Chas' Word World
~~Charles Kyle Kenyon, J.D.

Styles in Microsoft Word, Part II

For a while this column will shift its emphasis to Word fundamentals. Those who want to read ahead are welcome to look at the Intermediate Users Guide to Microsoft Word on my site. If you do read ahead, and you have questions, please send them to Me so that I might be able to answer your questions in this column. Before getting into that, though, here is a brief 

Warning Note - Do not use Word as your Email Editor with Outlook 97/98

While using Word as your email editor has been known to cause numerous problems, the situation has deteriorated recently with new viruses which sneek in under Word's macro protection and under any protection built into Outlook / Outlook Express. Woody Leonard recently advised that users of Outlook 97/98 that use of Word as the email editor will expose them to virus attack and that there will be no security patch coming from Microsoft to fix this because Office 97 products are no longer being supported. 

Now, back to the Word article... This follows up on the article Styles in Microsoft Word (Part I). If you haven't read it, it is suggested that you do so before tackling this material.

As usual, you can skip to Chas' keyboard shortcuts of the month by clicking here.

Styles Overview

If you're concerned about whether or not you need to learn styles, you do. Styles are the architecture upon which Word is based. Just about everything in Word is style-driven. In fact, many people in the industry refer to Word as a "style-driven" program.

What we'll cover here:

• Listing All of the Styles
• Applying Existing Styles
• Using Find and Replace to Replace Styles
• Printing a list of styles and their formatting

Listing All of the Styles

When you click the Style button's drop-down arrow, only the styles in use in the current template displays in the list of styles. If you wish to see a list of all of the styles that are available to you in Word, you can do so in one of two different ways. Hold SHIFT and click the style drop-down arrow. This displays all styles available. There are approximately 125 styles to choose from, excluding any user-defined styles. It's also possible to list all styles by selecting All Styles from the Style dialog box's List control in the bottom left corner.

Practice: View All Styles

1. Create a new blank document.

2. Click the Style drop-down arrow. Notice how many styles are available.

3. Click with the mouse in the document to deselect the Style drop-down list.

4. Hold SHIFT and click the Style drop-down arrow again.

5. More styles are available when you hold down the SHIFT key.

Applying Styles

The same rules that apply to direct formatting of text apply to style formatting of text. If you want to apply a text attribute to a single word, you can click anywhere in the word and select a formatting option such as bold, italics or underline — Word applies the selected format to the entire word. Similarly, if you want to format multiple words you must first select the multiple words. The same is true for applying character styles. To apply a character style, you can click in the middle of any word and select the character style to format the entire word. If you want to change a group of words you must first select the text before applying the character style.

Applying formatting to paragraphs is a little different. Just click anywhere in a paragraph and apply direct formats such as dragging the ruler to change indentation — since paragraph formats affect an entire paragraph, you don't have to select the paragraph. If you want to affect multiple paragraphs, you must first select the multiple paragraphs. And, similar to applying text formatting and character styles, to apply a paragraph style, click within the paragraph and apply the paragraph style. Or, select multiple paragraphs to apply the same style to each of the selected paragraphs.

Practice: Apply Styles

1. Type the following text into a new document.
   Profitability Report
   Entire Firm
   Individual Departments
   Bankruptcy
   Corporate
   Health Care
   Immigration
   Trust and Estate
2. Click anywhere within the first line, Profitability Report.
3. Click the Style drop-down arrow and select Heading 1.
4. Select the two paragraphs: Entire Firm and Individual Departments.
5. Apply Heading 2 style to the selected text.
6. Apply Heading 3 style to the department names.

There are several keyboard shortcuts that are useful in applying styles:

Replacing Styles

Let's say you just finished applying styles to a long agreement only to find that you applied the Heading 2 style where you should have applied the Heading 1 style. This can easily be remedied by using Word's Find and Replace feature. Instead of searching for text, however, you can tell Word to search and replace text formatted with a specific style.

Practice: Find and Replace Styles

1. From the Edit menu, choose Replace. If you prefer keyboard shortcuts, press CTRL+H.
2. Click More on the Replace tab, if necessary, to display additional options along the bottom portion of the dialog box. If a button says Less, the window is already expanded.
3. Delete any text, if necessary, that may appear in the Find what and Replace with boxes.
4. Click in the Find what box and click Format.
5. Select Style.
6. Select Heading 2 in the Find what style list and click OK.
7. Click in the Replace with box and click Format.
8. Select Style.
9. Select Heading 1 and click OK. Note that while there is no text within each edit box (Find and Replace), just below each box is a message that Word will find and replace styles that are applied to text within the document.
10. Click Replace All, then click OK, and finally, click Close.

If you try to use the Find and Replace feature again, make sure to click within each box (Find and Replace) and click No Formatting to reset what Word is to search for.

Printing a List of Styles and their Formatting

You can print a list of the styles in use in a document along with the formatting that goes into that style by selecting "Styles" in the "Print What" box on the Print Dialog Box instead of printing the document.

Next month 

I expect to follow up with more on Styles, specifically, creating and modifying your own styles and where styles live. 

* This article is based largely on the tutorial "Understanding Styles" which, itself is based on the Legal Users Guide to Microsoft Word. The original Legal Users Guide was not written by Charles Kenyon but rather by a team of experts gathered by Microsoft. This article uses screen shots from Word 2000 but the methods and distinctions discussed hold true for versions of Word from Word 95 through Word 2002.

Additional Reading on Styles

• Understanding Styles, the basis for this series of articles.
• Word for Law Firms by Payne Consulting Group:
  • Word 97 for Law Firms (also at Amazon.com UK)
  • Word 2000 for Law Firms (also at Amazon.com UK)
  • Word X (2002) for Law Firms (also at Amazon.com UK)
• To Style or Not to Style by Microsystems Engineering
• Styles in a Networked Environment - newsgroup discussion
• Create a Template Part 2, John McGhie, MVP.
• What Happens When Styles in a Template and Document Don't Match? (Microsoft)
• Quickly Reorganize Long Documents Using Outline View (Microsoft)
• Template Basics in Microsoft Word
• The Seven Laws of Styles by Bob Blacksberg
• Use No Empty Paragraphs by Bob Blacksberg
• Advanced Style Options by Kathy Finder, University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire
• What is the difference between the normal style and the Body Text style?
• Letterhead System - styles used to format letters and letterhead
• Letterhead Textboxes and Styles Tutorial - two-page template download that demonstrates use of 
  • Styles that are based on each other and use the style for following paragraph feature
  • Use of the StyleRef field to insert information from the body of a letter into the continuation page headers automatically
  • The AutoText list restricted by styles for the salutation and closing.
  • Textboxes in headers and footers to reserve space for preprinted letterhead
  • Insertion of a date automatically that will not change when you open the document at a later date
  • Insertion of the typist's name as signer automatically by accessing the Author document property.
• Using Styles in Letterhead and in Headers and Footers by Charles Kenyon - cascading styles - style for next paragraph - the StyleRef field
• IncludeText Field Tutorial - 2 documents with IncludeText links demonstrating switches, interaction of styles, and use of hidden Page field for continuous page numbering of separate documents.
• AutoText Sampler - styles used to organize AutoText - see also...
• How to add pop-up lists to any Word document by Bill Coan, MVP.
• Newsgroup discussion of where styles live and style inheritance - starts with message 8 posted by Howard Kaikow - worth the read
• Getting Started With Styles by Dian Chapman, MVP (another tutorial page but shorter than this one)
• A Global StyleSheet in Microsoft Word? by Charles Kyle Kenyon
• Word is always making changes I don't expect. How can I get more control over my formatting? by Suzanne S. Barnhill, MVP, and Dave Rado, MVP.
• (Advanced) How to safely update a document's styles from its template without using the Organizer (and how to make the Tools + Templates and Add-ins dialog safe) by Dave Rado, Margaret Aldis, Ian Sharpe and Beth Melton.

Keyboard Shortcuts of the Month for Word

Formatting and Styles

Headings

Headings are a special kind of style and are built into Word at the foundation level. Here are some of the shortcut keys for them:

** Alt-Ctrl-4 is used for the Euro symbol in certain language settings.

Chas Kenyon is a trial lawyer concentrating in criminal defense with a long interest (obsession?) with making word processing work well in the law office.  Visit his home page