Office 2003 timesaving techniques for dummies

Finding Styles 159 Finding Styles If you can’t find the style you want, Word might have a suitable one tucked away To see more built-in styles Bring up the Styles and Formatting task pane (see Figure 21-4) by clicking the AA icon at the far left of the Formatting toolbar or choosing Format➪Styles and Formatting • Figure 21-5: In spite of the caption, this is not a list of all available Word styles In the Show drop-down box, choose Custom Word shows you the Format Settings dialog box, with the settings for All Styles selected (see Figure 21-6) • Figure 21-4: The only way to get at Word’s additional styles is through the Styles and Formatting task pane In the Show drop-down box, choose All Styles Word shows you a list of most of the built-in styles (see Figure 21-5) but not all of them Mark the check boxes next to any styles you want to see in the All Styles list When you’re done, click OK In particular, you need to work with the Balloon Text style and Comment Text style to change the font used in Word’s track changes balloons (see Technique 19) 160 Technique 21: Rapid-Fire Styles Click the text that you want to analyze Choose Format➪Reveal Formatting Word brings up the Reveal Formatting pane Select the Distinguish Style Source check box Word shows you where the current formatting came from (see Figure 21-7) • Figure 21-6: This is where you can choose all the built-in styles that Word offers Working with all of Word’s 160 styles can be more than a bit time-consuming and overwhelming — not just because of the sheer number of styles but also because the styles rarely match the kind of formatting that you probably want to apply As soon as you’ve scoured Word’s built-in styles to see whether you can pull out the style you need, return the Show drop-down box to Available Formatting to avoid wading through mountains of styles To see what style has been applied to a specific piece of text, the following: • Figure 21-7: Word’s Reveal Formatting tells you where all the formatting came from The Style drop-down list on the Formatting toolbar always contains the name of the style you’re currently working with Remaking Word’s Default Styles If you’re trying to juggle many different styles and want to see a list of paragraph style names while you type, go into Normal view (View➪Normal) and make sure that the Style Area Width is wide enough to display your style’s names (Tools➪Options➪View; set the Style Area Width) ߜ Header and Footer are the styles that Word automatically uses for document headers and footers ߜ List Bullet n and List Number n are for bulleted lists and numbered lists, respectively Note that Word does not include predefined styles for the last bulleted paragraph in a series or for the last numbered paragraph (Many people create styles for the last bulleted or numbered paragraph to add extra space before the main text resumes.) The List Continue n styles are indented like their associated List Bullet and List Number styles, but they lack the bullet or number Remaking Word’s Default Styles To make a good, solid set of consistent styles that work with all of Word’s built-in features (including Table of Contents, Document Map, Outlines, and much more), start with the standard styles defined in Word and make modifications to the styles to suit your tastes as well as your documents’ needs You can create a set of custom styles in a template (see Technique 16) Any new document based on that template will take on the styles that you defined ߜ Body Text styles were created to be the main styles in documents that don’t want to rely on Normal style (Normal style, as you might guess, is the style that Microsoft sets up to be the default style in new blank documents.) The formatting settings that Microsoft has given Body Text are a bit odd, so make sure that you understand them (or change them!) before working with them ߜ The Table styles exist primarily to tie into Word’s Table AutoFormat dialog box (Table➪Insert Table➪AutoFormat) I don’t know anyone who tries to modify them Speaking style-name jargon Word’s major built-in styles have some names that might not be familiar: ߜ Heading n styles are for headings (sometimes called heads in the print trade) Heading is the highest-level heading — typically, a chapter name Heading is the next lower level and so on Few documents use more than Heading Heading n styles are tied into all sorts of timesaving Word features Stick with them unless you have an overwhelmingly compelling reason to give them the heave-ho ߜ Emphasis and Strong are character styles for italic and bold, respectively 161 Modifying a style Redefining an existing Word style is easy: Bring up the Styles and Formatting task pane (refer to Figure 21-4) by clicking the AA icon at the far left of the Formatting toolbar or choosing Format➪Styles and Formatting Click the drop-down arrow to the right of the style that you want to change In Figure 21-8, I want to change the Heading style Why? Because it’s bold italic, and that offends my Typography 101-entrenched sensibilities, which state clearly that no text should ever be both bold and italic 162 Technique 21: Rapid-Fire Styles • Figure 21-9: Make changes to the style here • Figure 21-8: Click to the right of the style name and then choose Modify Choose Modify Word shows you the Modify Style dialog box, as shown in Figure 21-9 Several settings in that dialog box are difficult to understand — and one is downright dangerous See Table 21-2 for some insight Click OK Word modifies the style and, in so doing, modifies every paragraph in the document formatted with that style (If you modify a character style, all the text that has been formatted with that character style changes to conform to the new formatting settings.) Make any changes that you need to the style In Figure 21-9, I click the italic icon (I ) to toggle it off I also mark the Add to Template check box because I want normal.dot to be modified so that all new blank documents will have a Heading style that is bold but not italic (see Technique 16) Numbering headings automatically As long as you don’t try to anything fancy, it’s easy to get Word to automatically number headings For example, you might want to modify the Heading style so that it puts the word Chapter at the beginning of every Heading paragraph and numbers the paragraphs automatically That way, you could type three lines in a document: Remaking Word’s Default Styles I Started Out as a Child Bring up the Styles and Formatting task pane (refer to Figure 21-4) by clicking the AA icon at the far left of the Formatting toolbar or choosing Format➪Styles and Formatting Click the drop-down arrow to the right of the style that you want to start numbering and then choose Modify Life in a Small Town School The Liberation That is Graduation Apply the Heading style to each of the three lines and get this: I pick the Heading style and choose Modify Word responds with the Modify Style dialog box (see Figure 21-10) Chapter I Started Out as a Child Chapter Life in a Small Town School Chapter The Liberation That is Graduation Because the numbering system is keyed to the Heading style, you can add a new chapter and rearrange all the chapter numbers by simply applying the Heading style to a paragraph Similarly, you can click and drag the Heading paragraphs to any place in the document, and chapters are renumbered automatically with absolutely no effort on your part To set up simple, sequential numbering for one Heading style 163 In the lower-left corner, click the Format button and then choose Numbering Word brings up the Numbered tab of the Bullets and Numbering dialog box, as shown in Figure 21-11 Click once on the numbering scheme in the lower-right corner and then click Customize I always choose the scheme in the lower right because I never use it for anything else ( Word overwrites the scheme when you customize it.) Word shows you the Customize Numbered List dialog box, as shown in Figure 21-12 TABLE 21-2: THE STYLE BUZZWORDS IN THE MODIFY STYLE DIALOG BOX Setting Explanation Style Based On The selected style (shown in the Modify Style dialog box’s Name text box) inherits all the formatting in the Style Based On box You specify which formatting in the selected style differs from the formatting in the Style Based On style — everything else stays the same This setting defines a hierarchy of styles If you change one style, all the styles that are based on that style change, too That’s why changing the Normal style’s font from Times New Roman to Garamond, for example, also changes the font in the Header and Footer styles Style for Following Paragraph When you’re typing and press Enter, the next paragraph appears in whatever style is listed in the Style for Following Paragraph box Note this a confusing exception: If your cursor is anywhere but at the end of the paragraph when you press Enter, the new paragraph is in the same style as the old paragraph Add to Template If you select this check box, any changes that you make not only take effect in the current document but are in the document’s template Thus, every new document that you make based on the template will include this modified style Automatically Update Beware this, one of the most dangerous settings in Word Enable this check box, and Word changes styles based on formatting that you apply manually So if you manually format a paragraph and this box is checked, every paragraph in your document with the same style name is changed Avoid this cause of accumulated eons of gray hair and bad karma 164 Technique 21: Rapid-Fire Styles • Figure 21-10: Modify Heading paragraphs to start autonumbering • Figure 21-12: One of the most inscrutable dialog boxes in Word In the Number Style drop-down box, choose the kind of number that you want (Roman numerals, letters, and so on) Then in the Number Format box, type the text that you want to appear before or after the number Finally, set the Number Position box (which is actually the position of the entire phrase in the Number Format box) to Left In the Number Format box in Figure 21-12, I put the text Chapter before the number and a period after the number Click OK Word returns to the Modify Style dialog box (refer to Figure 21-10) • Figure 21-11: Choose a numbering style here Making New Styles There are as many different opinions about styles as there are about football teams; no one approach is clearly superior to another But if you’re attempting to set up a group of styles for a large organization, make sure that you read Bob Blacksberg’s Laws of Styles, www.woodyswatch.com/ office/archtemplate.asp?v4-n20 Bob’s words of wisdom apply specifically to legal firms — the last, most desperate bastion on the style frontier — but they’re important guidelines for anyone who needs to come up with a robust set of styles that will survive many generations of writers Do not select the Add to Template check box If you do, you’re on a collision course for screwed up numbering in all of your documents 165 Click OK again Word returns to the document, with your new style ready (see Figure 21-13) Creating a single new style, on the other hand, is quite easy: • Figure 21-13: All Heading paragraphs are now numbered sequentially, with the word Chapter at the beginning If you want to anything more complicated than simple, sequential numbering of one particular style — the procedure I talk about here — you are treading on thin ice and begging for a time-consuming headache that will never quit Shauna Kelly wrote the best discussion I have seen about outline numbering (and more complex numbering) in Word Follow her instructions closely at www.shaunakelly.com/ word/numbering/OutlineNumbering.html or resign yourself to spending days fighting Word’s problems Automatic style numbering is a tremendous timesaver as long as you keep it simple Making New Styles Creating a new set of styles is a time-consuming task but one that can bring large rewards if they’re used consistently Bring up the Styles and Formatting task pane (refer to Figure 21-4) To so, click the AA icon at the far left of the Formatting toolbar or choose Format➪Styles and Formatting Click the New Style button Word shows you the New Style dialog box, as shown in Figure 21-14 Type a name for the style and then select the Style Type Set the formatting that you want In Figure 21-14, I create a paragraph style called Query, which I use to flag items for follow-up while I’m writing It only takes a couple of clicks to set the Query style to red and bold formatting (from the A and the B icons, respectively) See Table 21-1 earlier in this Technique for details about different types of styles If you’re creating a new list style that will automatically number paragraphs, you are treading on thin ice Word’s bugs will drive you nuts See the preceding section 166 Technique 21: Rapid-Fire Styles • Figure 21-14: Creating a new style takes only a few seconds If you want to put the new style in the document’s template (so that you can use it in other documents based on the same template), select the Add to Template check box Click OK Don’t ever enable the Automatically Update check box That gives Word licence to kill your styles Your new style is ready for use in the Styles and Formatting pane (see Figure 21-15) and the Styles drop-down list on the Formatting toolbar You can save a lot of time by associated keyboard shortcuts of your choosing to the styles that you use most frequently To so, in the Styles and Formatting pane, click the downarrow to the right of the style and choose Modify In the Modify Style dialog box, choose Format➪Shortcut Key, and set the keyboard shortcut from there • Figure 21-15: The new, custom Query style is just a click away Refreshing Styles to Match a Template If you ever want to refresh the styles in a document so that they match the styles in the document’s template, the following: If you ever apply a style and you don’t get the formatting you expect, chances are good that the style definition in the document got munged somehow That’s a good time to reach back into the template and refresh the style assuming that you have an up-to-date template, of course ... styles Bring up the Styles and Formatting task pane (see Figure 21-4) by clicking the AA icon at the far left of the Formatting toolbar or choosing Format➪Styles and Formatting • Figure 21-5: In... want to analyze Choose Format➪Reveal Formatting Word brings up the Reveal Formatting pane Select the Distinguish Style Source check box Word shows you where the current formatting came from (see... easy: Bring up the Styles and Formatting task pane (refer to Figure 21-4) by clicking the AA icon at the far left of the Formatting toolbar or choosing Format➪Styles and Formatting Click the drop-down