Productivity: Office Software

Speed up with Styles

Styles are the speed demons of the word processing and desktop publishing worlds. A style is just a group of text formatting characteristics that you give a name. For example, suppose you want all the headings of a document to be big and bold, so they stand out. You might decide to format your headings in 14-point Arial Bold. Rather than applying 14-point Arial Bold on every line you want to be a heading, you click your style named Heading and the text automatically changes to 14-point Arial Bold. When you use styles, you save time and ensure consistency. Every heading looks like every other heading. The time-savings multiply exponentially in complex documents with many elements formatted in a particular way, such as heading levels, bullets, hanging indents, figures, and captions.

In most programs, styles exist in every document, whether you know it or not. For example, in Microsoft Word, when you open a Blank Document, the paragraph mark you see is formatted with the Normal style. Every style is stored in a document template (including the Normal style).

Use built-in styles

Many programs come with built-in styles such as the Normal or Body Text style and styles for common elements such as Headings. Applying a style is easy. You place your cursor in a paragraph, and choose a style from a list of styles. Your text magically changes to whatever formatting was defined in the style.

Create your own styles

Applying styles is okay, but not very creative. Often the built in styles are boring or just plain ugly. At some point, you'll want to move on and format your text your own way. You can either modify one of the built-in styles or create new styles. For example, to modify one of the built-in styles in Microsoft Word:

1. Place your cursor in a paragraph that uses the style you want to change.
2. Choose Format|Style.
3. Make sure the style you want to change is highlighted in the style list and click Modify.
4. If you want the style to be saved in the template, click the Add to Template box.
5. Make the formatting changes.
6. Click Apply. Word automatically updates all text formatted with the style.

When you save a document, unless you go through the Style dialog and check the Add to Template check box, your new style is only available in that document. It is not saved into the template unless you tell it to in the Style dialog box.

Creating a new style works almost the same way. To create a new style:

1. Make sure your cursor is in the paragraph that you want formatted with the new style.
2. Choose Format|Style. Click New and type a name in the Style box. If you want the style to be saved in the template, be sure to click the Add to Template box.

Two Cool Style Controls

Two style controls in Word's Style dialog box can save you a lot of time:

• Based On: Any style can be based on another style. For example, if your Normal style is set to Times 11 point, another style based on Normal also is set to Times 11 point unless you change it. If you redefine the Normal style, other styles that are based on Normal change too.
• Style for Following Paragraph: Style for Following Paragraph is another powerful feature in the Style dialog box. You can set the style that follows the style you are creating or modifying. By default, the following style is generally going to be set to the style you are creating, but you can change it to any other style in your list of styles.

Remove formatting

One confusing aspect of styles is that any formatting you apply using the formatting commands (i.e. without using styles) can change how your text appears. When you work with styles, it can be difficult to tell whether you applied formatting with a style or using the formatting commands (called "local" formatting). Any local formatting commands you apply override the formatting set up in the style. So sometimes you can end up with text that doesn't look as you expected (such as one piece of text with a Heading 1 style, that doesn't look like every other Heading 1).

To make a document appear visually consistent throughout, it's almost as important to learn how to remove formatting as it is to learn how to apply it. That way, you can take out all the extraneous local formatting and reapply the styles correctly.

In Microsoft Word, for example, to remove all local font formatting, highlight the paragraph and type Ctrl+spacebar. If the spacing has been adjusted manually, it too overrides the spacing set up in the style. To remove this local paragraph spacing formatting, highlight the paragraph and type Ctrl+Q.

If you do a lot of word processing or desktop publishing, spending a little time figuring out how to set up styles can save you a lot of time in the long run.