Microsoft Word Version 2002 Inside Out (Inside Out (Microsoft))

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Up to now, we've been looking at existing styles. Most likely, you could create the majority of your documents using the built-in styles found in the Normal.dot template. Doing so would ensure that your documents look consistent, your formatting time is reduced, and your documents are able to interact with the Word tools that rely on styles. But keep in mind that millions of other people use Word as well, and your documents might look rather familiar (and possibly mundane) to them (and to you). And even though Word includes more than 110 styles in the Normal.dot template, you might find that you need a style that's not provided, such as a boxed tip element or a shaded sidebar. When you want to add some formatting spice or find you need an additional style, you can create your own styles, as described in this section.

Your primary tool when you create new styles is the New Style dialog box. The New Style dialog box offers options specific to the type of style you're creating (paragraph, character, table, or list), as shown in Figure 10-6. To access the New Style dialog box, click the New Style button in the Styles And Formatting task pane.

Figure 10-6. The New Style dialog box enables you to configure numerous properties when you create a new style; its options change slightly based on whether you're creating a paragraph, character, table, or list style.

Tip - Find more information about formatting

Formatting paragraphs, characters, lists, and tables from within the New Style dialog box is similar to formatting the same elements from within the main Word window. If you're unsure of a formatting feature in the New Style dialog box that's not addressed in this chapter, check the table of contents for a related chapter that clarifies a formatting feature's effect. For example, table formatting options are discussed in Chapter 18, "Organizing Concepts in Tables."

Creating New Styles Based on Preformatted Text

One of the easiest ways to create a style is to format existing text and then define a style based on the formatted text. To successfully create a style using this technique, select and format text within your document (remember to consider font characteristics as well as paragraph settings), and then perform any of the following actions:

• Click the Style box on the Formatting toolbar or press Ctrl+Shift+S, and type a name for the new style. You can create only paragraph styles using this method.
• Display the Styles And Formatting task pane, and click New Style. In the New Style dialog box, type a style name in the Name box, configure any other settings, and click OK. Notice the Style Type drop-down list, where you can specify whether you want to create a paragraph, character, table, or list style, as described in the section "Creating New Styles."
• Double-click a style name in the Style Area to open the Style dialog box, and click New to open the New Style dialog box. In the New Style dialog box, type a style name in the Name box, specify the style type, select any other formatting options, and click OK.

When you create a new style using the New Style dialog box, you can define the style for the current document only (which is the default action), or you can apply the style to the current template. To add a style to the current template (which is Normal.dot by default, if no other template has been attached to the document), select the Add To Template check box. This option saves the style information as part of the current template and makes the style available to other documents using the same template.

For a more in-depth discussion of the New Style dialog box, see the section "Creating New Styles Using the New Style Dialog Box," and for more information about the Add To Template option, see the section "Adding a Style to a Document or Template."

Using the AutoFormat Feature to Create Styles as You Type

In Word, you can also create styles automatically while you work. By using the AutoFormat feature, you can configure Word to automatically create styles for the current document based on your formatting commands. After you turn on the AutoFormat feature, you'll notice that the formatting and styles you use are automatically added to the Styles And Formatting task pane. To best see the feature in action while you work, open the Styles And Formatting task pane and select Formatting In Use in the Show drop-down list. To automatically create styles while you format text, follow these steps:

1. Choose Tools, AutoCorrect Options to open the AutoCorrect dialog box.
2. Click the AutoFormat As You Type tab.
3. In the Apply As You Type section, select the Built-In Heading Styles check box. (The other check boxes should already be selected by default).
4. In the Automatically As You Type section, select the Define Styles Based On Your Formatting check box.
5. Click OK to close the AutoCorrect dialog box.

After you activate the AutoFormat As You Type feature, Word will automatically apply heading and text styles (such as Heading 1, Body Text, List, and so forth) to text as you type. If you don't agree with the AutoFormat feature's treatment, you can apply a different style to a text component. If AutoFormat seems to regularly misinterpret your formatting needs, you might consider turning the feature off. To do so, you simply undo the settings you used to turn the feature on, as follows:

1. Choose Tools, AutoCorrect Options, and click the AutoFormat As You Type tab.
2. Clear the Built-In Heading Styles check box, and clear the Define Styles Based On Your Formatting check box.

For more information about using the AutoFormat feature, see Chapter 6 "Putting Text Tools to Work."

Creating New Styles Using the New Style Dialog Box

As you've seen, you can create styles by formatting text and basing a style on the text. But if you want a somewhat higher degree of control over your style creation endeavors, you should consider creating styles using the New Style dialog box (shown in Figure 10-6). When you use the New Style dialog box, you can easily incorporate alignment, line spacing, indents, paragraph spacing, font colors, and more into your style. To create a new style using the New Style dialog box, follow these steps:

1. Click the Styles And Formatting button on the Formatting toolbar to display the Styles And Formatting task pane, and then click the New Style button. The New Style dialog box opens.
2. In the New Style dialog box, type a name for your new style in the Name box. Be thoughtful when you consider names to associate with styles—the more descriptive your style names are, the easier it will be for you (and others) to identify each style's purpose and apply the proper style within documents.
3. In the Style Type drop-down list, specify whether your style will be a paragraph, character, table, or list style. The majority of styles in the list

   are paragraph styles.

4. In the Formatting section, configure your style's properties using the Font and Size lists as well as the formatting, color selection, alignment, line spacing, above and below spacing, and indent buttons.
5. If necessary, click the Format button to access additional formatting options, as shown in Figure 10-7.

   Figure 10-7. The Format button enables you to access dialog boxes that provide more detailed formatting options.

6. When you've finished configuring formatting options, click OK.

The newly created style will appear in the Styles And Formatting task pane as well as in the Style drop-down list. You can use, modify, and delete your new styles just as if they were built-in styles. The next few sections address some of the additional configuration options found on the New Style dialog box.

Basing New Styles on Existing Styles

By default, the styles you create in the New Style dialog box (or by typing a name in the Style box on the Formatting toolbar, for that matter) are based on the Normal style. This means that your styles contain all the settings for the Normal style plus whatever modifications you make to the style.

Word makes it easy for you to create a new style based on an existing style of your choice. When you base a new style on an existing style, some of the new style's properties are already configured, which can simplify the style creation process. In addition, whenever you alter a base style, all styles created using the base style are automatically altered as well—this provides an added level of consistency. (But it can also create a mess if you're not careful.)

To illustrate the trickle-down theory of base styles, let's look at an example. Suppose you want to create a style named Heading 1 Centered that's based on the existing Heading 1 style. By default, the Heading 1 style is Arial, 18 point, left aligned. You can create Heading 1 Centered by basing the new style on the existing Heading 1 style and changing the Alignment setting to Centered. Now let's say that a few days down the road, you learn that the headings in your document should be formatted using the Verdana font, not Arial. You can alter the Heading 1 style to use Verdana, and because you based the Heading 1 Centered style on the Heading 1 style, the text formatted with the Heading 1 Centered style will automatically be reformatted to use Verdana as well.

By default, many built-in Word styles are based on the Normal style. The styles you create will also be based on the Normal style unless you specify otherwise. To review, the Normal style includes the settings listed in Table 10-2 by default.

Table 10-2. Default Normal Style Settings

Tip - View a style's formatting in the Reveal Formatting task pane

You can view a style's formatting settings by clicking a paragraph that's formatted with the style you want to investigate and then displaying the Reveal Formatting task pane. The Reveal Formatting task pane shows all the details about the style's font, paragraph, and section properties.

To indicate that you want to base a style on an existing style other than Normal or to specify that you don't want to base your style on any existing style, you can use the Style Based On drop-down list in the New Style dialog box, shown in Figure 10-8. This list contains a (No Style) option that enables you to avoid basing your new style on any existing style.

when you're creating new styles." />

Figure 10-8. You can select any existing style to serve as a base style

when you're creating new styles.

Specifying Styles for Following Paragraphs

Some styles are fairly predictable—you can predict which style elements are likely to precede or follow them 99 percent of the time. For example, most of the headings in your documents are probably followed by Normal text, or maybe your documents use a figure number element that's almost always followed by a figure caption. You can take advantage of style predictability and save yourself from having to perform unnecessary formatting steps by configuring settings for the following paragraph.

When you specify a following paragraph style, you essentially tell Word that you want to apply a particular style after you press Enter at the end of the current style. You can easily instruct Word regarding the nuances of a following paragraph while you're creating a new style. To do so, choose a style in the Style For Following Paragraph drop-down list in the New Style dialog box.

Note

After you configure the Style For Following Paragraph option and click OK, Word takes care of the rest. The next time you press Enter after the configured style, the style for the following paragraph will automatically come into play. If you display your Style Area while you work, you can easily verify that you've configured your following paragraph styles correctly.

You can modify the following paragraph setting for existing styles as well, as described in the section "Adjusting Style Properties."

Adding a Style to a Document or Template

By default, Word adds a new style to the active document only. If you change a built-in style, that change too applies only to the existing document. But when you create a style, Word gives you the opportunity to add a style to the template attached to the active document. You can easily add a new style to a template by selecting the Add To Template check box in the New Style dialog box before you click OK.

Keep in mind that when you add a style to a template, you add the style to the template that's attached to the current document. As you might imagine, because the Normal.dot template is the default template in Word, the Normal.dot template is associated with a great number of documents. Therefore, when you add a style to a template, there's a high likelihood that you're adding the style to the Normal.dot template. When you modify the Normal.dot template, you effectively modify the template associated with all those other documents. Adding a style to a template grants users access to the style in the list of available styles in all documents that are based on the same template. Even so, you don't want to change an existing style that might negatively affect another document's appearance. Instead, consider creating a custom template, as described in Chapter 22, "Formatting Documents Using Templates, Wizards, and Add-Ins."

Tip - Identify the attached template

To identify the active document's attached template, choose Tools, Templates And Add-Ins. In the Templates And Add-Ins dialog box, the name of the currently attached template is displayed in the Document Template box. In many instances, you'll see that the Normal template serves as the active document's attached template.

For more information about the interrelationship of templates and styles, see Chapter 22, "Formatting Documents Using Templates, Wizards, and Add-Ins."

Controlling Automatic Style Updates

When you create a paragraph style, you can configure Word to update the style whenever you apply manual formatting to text formatted in the selected style. To illustrate, let's say a style automatically applies boldface formatting to text. While working in a document, you decide that you don't want the paragraph style to include boldface text, so you select a paragraph that uses the style you want to adjust (including the paragraph mark) and then press Ctrl+B to turn off the Bold attribute. When you alter text that's configured with an automatically updating style, you adjust all text that's formatted with the same style. In addition, the style definition is adjusted to match your manual change.

To activate automatic updating, select the Automatically Update check box in the New Style dialog box. Keep in mind that an automatic update made to a style is reflected only in the active document, even if the style is saved in the attached template.

Note