Creating Your Own Styles


To take full advantage of styles, you need to create your own. This way, you can include the exact formatting you need for the different elements in your documents. For example, if you have to type a weekly calendar of events, you might want to create one style for the names of the events, one for their descriptions, one for the date and time information, and so on. You can create new styles in two ways, as described in the next two sections.

Using the Style List in the Formatting Toolbar

The fastest way to create a style is to use the Style list in the Formatting toolbar (this technique is sometimes called style by example ). However, using the Style list has a major limitation: Any styles you create this way will be stored only in the document, not in the underlying template, so they won't be available outside of the document. In addition, this method works to create only paragraph styles, not character styles.

To create a style by using the Style list, follow these steps:

  1. Format a paragraph with all the options that you want to include in the style. For example, if you are creating a style for your body text, you might format the paragraph with a Verdana 10-point font, left alignment, and 12 points of paragraph spacing after the paragraph (so that you won't have to press Enter to create blank lines between the paragraphs).

  2. Make sure your insertion point is in the paragraph, and click whatever style is currently showing in the Style list to select it.

  3. Type over the selected style name with the name of your new style (it can include spaces). Figure 9.6 shows the insertion point in the formatted paragraph, and the name Body entered in the Style list.

    Figure 9.6. Type a name for your new style in the Style list.

    graphics/09fig06.jpg

  4. Press Enter .

Word creates a style that includes all the font and paragraph formatting in the paragraph. The new style is now included in the Style list and in the Styles and Formatting task pane.

Using the New Style Dialog Box

The most flexible way to create styles (either character or paragraph) is to use the New Style dialog box. When you use this method, you can instruct Word to save the style in the template so that it will be available to other documents.

To create a style by using the New Style dialog box, follow these steps:

  1. If it's convenient , click in a paragraph that contains formatting similar to the style you want to create. This can save you a click or two selecting the desired formatting in a moment, but it is not necessary.

  2. Click the New Style button in the Styles and Formatting task pane (refer back to Figure 9.4) to display the New Style dialog box (see Figure 9.7).

    Figure 9.7. The New Style dialog box enables you to create styles.

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  3. Type a name for your style in the Name text box (type over the default name Style1 ). Leave the Style Type option set to Paragraph, unless you want to create a character style. Look at the Style Based On text box, and choose Normal if it isn't already selected. Doing this ensures that your new style is based on the "plain- vanilla " Normal style. For now, don't worry about the Style for Following Paragraph text box. That is covered later in "Chaining Styles Together."

  4. Mark the Add to Template check box if you want to add the style to the template underlying the current document. If you do this, the style will be available to other documents based on the template.

    graphics/bookpencil_icon.gif

    In general, it's best to leave the Automatically Update check box clear. When it's marked , you can modify a style by revising the formatting in a paragraph to which the style is applied. However, when you modify a style in this way, the modified version is saved in the document only, not in the template. Furthermore, you can easily end up modifying a style when you didn't mean to.


  5. Buttons for the most commonly used font and paragraph formatting options appear under Formatting in the middle of the dialog box. If you see any options you want to include in your style here, select them now.

  6. If there are other formatting options you want to add, click the Format button in the lower-left corner of the New Style dialog box to display a list of commands that lead to all the dialog boxes in which you can select font and paragraph formatting.

  7. Click the command that leads to the dialog box that contains the formatting you want to add. For example, click Font to display the Font dialog box so that you can specify the font formatting for the style. Make your selections in the dialog box, and click OK to return to the New Style dialog box.

  8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 to add all the formatting that you want to the style. It is based on the Normal style, and also contains a Garamond, italic, 12-point font, left and right indents of 1 inch, justification, and 12 points of paragraph spacing after the paragraph.

    graphics/lightbulb_icon.gif

    If you want to apply your style with a keyboard shortcut, click the Format button, and then choose the Shortcut Key command in the menu that appears. In the Customize Keyboard dialog box, press the keyboard shortcut you want to use so that it appears in the Press New Shortcut Key text box. If the shortcut is already assigned to a different command, Word displays a message to that effect in the dialog box. You may use that shortcut if you like, replacing the current command, or choose another one that's unassigned . When you have found the shortcut that you want to use, click the Assign button, and then click the Close button.


  9. Click OK to close the New Style dialog box.

Your new style now appears in the Style list in the Formatting toolbar and in the Styles and Formatting task pane.

Creating Styles for Your Headings

If you want to take advantage of four key features for working with documents that contain headings and subheadings the table of contents feature, the Document Map, Outline view, and cross-referencesyou have to apply styles to your headings that tell Word what level each heading should be. You have two options for doing this. The first option involves using (and optionally modifying) the default heading styles:

  • Apply the default heading styles that come with the Normal template (Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3). Use Heading 1 for your main headings, Heading 2 for your subheadings, and Heading 3 for your sub-subheadings. You can't change the names of these styles, but you can modify them to change the formatting they contain (see the next section). This is often the easiest method to use.

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To apply the built-in Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3 styles with the keyboard, click in the desired paragraph and press Ctrl+Alt+1, Ctrl+Alt+2, or Ctrl+Alt+3 respectively. If you want convert any paragraph to which you've applied a heading style back to the Normal style, click in it and press to Ctrl+Shift+N.


The second option involves creating your own heading styles:

  • Create your own heading styles with whatever names you choose. (You could use the names Chapter Heading, Section Heading, and Sub Heading, for example, though the style names do not even need to include the word heading .) Then include in each style an outline level setting that tells Word the style's heading level. See the next set of steps.

When you are adding the formatting to your custom heading styles (see steps 58 in the preceding section), use the Format button to set the outline levels for your styles, as described in these steps:

  1. Click the Format button in the New Style dialog box.

  2. Click the Paragraph command to display the Paragraph dialog box, and click the Indents and Spacing tab.

  3. Display the Outline Level drop-down list in the upper-right corner of the dialog box, and choose an outline level (see Figure 9.9). Choose Level 1 as the outline level for your top-level heading style, Level 2 for your next-highest heading style, and so on.

    Figure 9.9. Assign an outline level to your style if you want to use it as one of your heading styles.

    graphics/09fig09.jpg



Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Office Word 2003 in 24 Hours
Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Office Word 2003 in 24 Hours
ISBN: 067232556X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 315
Authors: Heidi Steele

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