Open the Styles pane from the Home tab, in the Styles group. In Word 2010, click the dialog launch icon. In Word 2011, click the paragraph icon that appears in that group.

(Word 2010 users can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S to toggle the Styles pane open or closed.)

As always, just click a style name in this pane to apply it to the selection. Or, as shown earlier in Figure 8-2, click the arrow that appears beside a style name (when you hover your mouse pointer on the name) to expand a menu of shortcut options.

From the Styles pane, you can also click the New Style button (which appears at the bottom of the pane in Word 2010 and the top in Word 2011) to create a new style using the dialog box. And you can customize which styles appear in the pane.

Built-in styles are those that are available to a new Word document by default, before any custom styles have been created. A new, default Word 2010 document contains a whopping 264 styles before you even get started (273 in Word 2011), between those actually stored in the document and those that are added as you use applicable features (such as a header or a footnote).

As you can imagine, the number of built-in styles alone is a good reason to use them when they will work for your needs. After all, why add more styles to a document when you can just edit the existing ones? In the spirit of the “lazy operator” introduced in Chapter 1, you’ll get along best with Word when you don’t add anything to a document that doesn’t need to be there.

Let’s take a closer look at those built-in styles. The total number of built-in styles breaks down as follows:

In Word 2003, a default Word document had 154 built-in styles available. The additional styles were added as of Word 2007 and Word 2008 for Mac. Of the 110 additional built-in styles added in those versions, 98 are table styles, 6 are character styles, and 6 are paragraph styles.

However, before you start screaming that this is crazy and you don’t want 264 styles in your documents, consider the following:

So, should you always use built-in styles rather than create your own? Of course not. There will be times when creating your own styles makes sense. The best practice is to first consider whether you can modify built-in styles for your needs, particularly when it comes to paragraph and character styles.

As discussed earlier in this chapter, some character styles are necessary because they work with Word features, such as the Footnote Reference or Page Number style. But if you just want to bold occasional words, for example, why use a character style rather than direct formatting?

The fact is that it’s often not necessary to use character styles in these cases, and doing so has no real benefits. Character styles used to offer different functionality from direct character formatting and could be retained more consistently when changes were made to underlying paragraph styles. However, in recent versions of Word, this has become a nonissue, because direct character formatting and character styles have similar retention behavior.

However, using character styles for that occasional bold word can be helpful in some cases, simply because those styles have a name and can be edited. For example, if you bold every instance of a client’s name throughout a long document and later decide that you want those to be underlined instead of bold, it’s much easier to make that change if you used a character style. If you used the Replace feature in that case to search for all bold text and replace with underline, you would also change any bold text that is part of the paragraph style, such as headings. However, if you have a character style for bold that you use in those cases, you can simply edit the style to make that change.

There is more to consider when creating styles than what the formatting will look like when it’s applied in your document. If the styles are not intuitive and easy to use, it doesn’t much matter how they would look in the document. The more you consider ease of use, the more likely styles will be used properly in your documents, so the more likely your documents will look consistent and remain healthy in the long term.

Two of the most important components for keeping styles easy to manage in your documents are also two of the most often overlooked: base styles, and style for the following paragraph.

Working with Document Defaults

Document defaults are an important factor in base styles, as discussed in the section that follows. Understanding document defaults can help you manage base styles much more easily.

In Word 2010, in the Manage Styles dialog box (accessible from the bottom of the Styles pane), you see the Set Defaults tab shown in Figure 8-6. From this tab, you can edit the default font and paragraph formatting settings for the active document or templates.

Figure 8-6. The Set Defaults tab of the Manage Styles dialog box in Word 2010.

This dialog box is not available in Word 2011. However, in both Word 2010 and Word 2011, you can set font formatting defaults from the bottom of the Font dialog box—which you might recall from earlier versions of Word as well.

The ability to also manage defaults for paragraph formatting was added for Windows users in Office 2007. This additional functionality gives you quick and easy access to manage most of the defaults that are stored in your base styles without having to modify styles directly.

Have you ever selected just a few words in a paragraph and then applied a paragraph style, only to have the style apply as if it were a character style—in other words, just to the selected text? If so, you were using a linked style.

In Word 2010, you see this additional style type in the Styles pane and as an option when you create styles through the dialog box. Linked styles are just paragraph styles that you can also apply as character styles (that is, apply only the font formatting from the style to just part of a paragraph).

For Windows users, linked styles were first exposed in Word 2007. Before that, you could use built-in linked styles as both paragraph and character styles (such as the styles Heading 1–9), but there was no visual indication in Word of which styles were linked, and you could not create your own linked styles. In Word for Mac, this is still the case with Word 2011.

In the Styles pane, notice that paragraph styles display a paragraph symbol, and character styles display the letter a to represent a character. In Word 2010, linked styles display an icon that includes both the character and paragraph symbol.

Nearly half of all built-in paragraph styles in Word 2010 and Word 2011 are actually linked styles.

When you plan the styles for a document or template, keep in mind the following basic best practices for helping to ensure ease of use:

Once you have customized the Styles gallery to contain only the styles you want users to access, you can save the styles in that gallery as a Quick Style Set for use in other documents.

A Quick Style Set is a type of template that contains only paragraph and character styles. You can apply one to any document without changing the attached template. A Quick Style Set changes nothing but the makeup of paragraph and character styles in the document.

Word comes with some built-in style sets as well, and you can find both these and your custom style sets in the same location.

Figure 8-7. The Quick Style Set list, accessible from the Home tab, in the Styles group.

In Word 2010, you can point to style set names to preview them in your document. Of course, you will see previews only if styles with the same names as those contained in the set are applied in the active view of your active document.

In both Word 2010 and Word 2011, you can just click to apply the style set to your document. When you do, styles in your active document with the same names as those in the style set will update to take on the definition from the style set. Additional styles in the set that were not in your active document will also be added.

To save the contents of your active Quick Style list as a new Quick Style Set:

At the bottom of the Quick Style Set gallery, note that you also have options to reset the Quick Styles in your document to the defaults for the document or to the settings in the attached template.

Quick Style Sets are a clean and simple option for when you need to provide consistent sets of styles for a group of users, without dictating layout or other template elements. Quick Style Sets can also be great for people who create content for multiple clients.

For example, I often write for different Microsoft websites, many of which have their own style requirements. Instead of saving several document templates when all I need is a set of styles, I have separate Quick Style Sets to apply to blank documents when I’m writing content for different groups.

There are a number of different ways to create and apply lists in Word, which probably isn’t news to you. For our purposes, we’ll whittle it down to two essential types of lists and take it from there: single-level lists and multilevel lists.

The things that frustrate list users are often a result of the way Word might make you believe lists work. In software terminology, we’d say that the features are poorly exposed. In the real world, that just means the way you need to access and use these features isn’t intuitive; it can be confusing and misleading. But it doesn’t have to be. So, let’s cut through the confusion and tackle some of the most common list issues.

Using Key Best Practices to Create and Manage Lists

Rule number one of simplifying list formatting is this: if it can be controlled by the list, it must be controlled by the list.

This rule applies most often with indents and alignment, discussed in the list that follows. But it’s a good point to keep in mind regardless of what you’re doing with the list. Don’t go through paragraph formatting or a paragraph style to control what the list can do. Always use the list-related dialog boxes to apply any available formatting or settings for your list (such as customizing indents or attaching a style to a level of a multilevel list). Follow this one simple rule and even if you don’t read any further, you’ll start to like Word lists a little bit better.

In addition to this essential rule for keeping your lists working correctly, keep the following points in mind:

• You can change bullet and text indents in the multilevel list dialog box (and, in Word 2011, the single-level list dialog boxes as well). But you can also change indents in the Paragraph dialog box or on the ruler, right? Nope.

  Word doesn’t give you any visual indication that it’s a problem to set indents for bulleted or numbered paragraphs through paragraph formatting, but just don’t do it. Remember, if formatting can be controlled by the list, it has to be controlled by the list or it’s unlikely to stick.

• For Windows users, the question of how to set indents for your list levels became especially confusing as of Word 2007, when indent settings moved out of the dialog box options where you customize single-level lists. It seemed logical then that you could just set indents as you do any paragraph formatting. But it’s not so.

  Right-click an automatic bullet or number in Word 2010, and you see the option Adjust List Indents, as shown in Figure 8-8.

  

  Figure 8-8. The Adjust List Indents dialog box

  Notice that this dialog box has the same options that you used to have in the single-level list dialog boxes for setting indent behavior and number alignment within the list. For single-level lists in Word 2010, right-click is the only built-in way to access this dialog box. You can, however, add it to your Quick Access Toolbar, the Ribbon, or a custom keyboard shortcut.

  The important thing to remember here is just to use this dialog box to adjust indents and related settings for your list. Don’t use the ruler or the Paragraph dialog box, or your indents won’t stick under all circumstances.

  Note that when you click the Adjust List Indents command when working in a multilevel list or list style, Word opens the Define New Multilevel List dialog box.

  Note

  See Also Learn more about working with indents and alignment in lists in the two upcoming sidebars Understanding Number Alignment and Text Indent and When I Use Center Paragraph Alignment, Automatic Numbering Is Not Correctly Aligned.

• In Word 2011, the dialog boxes for working with all types of lists remain much the same as they have been for several versions (and are consistent with the Bullets And Numbering dialog box that Windows users know from Office 2003). As you see in Figure 8-9, the Bullets And Numbering dialog box includes tabs for single-level numbered and bulleted lists, outline numbered (multilevel) lists, and list styles. On each tab, you have a gallery and a Customize command through which you can configure list settings.

  

  Figure 8-9. The Bullets And Numbering dialog box in Word 2011.

  Only the way you get to the features here differs from Word 2010 in terms of all best practices discussed in this chapter. The underlying concepts of how lists work in Word and how to keep them working properly for you are exactly the same.

• Do not set the Start At value for any level of your list, unless you have a specific requirement in your document to do so. When you set the Start At value, that number is no longer dynamic, so it will not change to accommodate changes in your list.

  I can’t tell you how many times someone has told me that the numbering in the document was corrupted because it didn’t update correctly. Of course there’s no corruption at all. Without fail, this happens either because someone faked numbered paragraphs at some point in the document (by typing in numbers rather than using the automatic list), or used the Start At value setting to specify the number.

  The Start At value is designed for cases when you specifically need to start the list somewhere other than at the beginning (such as if a document is split into multiple files and the list extends across those files). But don’t ever use this setting as a workaround because numbering isn’t updating correctly and you don’t know why. Instead, check the paragraphs that are supposedly part of the list to ensure that they all use automatic numbering and are part of the same list.

• Do not type numbering into the Number Format box in any list-related formatting dialog box. (In the Word 2010 Define New Multilevel List dialog box, this box is called Enter Formatting For Number, as you see in Figure 8-10.)

  

  Figure 8-10. The Define New Multilevel List dialog box, shown in Word 2010. Notice the Enter Formatting For Number box (called Number Format in all other list-related formatting dialog boxes).

  When you select a number style from the Number Style list shown in Figure 8-10 (or the similar lists in the single-level list dialog boxes), it is added to the Formatting box as a field, so it will update dynamically. Any text (such as a period) that you type into the Number Format box is static and thus will always be the same for each new paragraph on that level.

Understanding Number Alignment and Text Indent

Alignment in list-related dialog boxes refers to the numbers or bullets themselves and does not affect paragraph alignment. For example, if you change number alignment to Right, then two-digit numbers are right-aligned with single-digit numbers in the list. The alignment of the paragraph is completely unrelated.

(Note that, for single-level lists in Word 2010, the number position and text indent settings are in the Adjust List Indent dialog box, and the number Alignment setting is in the Define New Number—or Bullet—dialog box.)

The Number Position (or Bullet Position) corresponds to the paragraph’s first line indent. The Text Indent/Text Position setting refers to the paragraph’s hanging indent (that is, the left indent for all lines of the paragraph except the first).

Don’t be concerned if you look at the definition for an associated paragraph style for a level in a list—or in the Paragraph dialog box—and see settings instead for left indent plus either hanging indent (most common) or first line indent. This is because first line and hanging indents are, technically, mutually exclusive. When you set both a first line and a hanging indent through an applicable bullets and numbering dialog box, Word views the smaller of those indents as the left indent, because it is the leftmost edge of the paragraph.

For example, Figure 8-11 shows the list indent formatting for a bulleted paragraph with a hanging indent, alongside the related style definition indent settings. Notice that the bullet position is included in the style definition as the left indent, and the text indent is the hanging indent (although in the style, or in the Paragraph dialog box, the measurement of the hanging indent excludes the width of the left indent).

Figure 8-11. The same list indent settings shown in the Adjust List Indents dialog box and in the corresponding paragraph style definition.

When I Use Center Paragraph Alignment, Automatic Numbering Is Not Correctly Aligned

When the paragraph style attached to a list level uses center paragraph alignment, such as when you want the number to appear on its own line above the paragraph text, you need to check four settings to ensure that your numbering is correctly centered.

In the list-related dialog box that contains the number alignment and position settings:

• Set Number Alignment to Left

• Set Aligned At to 0

• Set Text Indent At to 0

• Set Follow Number With to Nothing

Left number alignment actually means no alignment, because the number alignment is then left to match the paragraph alignment. The Aligned At and Text Indent At settings need to be zero, because you don’t want to indent the number when the paragraph is already centered. Following the number with nothing allows you to type one or two manual line breaks (Shift+Enter) after the number, if needed, to perfectly center the number over the paragraph text.

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To copy a list style between documents or templates, use the Organizer mentioned earlier in the sidebar Why Do Bullets and Numbering Disappear At Will? and shown in Figure 8-12.

Notice in the Organizer that you can select any document or template for both the left and right sides of the dialog box. So, you can actually copy the styles without having either document open, or when the destination document is open instead of the source document.

When you want the formatting to remain the same in the destination document, the important thing to remember is to copy the list style and all of its associated paragraph styles together.

Once you have copied a list style, it will appear in the Multilevel List gallery whenever the destination document or template is open. As long as you copy all associated paragraph styles along with the list style, the relationship between the list style and its paragraph styles, as well as all list style formatting, will remain intact.

To create a new table style, just right-click a style in the gallery and then click New Table Style. You can also click the New Style button on the Styles pane and then select Table as the style type. And, in Word 2010, the New Table Style command is also available at the bottom of the Table Styles gallery.

When you add formatting to your style, notice the list labeled Apply Formatting To, as shown in Figure 8-14. Be sure to change this setting as needed to specify formatting for the entire table, a heading row, first column, or other table element.

Figure 8-14. The Create New Style From Formatting dialog box, shown in Word 2010 with table style options active (this dialog box is named New Style in Word 2011).

By default, new tables are formatted with Table Grid style, which is the Table Normal base style introduced earlier, plus a half-point width grid of borders on all cells. Depending on the way you use tables, however, that grid might not be appropriate for most tables.

For example, I use tables frequently for laying out pages, as discussed in Chapter 9. When a table is used for layout, it’s not usually appropriate for the grid to appear. For this reason, I set Table Normal to be the default for all new tables I create.

In another example, when I’m creating branded templates for my clients, they often have a custom table style that coordinates with their branding. To make it easy for users to get this formatting, I set that custom style as the default in the particular template.

A default table style can be set by document (or, in Word 2010, by template), so if you have a table style designed for the tables in your document, you can set that style as the default to save time and help ensure consistent formatting.

To set a table style as the default:

As shown throughout this chapter, this dialog box combines the Style dialog box functionality of versions prior to Word 2007 (an access point to create, modify, or delete styles, as well as to access the Organizer) with capabilities including the ability to prioritize, restrict, and show or hide styles, as well as to set font and paragraph defaults.

Notice that for all tabs in the Manage Styles dialog box, you can apply your settings to the active document or to all new documents based on the active template.

In Word 2010, at the bottom of the Styles pane, click the Style Inspector icon (shown at left) to open the Style Inspector dialog box, shown in Figure 8-15.

Figure 8-15. The Style Inspector dialog box.

The Style Inspector is a simple but invaluable pane that enables you to distinguish styled from direct formatting in selected text. This tool is great to use when troubleshooting document formatting because you can distinguish what formatting belongs to the style and quickly clear either direct or styled formatting at both the font and paragraph levels.

Notice the icon at the bottom of the Style Inspector pane, which is very similar to the Style Inspector icon but actually opens the Reveal Formatting task pane.

In Word 2011, Mac users get a cool new tool, known as visual styles, that gives you an instant, clear look at the styles and direct formatting in your Print Layout view documents.

To use visual styles, at the bottom of the Word 2011 Styles pane, click Show Style Guides and Show Direct Formatting Guides. Figure 8-16 shows you what happens when you select these options. However, a black-and-white book can’t do the feature justice; the style guides are color-coded for a crystal-clear view of where each style is applied in the document.

Direct formatting guides here are the bubbles (actually blue bubbles) that surround text at certain points in the document. These don’t call out direct paragraph formatting—just direct character formatting (and note that they will pick up some types of international characters as well)—but can still be extremely useful.

Figure 8-16. Style guides and direct formatting guides in use in a Word 2011 Print Layout view document.