4.9. Modifying Styles When you apply a style to a paragraph of text, you do more than just change its formatting. In essence, you've attached that style to the paragraph. If you make changes to that style later, the paragraph reflects those changes. Imagine that you have a style called Heading 1 that centers the headings on the page. You've used this style repeatedly throughout your 400-page novel about the French Revolution. Say, you decide your novel would look better with that heading aligned on the left margin rather than centered. Instead of making the change to each individual heading, you edit the Heading 1 style. When you change the style definition, all your headings that are based on the Heading 1 style change to match. Here are the steps to modifying a style. In this example, you give the Heading 1 style left alignment: -
Go to Home Styles and click the Styles dialog box launcher (Figure 4-23) . In the Styles box, you can click to apply any one of the styles to your current selection or paragraph. Even when the Styles box is open , you can click within your text to move the insertion point to a different paragraph. And you can use the scroll bar, the PageUP and PageDN keys, or any other method to navigate through your document. When you hold your cursor over a style, a screen tip pops up showing you details. Turn on the Show Preview checkbox at bottom to see a more visual representation of each of the styles. | | Figure 4-23. Open the Style dialog box to see a complete list of all available styles. On the right side, a paragraph mark shows that a style includes paragraph formatting. The lowercase "a" shows that the style includes character formatting. Click the down arrow button to open a menu where you can modify the style definition. | | -
Right-click Heading 1 (or whatever style you want to change), and then choose Modify from the shortcut menu . The Modify Style dialog box opens (Figure 4-24). Here you can get under the hood and tinker with all the formatting options.
Tip: When you right-click anywhere on the style name , or click the V button in the Styles dialog box, a context menu shows you several choices for changing and working with the selected style. At the top of the list is "Update Heading 1 to Match Selection." This option changes all the formatting in the selected style so that it's identical to the current paragraph or selection.
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In the lower-left corner of the Modify Style box, click the Format button, and then choose Paragraph . The Paragraph dialog box opens. Yep, it's exactly the same box you open when you click the Paragraph dialog box launcher on the ribbon or press Alt+H, PG (see Figure 4-8). In fact, the Format button leads you to many familiar dialog boxes, from Fonts to Borders to Tabs. The difference, of course, is that you're now changing a style format, not just a few paragraphs. | | Figure 4-24. The Modify Style box is command central for tinkering with your style definitions. The properties at the top determine the behavior of the styles when you're working with text. The preview window in the center shows an example of the style in action. Use the format button in the lower-left corner to open dialog boxes to make changes in the character and paragraph formatting. | | -
At the top of the Paragraph box, in the General group , click the Alignment drop-down menu, and then choose Left . In this example, you're just making a single change, but you can also make changes to any of the other formatting options in this box. -
Close the Paragraph box, the Modify Style box, and the Styles box . Everything's done except the cleanup. Close each of the boxes you've opened to go back to your text and continue editing. |