate the subheadings from the
headings (smaller size? italicize?) and repeat the direct formatting process
for each subheading. If you don't have expertise in design or typography, it
may take some time before you create a look that you like.
Furthermore, documents
that are formatted by direct formatting are difficult to update. If you want to
change the look of the document, you must select each element and apply the new
formatting choices.
Using styles
By contrast, when you
use styles to format your document, you can quickly and easily apply a set of
formatting choices consistently throughout your document.
A style is a set of
formatting characteristics, such as font name, size, color, paragraph alignment
and spacing. Some styles even include borders and shading.
For example, instead
of taking three separate steps to format your heading as 16-point, bold,
Cambria, you can achieve the same result in one step by applying the built-in
Heading 1 style. You do not need to remember the characteristics of the Heading
1 style. For each heading in your document, you just click in the heading (you
don't even need to select all the text), and then click Heading 1 in the
gallery of styles.
If you decide that you
want subheadings, you can use the built-in Heading 2 style, which was designed
to look good with the Heading 1 style.
The Quick Styles
that you see in the gallery of styles are designed to work together. For
example, the Heading 2 Quick Style is designed to look subordinate to the
Heading 1 Quick Style.
The body text of
your document is automatically formatted with the Normal Quick Style.
Quick Styles can
be applied to paragraphs, but you can also apply them to individual words and
characters. For example, you can emphasize a phrase by applying the Emphasis
Quick Style.
When you format
text as part of a list, each item in the list is automatically formatted with
the List Paragraph Quick Style.
If you later decide
that you want headings to have a different look, you can change the Heading 1
and Heading 2 styles, and Word automatically updates all instances of them in
the document. You can also apply a different Quick Style set or a different
theme to change the look of the headings without making changes to the styles.
Built-in styles turn
on timesaving features
The built-in styles
(Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.) provide other benefits, too. If you use the
built-in heading styles, Word can generate a table of contents automatically.
Word also uses the built-in heading styles to make the Document Map, which is a
convenient feature for moving through long documents.
Tip Try it. If you have a
document that uses the built-in heading styles, open it, and on the View
tab, in the Show/Hide group, select the Document Map check box.
Click a heading in the document map to jump to the corresponding part of the
document.
Word provides several
style types:
Character
and paragraph
styles determine the look of most of the text in a document. Some styles work
as both character and paragraph types, and these styles are known as linked
styles.
List
styles determine the look of lists, including characteristics such as bullet
style or number scheme, indentation, and any label text.
Table
styles determine the look of tables, including characteristics such as the text
formatting of the header row, gridlines, and accent colors for rows and
columns.
You are likely to work
with different types of styles in different circumstances, so this article
addresses character, paragraph, and linked styles in one section, and it covers
table and list styles in separate sections.
Character, paragraph,
and linked styles
Character, paragraph,
and linked styles appear in the Styles group on the Home tab. You
can quickly apply a style from the gallery of styles. To see more information about
each style, click the Styles Dialog Box Launcher.
The Styles task
pane opens.
Paragraph styles
are marked with a paragraph symbol: ¶. You can see the paragraph symbol
in the Quick Style gallery as well as in the Styles task pane. Click anywhere in
a paragraph to apply the style to the entire paragraph.
Character styles
are marked with a character symbol: a. Click anywhere in a word to apply
the style to the entire word. Or you can select more than one word to apply the
style to more than one word.
Linked styles
are marked with both a paragraph symbol and a character symbol: ¶a. Click
anywhere in a paragraph to apply the style to the entire paragraph. Or you can
select one or more words to apply the style to the words that you selected.
Character styles
contain formatting characteristics that can be applied to text, such as font
name, size, color, bold, italic, underline, borders, and shading.
Character styles do
not include formatting that affects paragraph characteristics, such as line
spacing, text alignment, indentation, and tab stops.
Word includes several
built-in character styles, such as Emphasis, Subtle Emphasis, and Intense
Emphasis. Each of these built-in styles combines formatting, such as bold,
italic, and accent color, to provide a coordinated set of typographic designs.
For example, applying the Emphasis character style formats text as bold,
italic, in an accent color.
To apply a character
style, you select the text that you want to format, and then you click the
character style that you want.
Click in the
word you want to format.
Mouse over the
Quick Styles to see a preview of the formatting in your document. When you
point to a character style, only the word where you clicked is formatted. When
you point to a paragraph style or a linked style, the entire paragraph is
formatted. Click the character style that you want to use.
The word that you
selected is formatted with the characteristics of the style that you chose.
Back
to the list of style types
Paragraph styles
A paragraph style
includes everything that a character style contains, but it also controls all
aspects of a paragraph's appearance, such as text alignment, tab stops, line
spacing, and borders.
For example, you can
have a character style called Alert that formats text as bold and red.
Additionally, you can have a paragraph style called Headline that formats text
as bold and red. But the Headline paragraph style also centers the text
horizontally and adds 24 points of space above the text.
In this scenario, if
you select a paragraph and then apply the Alert style, all the text in the
paragraph is formatted as bold and red, but nothing else about the paragraph
changes. However, if you select the paragraph and then apply the Headline
style, the text become bold and red, extra space is inserted before the
paragraph, and the paragraph is centered between the left and right margins.
Word includes two
built-in paragraph styles: Normal and List Paragraph. By default, Word
automatically applies the Normal paragraph style to all text in a blank, new
document. Similarly, Word automatically applies the List Paragraph paragraph
style to items in a list — for example, when you use the Bullets
command to create a bulleted list.
To apply a paragraph
style, you select the paragraphs that you want to format, and then you click
the paragraph style you want.
Note To select a single paragraph
for applying a paragraph style, you can click anywhere in the paragraph. To
select more than one paragraph, click anywhere in the first paragraph and drag
to anywhere in the last paragraph that you want to select. You do not need to
select the entire paragraph.
Back
to the list of style types
Linked styles
A linked style behaves
as either a character style or a paragraph style, depending on what you select.
If you click in a paragraph or select a paragraph and then apply a linked
style, the style is applied as a paragraph style. However, if you select a word
or phrase in the paragraph and then apply a linked style, the style is applied
as a character style, with no effect on the paragraph as a whole.
For example, if you
select (or click in) a paragraph and then apply the Heading 1 style, the whole
paragraph is formatted with the Heading 1 text and paragraph characteristics.
However, if you select a word or a phrase and then apply Heading 1, the text
that you selected is formatted with the text characteristics of the Heading 1
style, but none of the paragraph characteristics are applied.
When you select
or click in a paragraph and apply a linked style, the style is applied to the
whole paragraph.
When you select
a word or phrase and apply a linked style, the style is applied only to the
selected text.
How is this useful?
Consider the scenario above, in which an Alert character style and a Headline
paragraph style each format text as bold and red. If the Headline style were a
linked style instead of a paragraph style, you would not need a separate
character style for formatting words and phrases. Wherever you wanted a
headline in your document (bold, red, centered, with extra space above), you
would select a paragraph and apply the linked style. Wherever you wanted an
alert, you would select a word or phrase and apply the same linked style.
Word includes many
built-in linked styles, notably the heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, and
so on).
Tip You might want the first few
words of a paragraph to coordinate with the formatting of the headings in your
document. This type of formatting, known as a run-in head or a side head, is
easy to apply by using linked styles. Select the first few words of a paragraph,
and then apply a heading style.
Select the first
few words of a paragraph and then click a heading style to create a run-in
head.
Click in a
paragraph and then click a heading style to create a heading.
Back
to the list of style types
List styles
A list style applies
characteristics for formatting a list. A list can include levels of hierarchy,
like an outline, that can be indicated by indentation and numbering schemes.
For example, level one in a multilevel list can be aligned against the margin
and can begin with an Arabic numeral followed by a period. Level two can be
indented slightly from the margin and can begin with a lowercase alphabetical
character followed by a closing parenthesis. Here is an example of a multilevel
list that is two levels deep:
1. This is the first
item at level one.
a) This is the first item at level two, within the first item
at level one.
b) This is the second item at level two, within the first
item at level one.
2. This is the second item at level one.
a) This is the first item at level two, within the second
item at level one.
3. This is the third item at level one.
a) This is the first item at level two, within the third item
at level one.
b) This is the second item at level two, within the third
item at level one.
c) This is the third item at level two, within the third item
at level one.
A list style can
define formatting for as many as nine levels of a list. The formatting scheme
can include paragraph indentation for each level of the list, any label text
(such as, "Item" or "Chapter"), and the numbering or bullet
characters to use in the list.
Unlike the other types
of styles (paragraph, character, linked, and table), predefined list styles are
not available when you first create a document in Word.
Note A document may contain list styles
if you receive it from someone who created his or her own list styles. If your
document contains list styles, they are listed under the List Styles
heading in the gallery of multilevel lists. To see that gallery, click Multilevel
List in the Paragraph group on the Home tab.
List Library: the
starting point for list styles
Instead of predefined
list styles, Word provides several multilevel list templates, which are
displayed under the List Library heading in the gallery of multilevel
lists. These preformatted designs can be applied to lists in your document, and
they can also serve as a handy starting point for creating your own list
styles.
Consider creating your
own list style when you want to do the following:
Change list formatting consistently
throughout your document After list styles are defined and applied,
they can be changed. The changes affect all instances where the list style is
used in the document.
Use complex list formatting that varies
from one multilevel list design to another List styles provide great
flexibility, and each one is named separately, which makes it easier to
distinguish among them in the list of list styles.
Apply formatting to a multilevel list by
using a keyboard shortcut You can assign keyboard shortcuts to list
styles that you create, but not to the preformatted multilevel list templates.
Tip If you use the built-in
heading styles in your document (Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on), you can use
multilevel list templates to apply a numbering scheme to your headings. For
example, to number headings so that top-level headings (Heading 1 paragraphs)
are numbered 1, 2, 3, second-level headings (Heading 2 paragraphs) are numbered
1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and so on, you click in the first Heading 1 paragraph, and then
under List Library you click 1 Heading 1, 1.1 Heading 2, 1.1.1
Heading 3. Multilevel list templates that number headings are marked in the
list gallery with Heading in gray text.
Create your own list
style
The easiest way to
create a list style is to start with one of the preformatted multilevel list
templates.
1. Select the list that
you want to format.
2. On the Home
tab, in the Paragraph group, click the arrow next to Multilevel List.
3. Under List Library,
click the design that most closely matches how you want your list style to
look.
4. Click Multilevel
List again, and then click Define New List Style.
5. Make any modifications
you want to the preformatted design.
6. In the Name
box, type a name for your list style.
7. If you want your list
style to be available for all new documents that you create, click New
documents based on this template.
Back
to the list of style types
Table styles
A table style provides
a consistent look to borders, shading, alignment and fonts in tables.
To apply a table
style, you select the table that you want to format, and then you click a table
style from the gallery of table styles on the Design tab, on the Table
Tools contextual tab. Within a table cell, you can use styles and direct
formatting to format the content of the cell. Formatting that you apply this
way overrides the formatting that comes from the table style.
In other words, if you
use a style or direct formatting to format the content of a table cell and then
you switch to a different table style, the content that you formatted with the
style or direct formatting is not updated to match the new table style.
You can apply
formatting to the content of a table, such as changing the header row to blue.
When you switch
to a different table style, the header row remains blue.
Tip You can change the selection
of table styles in the gallery by selecting or clearing check boxes in the Table
Style Options section on the Design tab, before you open the gallery
of table styles. For example, if your table has no header row, and you don't
want rows to alternate shading, clear the Header Row and Banded Rows
check boxes. When you open the gallery of table styles, you see previews that
do not include formatting for header rows or banded rows.
Styles,
Quick Style sets, and themes: putting the pieces together
When you use styles to
format your document, the style definitions interact with Quick Style sets and
theme settings to provide many combinations of cohesive, professional-looking
designs.
After you apply
styles, you can quickly change the look of the document to suit your needs by
choosing the Quick Style set that you like. You can refine the look of the
document even more by selecting a theme that you like. Within the Quick Style
and theme parameters, you can also fine tune adjustments to the color and font
schemes.
If you have not paid
much attention to styles in previous versions of Word, you may appreciate the
ease with which you can use the Quick Style sets and themes to quickly overhaul
the look of your entire document.
However, if you are
familiar with using styles in previous versions of Word, you may be surprised
to see formatting in a particular paragraph change, depending on the Quick
Style set, theme, color scheme, or font scheme.
If you are using the
Word 2007 Quick Style set, Heading 1 is defined as 14-point bold Cambria. It
may be disconcerting to switch to the Distinctive Quick Style set and see the
text unexpectedly switch to 16-point normal Calibri (with small caps, no less),
still defined as Heading 1. You may feel that you have little control over the
formatting of your document.
Quick Style sets,
themes, and color and font schemes still leave you in control, but they provide
a great deal of flexibility, as well as some powerful tools for document
design. The key is in understanding how they fit together.
Quick Style sets
multiply the usefulness of styles
Previous versions of
Word included a set of built-in styles that were designed to look good
together. But it was only one set. If you wanted headings to be centered in some
documents but aligned on the left margin in others, you either used separate
templates or you created separate styles for each kind of formatting.
In Word 2007, you can
use the same document template and the same styles for different kinds of
documents. For a document with centered headings, you can use the Formal Quick
Style set, and for a document with left-aligned headings, you can use a
different Quick Style set, such as Word 2007. Switching Quick Style sets
automatically updates the formatting of all the styles in the document.
You can see the effect
of a Quick Style set by pointing to the various style sets before you click
one. On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click Change Styles,
point to Style Set, and then point to the various style set names.
A document with
the Word 2007 style set applied. Title, and Heading 1 styles are used to format
the title and headings.
The same
document, using the same Title and Heading 1 styles, looks very different when
the Formal style set is applied.
Themes provide font
and color schemes for Quick Style sets
When you apply a
theme, you simultaneously apply a font scheme, a color scheme, and a set of
graphic effects. The font scheme and color scheme from the theme are carried
over into the Quick Style sets.
For example, if the
Office theme (the default theme) is applied to your document, all of the Quick
Style sets use Cambria for headings, Calibri for body text, and the Office
color scheme. If you switch to the Metro theme, all of the Quick Style
sets — and the text in your document — switch to Consolas for
headings, Corbel for body text, and the Metro color scheme.
A document with
the Office theme applied.
The same
document with the Metro theme applied switches to a different font set and
color scheme.
To apply a theme,
click Themes in the Themes group on the Page Layout tab.
You are not required
to apply a theme wholesale. You can apply the font scheme and color scheme that
you want independently.
For example, if you
like the color scheme and graphical effects of the Civic theme, but you don't
want to use Georgia as the font for headings and body text, you can apply a
different font scheme. On the Home tab, in the Styles group,
point to Change Styles and then point to Fonts.
The Civic theme
uses a red color scheme for headings and uses Georgia as the font for headings
and body text.
The Civic theme
is still in effect, but its font scheme is overridden by applying the font
scheme from the Aspect theme. Verdana is now used for headings and body text.
Similarly, if you like
the font scheme and the graphic effects of a theme, but you prefer to use
different colors, you can apply a different color scheme. On the Home
tab in the Styles group, point to Change Styles, and then point
to Colors.
Similarly, if you like
the font scheme and the graphic effects of a theme, but you prefer to use
different colors, you can apply a different color scheme. On the Home
tab in the Styles group, point to Change Styles, and then point
to Colors.
The Civic theme
uses a red color scheme for headings and uses Georgia as the font for headings
and body text.
The Civic theme
is still in effect, but its color scheme is overridden by applying the color
scheme from the Office theme. Blue is now used for headings.
Applying custom font
choices
Applying a theme or a
font scheme defines font choices for headings and body text that are designed
to go together. The font choices stay in effect regardless of which Quick Style
set you choose, until you switch to a different theme or font scheme.
If you want to specify
that text be displayed in a particular font regardless of the theme or font
scheme, create
a custom style. Or you can use direct formatting by selecting the text and
applying the font that you want.
Note If you don't want the font
to update to reflect updates to the theme or font scheme, be sure to format the
text with a font whose name is not followed by (Headings) or (Body).
These are listed as Theme Fonts in the gallery of fonts.
The fonts that
you select among the Theme Fonts will be updated to a different font
scheme if you apply a different theme or font scheme to the document.
Click a font
among the Recently Used Fonts or All Fonts to quickly apply a
font that is not subject to changing the theme or font scheme.
Applying custom color
choices
You can apply a color
scheme that is designed as a coordinated set of colors. When you define the
color of text, you can choose one of the theme colors, or you can select from a
range of standard and custom colors.
If you choose a theme
color, the color might change if you switch to a different color scheme or
theme. However, if you choose a standard or custom color, text is displayed in
that color regardless of the color scheme or theme that you apply to the
document.
Colors that you
select from the Theme Colors are updated to a different color scheme if you
apply a different theme or color scheme to the document.
Colors that you
select from the Standard Colors are not changed even if you apply a
different theme or color scheme to the document.
Click More
Colors to select from a wide array of color choices. These colors also are
not changed even if you apply a different theme or color scheme to the
document.
Palettes of choices
for applying layers of formatting
Let's put all these
formatting choices together. Think of themes as palettes that provide font and
color schemes, and Quick Style sets are like collections of brushes that you
use to apply formatting to your document. The palettes are labeled things like
Office, Apex, and Aspect. The brush collections are named things like Word
2007, Manuscript, and Traditional. Each brush collection is prestocked with
brushes named Normal, Heading 1, Emphasis, and so on.
The effect of using
any of the individual brushes depends on which collection (Quick Style set) it
belongs to, as well as which palette (theme) is in use.
When you apply brush
strokes (styles) to your document, Word applies the formatting in layers. Each
layer overrides the previous layer, providing an increasing degree of
fine-tuning and a decreasing degree of flexibility.
The bottom layer is
the Normal paragraph style. Text formatted as Normal can automatically change
its appearance when you switch themes or Quick Style sets. The top layer is
direct formatting. If you select a word and apply the standard red color to it,
the word remains red no matter what theme, Quick Style set, or style you apply
to it.
Note You can see the layers of formatting
by using the Style Inspector. On the Home tab, in the Styles
group, click the Styles Dialog Box Launcher. At the bottom of the Styles
task pane, click Style Inspector.
Boxes in the Style Inspector show you the style and direct formatting that are
in effect for the text at the cursor's location. You can click Reset to
Normal Paragraph Style, Clear Paragraph Formatting, Clear
Character Style, or Clear Character Formatting buttons to remove
formatting from the text, one layer at a time.
Emphasize or
italicize?
For example, if you
are using the Word 2007 Quick Style set, and you want to emphasize a word in a
paragraph, you can select it and then do one of two things:
Format it with the Emphasis
Quick Style.
Italicize it (for
example, by pressing CTRL+I).
The choice you make
depends on whether you want to emphasize the text or italicize it. Emphasized
text contrasts with the surrounding text, but it doesn't necessarily need to be
italicized. On the other hand, you may want to use italics if the text is a
book title.
When you use the Word
2007 Quick Style set, the Emphasis style italicizes the text. However, if you
switch to the Fancy Quick Style set, the body text is displayed in italics, and
text formatted with the Emphasis style is displayed in a contrasting color with
a shaded background. If you switch to the Elegant Quick Style set, text
formatted with the Emphasis style is displayed as bold, small caps.
The Emphasis style is
a design element within the Quick Style set, not an explicit format.
If you want formatting
choices that are not available from the built-in styles, Quick Style sets, and
themes, you can create custom styles to suit your needs.
The easiest way to
create a custom style is to modify a built-in style and then save it as a new
style.
For example, you might
want to format a paragraph of quoted material with a half-inch indent from the
left and right margins, single spaced. There is no built-in style to
accommodate this, but you can create a custom style by doing the following:
1. Click in the paragraph
you want to format.
2. On the Home
tab, click the Paragraph Dialog Box Launcher.
3. In the Indentation
section, type 0.5" in the Left and Right boxes.
4. In the Spacing
section, in the Line spacing list, click Single.
5. Click OK.
6. Right-click in the
paragraph, point to Styles, and then click Save Selection as a New
Quick Style.
7. In the Name
box, type a name for the style, such as Block quote.
8. If you want the style
to be included in the gallery of styles on the Home tab, and if you want
the style to be a linked
style, click OK.
9. If you don't want the
style to be included in the gallery, or if you want the style to be either a paragraph
or a character style, click Modify and do one or both of the
following:
§ At the bottom of the
dialog box, clear the Add to Quick Style list box.
§ In the Style type
list, click Paragraph or Character.
If you switch to a different
Quick Style set, you may need to adjust the settings of your custom style. In
the example here, if you create the Block quote style while the Word 2007 Quick
Style set is applied, and then you switch to the Traditional Quick Style set,
you can change the Block quote style to remove the first-line indentation that
the Traditional Quick Style set introduces. To change a style, do the
following:
1. On the Home tab
in the Styles group, right-click Block quote, and then click Modify.
2. Click Format,
and then click Paragraph.
3. In the Indentation
section, in the Special list, click (none).
The more
characteristics that you specify for the style, the less the style is affected
by switching Quick Style sets or themes.