Applying Styles

A style is a set of formatting characteristics that you can apply in a single step to an element of a document or to the entire document. For example, styles let you easily apply the same formatting to all headings of a certain level, set the spacing between paragraphs in the body of your document, and add a specific color or other formatting to words or phrases that you want to stand out. Although you can apply formatting directly to elements of your document, by using styles you can apply the same formatting to similar elements in different locations in your document without the need to specify the settings again at each location. In addition, when you modify a style, Word automatically updates all instances of the style in the document.

There are several types of styles that you can apply to different elements in a document:

• A paragraph style contains settings that specify the formatting of paragraphs, such as text alignment, tab stops, indentation, line spacing, borders, and the default character formatting for text in a paragraph. Paragraph styles are marked with a paragraph symbol (¶) in the user interface.
• A character style contains settings that specify the formatting of characters, such as the font name, font size, underlining, bold formatting, italic formatting, text color, borders, and shading. Character styles are marked with the letter a in the user interface.
• A table style contains settings that specify the formatting of elements in tables, such as borders, row and column coloring, alignment, and text formatting. Table styles are marked with a table icon () in the user interface.
• A list style contains settings that specify the formatting of the paragraphs in lists, such as alignment, indentation, numbering scheme or type of bullets, and the default character formatting. List styles are marked with a list icon () in the user interface.

Word also provides linked styles. A linked style acts as a paragraph style if a paragraph is selected when it is applied or as a character style if only part of the text in a paragraph is selected when it is applied. Linked styles are marked with a combination of paragraph symbol and the letter a (¶a) in the user interface.

Word provides a rich set of built-in styles, and you can create your own user-defined styles. By default, the built-in Normal style of the Normal template is applied to all text to which you have not applied any other formatting in your document. The built-in styles make complex tasks simple. For example, the built-in heading styles make it easy to create a table of contents.

How to Apply Styles

All versions of Word offer several ways to apply built-in and user-defined styles. Styles can be applied by using several different elements of the user interface, and certain built-in styles can also be applied from the keyboard in one keystroke. The following table lists the keyboard shortcuts that you can use to apply certain styles and perform some related tasks.

After you place your cursor in the document element to which you want to apply a style or select the element or elements to which you want to apply a style, you can apply the style through the user interface in any of the following ways.

• On the Home tab of the Ribbon, in the gallery of styles in the Styles group, click the button for the applicable style.
• On the Home tab of the Ribbon, at the bottom of the Styles group, click the Styles dialog box launcher () to open the Styles task pane, and then click the applicable style.
• Press Ctrl+Shift+S to open the Apply Styles task pane or to move the focus to it, start typing the name of the applicable style, which, by default, will be completed automatically and press Enter. Notice that this option offers you the possibility of applying styles without moving your hands away from the keyboard. Notice also that the Apply Styles task pane contains a Modify button that you can use to make changes to your styles.
• Press Alt+Ctrl+Shift+S to open the Styles task pane, and then click the applicable style.

When you apply a paragraph style to a portion of the text within a paragraph, the following rules determine how the character formatting defined in the paragraph style is applied.

• If the cursor is located anywhere in the paragraph and no text is selected, the paragraph formatting will be applied to the paragraph, and each character formatting setting defined in the style will be applied to most or all of the paragraph, but not to small parts of the paragraph where the applicable character formatting setting differs from the rest of the paragraph.
• If text within the paragraph is selected, the character formatting defined in the style will be applied only to the selected text, and the paragraph formatting will not be applied at all.
• If the entire paragraph is selected, the paragraph formatting will be applied to the paragraph, and each character formatting setting defined in the style will be applied to most or all of the paragraph, but not to small parts of the paragraph where the applicable character formatting setting differs from the rest of the paragraph (as in the case in which no text is selected).

You will see similar behavior when you apply a character style. If the cursor is located anywhere in a word and no text is selected, the character formatting will be applied to the entire word. If one or more characters are selected, the character formatting will be applied only to the selected characters. If more than one word is selected, the character formatting will be applied to the entire selection.

Word has a large number of predefined character styles, and it may be difficult to visually distinguish between paragraph styles and character styles in the Ribbon. An easier way to be sure whether a style is a paragraph style or a character style is to open the Styles pane, which clearly displays the symbols that indicates the type of each style.

For the Microsoft help topic about applying styles, which includes information about quick styles and themes, see Style Basics in Word.

Using a Style Separator

Word offers a way to apply one paragraph style to one part of a paragraph and a second paragraph style to the other part of the paragraph. This feature is useful when you want only part of a heading to appear in your table of contents (TOC).

If you set up your TOC to include all instances of, for example, Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3, and you want the end part of the text on a line formatted with one of these styles not to appear in the TOC, do as follows. Press Enter to insert a carriage return between the part that you want in the TOC and the part that you do not want in the TOC. Format the part that you want in the TOC with one of the styles that is included in the TOC, for example, Heading 2. Format the part that you don't want in the TOC with a style that is not included in the TOC, for example, Normal. If you like, you can create a new style with the same formatting as the style included in the TOC for this purpose. Then place your cursor anywhere in the first part (the line formatted with the Heading 2 style in the example given) and press Alt+Ctrl+Enter, which inserts a style separator. The result should be a single line or paragraph, in which the first part has one style (Heading 2 in the example given), and the second part has a different style (Normal in the example given).

Styles Configured to Update Automatically

When a paragraph style is configured to update automatically, changes that are made to the formatting of a paragraph to which the style is applied are automatically saved in the style itself, and the formatting of all other paragraphs in the document that use the same style is automatically updated to match the updated style. By default, only the styles for entries in a table of contents (the styles that have names beginning with TOC) are configured to update automatically.

If you configure a paragraph style to update automatically, select a block of text that includes a paragraph to which the style is applied, and change the formatting of the selected text, the changes will be made not only to the selected paragraphs, but also to all paragraphs in your document to which you applied the style, as well as to the style itself.

A paragraph style that is updated automatically can cause some confusing behavior when you change the formatting of text that includes a paragraph to which the style is applied, for example, by changing the font of the selected text, and then you undo the changes, for example, by pressing Ctrl+Z. This is because Word regards the automatic updating process as a separate operation that takes place after the formatting changes are made. Thus, pressing Ctrl+Z once only reverts the changes made to other paragraphs in the document that were not selected and to the properties of the style. You will need to press Ctrl+Z again to revert the changes made to the selected text.

The automatic updating of all styles and the option to enable automatic updating in the Modify Style dialog box are disabled by default. You can, however, enable automatic update by performing the following steps.

To enable or disable automatic updating for a particular style

1. Open the Word Options dialog box.

To do this in Word 2010 and newer versions of Word, click the File tab of the Ribbon, and then click the Options button.

To do this in Word 2007, click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click the Word Options button.

2. In the Word Options dialog box, click Advanced.
3. Under Editing options, select the Prompt to update style check box.
4. Open the Modify Style dialog box, for example, for the style of the text where your cursor is located by doing either of the following.
• On the Home tab of the Ribbon, in the Styles group, right-click the name of the applicable style, and then click Modify.
• Press Ctrl+Shift+S to open the Apply Styles task pane or to move the focus to it, and then click Modify.
5. In the Modify Style dialog box, select the Automatically update check box to enable automatic updating of the style and paragraphs that use the style or clear this check box to disable automatic updating, and then click OK.

After you have selected the Prompt to update style check box, you can skip Steps 1 to 3 when you want to enable or disable automatic updating for another style.

Modifying Styles not Used in Your Document

Word has predefined styles for many document elements that may not be used in your document. You can change the formatting of these elements by modifying the styles defined for them. By default, these styles are not listed in the Styles pane. To display them, in the Options drop-down list, select All Styles. Then right-click the name of the applicable style, click Modify, and make your changes as you would for any other style. If you want the changes to apply to all new documents that will be created with the same template, you must save the changes to the template.