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Styles

  
     
Overview

Before we get started, there is one core concept we need to discuss. It's the concept of styles. MSWord uses styles to control the appearance and placement of every piece of text you put on the page. If you type a full-stop, it gets attached to a style.

 
What is a Style?

A style is a set of text formats that defines things like the font type, font size, indent, etc. of a piece of text. The formatting of each piece of text you enter is recorded by MSWord and attached to a style. This enables you to access a particular format and reuse it with a couple of clicks of your mouse. It saves you the effort of having to recreate a format each time you move down a document or open a new document.

Unfortunately, styles seem to be MSWord's best kept (but most important) secret. Once you gain control of styles, you will you will be able to adjust the appearance of text throughout a document with the push of a couple of buttons.

  
Open the Styles Menu

MSWord keeps a record of all the styles used in every document you create. You can view the styles in use in a document through the Styles and Formatting menu. To open this menu:

  1. Click on the Styles button on the Scribe toolbar. (The Styles and Formatting menu will open on the right hand side of your screen).
    2.
  2. Click on a piece of text anywhere on your working page. (The Formatting of selected text box at the top of the Styles and Formatting menu will display the style attached to the text you have selected).
    3.
  3. Click on any of the styles in the box under Pick formatting to apply. (You will notice that the formatting of the text in your page changes to reflect the style you have selected).
 
Normal Style

Once you've learnt to use styles, the style you will use most often is the Normal style; it is the base style for MSWord. You will use this style for all body text in all your documents. If you use the Normal style consistently, it will make your life easier, improve the quality of your work and reduce time spent on those last minute changes.

The real power of the Normal style is the control it gives you over text in your document. For example, you've finished a document and you decide you want to increase the size of all the body text throughout your document. If you have used the Normal style consistently, you will be able to change the font size (and the size of all associated styles) with a couple of clicks of your mouse.

We'll discuss how to do this in Part 2 of this training. For now, just know that using the Normal style is going to help you and save you a lot of time.

 

Set Text to the Normal Style

Ctrl+Shift+N

In recognition of its importance, Microsoft has given the Normal style its own shortcut keys - Ctrl+Shift+N.

To change text in your document to the Normal style, click anywhere in the paragraph or heading you want to change, then hit Ctrl+Shift+N (hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys on your keyboard and press the 'N' key).

The Style Field at the top left hand corner of your screen will show that the style of text at the location of the cursor is the Normal style.

As you get used to using styles, you will use Ctrl+Shift+N more than any other shortcut key combination. You will use it to:

  • clear unwanted formatting from text;
  • reformat headings to body text;
  • reformat text from other documents, or from the internet;
  • clear formatting from bullet points;
  • remove block lines, etc.
 
Heading Styles

As the name would suggest, Heading Styles are the styles we use for headings in our documents. Heading styles serve a number of purposes. Among these:

  • they provide a reader with visual cues about the hierarchy of information in a document, i.e., which information belongs to what;
    •
  • they enable you to take control of the formatting of headings and change that style throughout a document with a few clicks of the mouse; and
    •
  • most importantly, they inform an automated table of contents about which text to display.

Although you can create your own heading styles from scratch, MSWord comes with its own preformatted heading styles that work just fine. In line with the desire to keep things simple, MSWord calls these styles Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.

Headings are discussed in more detail in the next section of this user guide. Click here to go to the Headings topic.

  
Keep an Eye on Styles Keep an eye on the Style Field at the top of your screen as you work, especially when you are working in someone else's document or with text that has been copied from the internet. Make sure all of your body text is formatted in the Normal style.  
Practise Using Styles As with anything, practice makes perfect. If you make an effort to use styles every day, you'll be using them solidly within a week and in a month you won't be able to do without them.  
 
Click here if you need further help.
  
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