Academic Consulting

Generally speaking, most people don't use MS Word to its full advantage. For example, when formatting a document, many users spend an inordinate amount of time individually applying formatting to text using the formatting toolbar or other techniques. If you'd like to save yourself some time, try using styles in your MS Word documents. Styles are an excellent way to efficiently format your document; the benefits of using them include the following:

• Smaller file sizes
• Consistency of formatting across a document
• Capacity to merge documents without the formatting altering
• Streamlining of formatting when working collaboratively
• Capability for advanced find and replace techniques
• Global changes can be made to your document's formatting quickly and easily
• Creation of an automatic Table of Contents, plus use of the Document Map and Outlining features

What are Styles and Where Can I Find Them?

Styles are a group of formatting characteristics that are 'bundled' together. For example, if you would like your section headings to be Times New Roman, 18pt, and centered, you could create a style called 'Section Heading' and include these characteristics. Whenever a 'Section Heading' is required, you need only to select the style instead of the individual formatting characteristics. Styles can be displayed by choosing Format  > Styles and Formatting from the menu bar in Word 2003, or from the 'Home' tab of the Ribbon in 2007. In both versions of MS Word, default styles are presented which you can modify and add to.

Learning About Styles

To learn how to use, create, and modify styles, we recommend visiting the following websites. Alternatively, the Academic Consulting MS Word courses cover this feature as part of the course content. Visit our Training pages for further details.

http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

http://www.mousetrax.com/styles.html

http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/styles.htm

Do's and Don'ts for Using Styles

• Don't create too many styles! You can have up to 256 styles in a document, but 6-12 styles should suffice, depending on your purpose.
• Do make good use of the paragraph spacing and layout options when creating or modifying a style. These are available in the ‘Paragraph’ dialog box and will allow you to add formatting such as pre-set spacing after headings and paragraphs (this saves having to press the Enter key too many times and ensures your spacing is consistent across your document).
• Don't use the 'Normal' style. This style has some tricky auto-formatting features which can turn your formatting 'pear-shaped' very quickly! Instead of using 'Normal', create a style of your own called 'Body Text' or 'Text' and use this for the formatting of your paragraphs.
• Do use the in-built 'Heading' styles in your document, as these will allow you to make use of other useful features in MS Word such as creating a Table of Contents, the Document Map, and Outline View.
• Don't use the 'Keep track of formatting' feature as this can cause confusion when choosing styles in the Styles and Formatting pane.