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Understand Styles in Word 2016

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Updated:  
2016-03-26 07:22:24
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Word 2010 For Dummies
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In Word 2016, a style is a collection of text and paragraph formats. These formats are saved as a collection, given a name, and applied to text just like any other format. The difference is that when you apply a style, you're applying all the formats stored in that style. For heavy-duty formatting, styles save time.

Styles are available in all documents, whether or not you choose to use them. In fact, any text you type has a style automatically applied; it can't be avoided. All text in a blank document uses the Normal style, Word's primary (or default) text style.

The Normal style is defined with the following formats: Calibri font, 11 points tall, left-justified paragraphs, multiple line spacing at 1.08 lines, no indenting, zero margins, and 8 points of space after every paragraph.

Word's Style names give you a clue to how to use the style, such as Heading 1 for the document's top-level heading, or Caption, used for figure and table captions.

Styles are also categorized by which part of the document they affect. Five style types are available:

  • Paragraph: The paragraph style contains both paragraph- and text-formatting attributes: indents, tabs, font, text size — you name it. It's the most common type of style.

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  • Character: The character style applies to characters, not paragraphs. This type of style uses the character-formatting commands.

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  • Linked: The linked style can be applied to both paragraphs and individual characters. The difference depends on which text is selected when the style is applied.

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  • Table: The table style is applied to tables, to add lines and shading to the table cells' contents.

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  • List: The list style is customized for presenting lists of information. The styles can include bullets, numbers, indentation, and other formats typical for the parts of a document that present lists of information.

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These types come into play when you create your own styles, as well as when you're perusing styles to apply to your text.

About This Article

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About the book author:

Dan Gookin has been writing about technology for 20 years. He has contributed articles to numerous high-tech magazines and written more than 90 books about personal computing technology, many of them accurate.
He combines his love of writing with his interest in technology to create books that are informative and entertaining, but not boring. Having sold more than 14 million titles translated into more than 30 languages, Dan can attest that his method of crafting computer tomes does seem to work.
Perhaps Dan’s most famous title is the original DOS For Dummies, published in 1991. It became the world’s fastest-selling computer book, at one time moving more copies per week than the New York Times number-one best seller (although, because it’s a reference book, it could not be listed on the NYT best seller list). That book spawned the entire line of For Dummies books, which remains a publishing phenomenon to this day.
Dan’s most recent titles include PCs For Dummies, 9th Edition; Buying a Computer For Dummies, 2005 Edition; Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies; Dan Gookin’s Naked Windows XP; and Dan Gookin’s Naked Office. He publishes a free weekly computer newsletter, “Weekly Wambooli Salad,” and also maintains the vast and helpful Web site www.wambooli.com.