Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Office 2003 in 24 Hours
Authors: Perry G.
 Published year: 2003
 Pages: 42-44/272
Buy this book on amazon.com >>

Word Themes

A theme is a set of predefined and unified elements that often appear in documents. Here are some of the elements defined within a theme:

  • Background colors

  • Heading and regular paragraph styles

  • Horizontal lines

  • Web hyperlinks

  • Bulleted and numbered lists

  • Table borders and colors

Notice that some of the theme elements apply to documents you create for Web pages, graphic presentations, and reports . In a nutshell , a theme is like a personality that your document takes on.

When you use a template or a template-based wizard to create a document, Word adds the template's formatting and styles to the blank document. When you apply a theme to a document, every theme-defined element within your document changes instantly ”even after you've completed the document.

To apply a theme, either before, during, or after you create a document, select Format, Theme. Word displays the Theme dialog box, such as the one in Figure 3.13.

Figure 3.13. A theme changes elements within your document.

graphics/03fig13.jpg

Many themes are tied to standard styles that are available within all Word documents, such as Heading 1 (for major headlines), Heading 2 (for titles), and regular text. If you utilize styles, you will learn which styles are most beneficial to your work and you'll begin to apply those styles to your documents to maintain a uniform appearance. For example, you can apply the Heading 1 style to your themed document's major title or headline, and later you could apply a different theme. Word then updates your headline to match the new theme.

Styles, Templates, or Themes?

Word and the other Office products offer so many choices; even Office gurus get confused . A style is a specific set of formats you can apply to text. A template is a predefined set of styles that you request when you first create a document. Until you change one of the specific template styles, that style will apply to any text that uses the style. If you want to change the look of a document that you create with a template (or with a template wizard), you must redo all the styles by hand.

A theme is a predefined set of styles for a document. When you change an existing document's theme (or apply a theme to a document that never had one), Word does all the work for you by reformatting all the theme's predefined styles. You can change a theme over and over until your document looks the way you want.


Summary

This hour explained the various format options available to Word users. Keep your audience in mind; don't overdo formats or your documents will look cluttered. Keep your documents readable as you format.

You can apply the character formats to individual characters as well as to selected text or even the entire document. Paragraph formats control the spacing and justification of paragraphs. By using styles, templates, and themes, you help streamline the overall uniform look and personality of your documents.

The next hour moves into document management and Word customization. Depending on how you use Word, you might want to change the way Word behaves in certain situations ”and you will learn how to do just that.


Q&A

Q1:

How can I type an italicized paragraph?

A1:

Before typing the paragraph, set up the formatting. If you want to italicize a word, phrase, or an entire document that you are about to type, press Ctrl+I (or click the Formatting toolbar's Italic button) before you type, and Word will italicize the text as you type it.

Q2:

How can I see my entire page on the screen at once?

A2:

If you have an extremely high-resolution monitor and graphics adapter card, you can probably see an entire document page when you select the full-screen view with View, Full Screen. If you want to see the toolbars , menu, and status bar, however, you probably have to adjust the display by selecting View, Zoom. After you display the Zoom dialog box, click the Page Width option to enable Word to fit the text within your screen width, or you can control the width using the Percent option. The only other way to see an entire page is to select File, Print Preview to enter the Print Preview mode; in Print Preview mode, you can make simple margin adjustments but no text changes.

Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Office 2003 in 24 Hours
Authors: Perry G.
 Published year: 2003
 Pages: 42-44/272
Buy this book on amazon.com >>

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