Objective group 2

Use advanced editing and formatting features

The skills tested in this section of the Microsoft Office Specialist Expert exam for Microsoft Word 365 and Microsoft Word 2019 relate to using Word’s advanced editing and formatting features. Specifically, the following objectives are associated with this set of skills:

2.1 Perform advanced editing and formatting

2.2 Configure paragraph layout options

2.3 Create and manage styles

This chapter guides you in studying the ways in which you can edit and format long, complex documents, such as books, dissertations, reports, and requests for proposals. To begin, this chapter explains some of the advanced editing and formatting features in Word, including how to use wildcards or special characters to search for patterns in text, how to find and replace styles and formatting, and how to work with Word’s options for pasting content. In this chapter you also learn how to wield advanced paragraph layout tools such as hyphenation, line numbers, and pagination options. This chapter also describes how to create and modify styles so that you can more easily format a long document and keep the document’s appearance consistent.

To complete the practice tasks in this chapter, you need the practice files contained in the MOSWordExpert2019\Objective2 practice file folder. For more information, see “Download the practice files” in this book’s Introduction.

Objective 2.1: Perform advanced editing and formatting

This topic explains how to work with advanced editing and formatting features. It describes how to extend find-and-replace operations by using wildcard characters and how to use special characters when you search for and replace text. It next describes how you can carry out find-and-replace operations by using styles or specific formatting. Finally, this topic also covers Word’s options for pasting cut or copied content.

Find and replace text by using wildcards and special characters

Simple find-and-replace operations in Word can be extended in several ways. For example, in the Find And Replace dialog box, you can select an option to search only for whole words, use a case-specific search (they’re instead of They’re), or search by using how words sound (they’re, their, and there). This section describes another way to extend find-and-replace operations—by using wildcard characters and special characters.

See Also

For more information about finding and replacing formatting and styles, see “Find and replace formatting and styles” later in this topic.

Use wildcard characters to find and replace text

You can extend your use of the Find And Replace dialog box by using wildcards. For example, as a wildcard character, the asterisk (*) represents a sequence of one or more characters. The question mark (?) is used to represent a single character within a sequence. When you combine wildcard characters with literal characters, you can find patterns of text.

The following table lists wildcard characters and examples of how to use them.

Wildcard character	Syntax and examples
?	Locates any single character. For example, l?w locates the words law and low and this sequence of characters in words such as below or lawful.
*	Locates a string of characters. For example, J*n finds John, Jocelyn, and Johnson. Wildcard character sequences are case-sensitive. To find joinery and journey, you would use j*n.
<	Finds characters at the start of a word. For example, <plen finds plenty, plentiful, and plentitude. It does not find the word splendid.
>	Finds characters at the end of a word. For example, ful> finds fanciful, useful, and plentiful. It does not find fulfill or wonderfully.
[ ]	Finds one of the characters within a sequence you specify. For example, h[eor]s finds words such as ghosts, these, hose, those, and searches, or the abbreviation hrs (hours). It does not find horse.
[n-n]	Finds any single character within the range you specify. You must specify the range in ascending order (d-l, for example). For instance, [c-h]ave finds gave, have, and leave.
[!n-n]	Finds any single character except the characters in the range you specify. For example, st[!n-z]ck finds stack and stick but not stock or stuck.
{n}	Finds the specified number of instances of the previous character or expression. For example, cre{2}d finds creed (two instances of e) but does not find credential.
{n,}	Finds at least the specified number of instances of the preceding character or expression. For example, cre{1,}d finds both creed and credential.
{n,m}	Finds the number of instances of the preceding character or expression in a range. For example, 50{1,3} finds 50, 500, and 5000.
@	Finds one or more instances of the preceding character or expression. For example, bal@* finds balloon and balcony.
[\wildcard character]	Finds instances of the specified wildcard character. For example, [\*] finds all asterisk wildcard characters.

As shown in the example for the @ symbol, you can combine wildcard characters to create expressions. For example, the expression s[a-n]{2}d finds words such as send, sending, dashed, and slide, but it does not find the word sad. In this expression, Word searches for a string of characters that starts with s, contains two characters within the range a-n, and ends with d. You can also use parentheses to group wildcard characters and text to indicate the order of evaluation. For example, the expression <(det)*(ing)> finds determining and deterring, with the character sequence det at the start of the word (indicated by the < symbol) and the sequence ing at the end (indicated by the > symbol). Keep in mind that all searches in which you use wildcards are case-sensitive. As an example, the expression [c-h]ave finds have and cave but not the name Dave.

Tip

When the Use Wildcards option is selected in the Find And Replace dialog box, the wildcard characters you can use appear on the Special menu. You can then select a character or enter the character or characters you want to use in the Find What and Replace With boxes.

You can also use wildcards to replace patterns of text. For example, you can use the \n wildcard character to invert first and last names by entering (First Name) (Last Name) (that is, a person’s actual first and last names, each enclosed in parentheses) in the Find What box and \2 \1 in the Replace With box. Word finds occurrences of the name and inverts the order so that the last name (item 2) comes first.

To display the Replace tab of the Find And Replace dialog box

• On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Replace.

• Press Ctrl+H.

To search and replace by using wildcard characters

1. Display the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.

2. If the Search Options area isn’t displayed, click More.

3. Select the Use wildcards check box.

4. In the Find what box, enter the wildcard expression for the text you want to find. Select wildcard characters from the Special menu or enter the wildcard character sequence yourself.

5. In the Replace with box, enter any replacement text or select an option from the Special menu.

6. Click Find Next to locate the first instance of the search term.

7. Click Replace or Replace All as appropriate to replace the search term.

Use special characters to find and replace text

To find and replace formatting marks, a character such as an em dash, or a field, you make selections from the Special menu in the Find And Replace dialog box. Special characters are represented by a character combination that begins with the caret symbol (^).

Insert character codes from the Special menu to find and replace special characters such as paragraph marks, notes, and dashes.

In a document with extra paragraph characters, for example, you could search for two paragraph characters (^p^p) and replace the pair with one. If you wanted to search for any year between 2000 and 2009 and replace each year with 2019, you could enter 2^#^#^# (a 2 and three instances of the Any Digit option) in the Find What box and 2019 in the Replace With box.

Items on the Special menu vary depending on whether you are specifying values in the Find What box or the Replace With box. For example, you can choose Clipboard Contents as the value in the Replace With box to replace what you are searching for with the content saved on the Clipboard.

To search and replace by using special characters

1. Display the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box. If necessary, click More to display the Search Options area.

2. In the Find what box, enter any text that you want to include in the search term.

3. Click the Special button, then on the menu, click the special character you want to enter in the box. Repeat as necessary to enter multiple special characters.

4. In the Replace with box, enter any replacement text or special characters.

5. Click Find Next to locate the first instance of the search term.

6. Click Replace or Replace All as appropriate to replace the search term.

Find and replace formatting and styles

In the Find And Replace dialog box, you can use the Format menu to locate text formatted with a specific font, for example, and then replace that font with another. You can also search for formatting attributes such as font size or color, paragraph settings such as line spacing, specific tab settings, text in a specific language, or text or other document elements to which a specific style is applied.

The options on the Format menu open dialog boxes like those that you open from the Home tab to apply or modify formatting. In those dialog boxes, you select or enter settings for the format you want to search for (for example, 12-point Arial font with italic applied), and then specify settings for the new formatting you want to apply (such as 14-point Calibri with a red font color).

When you select Style on the Format menu, you can use options in the Find Style dialog box to specify a style you want to locate and a style with which you want to replace that style.

In the Description area, you can verify the attributes of the style you’re searching for.

When you use these find-and-replace operations to find and replace only formatting or styles (leaving the related text unchanged), you don’t enter any text or other values in the Find What and Replace With boxes. However, you can search for and replace text by using the formatting or style applied to that text. For example, you could search for instances of the text Office 2013 that have the Version Number style applied and replace those instances with the text Office 2019.

To find and replace formatting

1. Display the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box. If necessary, click More to display the Search Options area.

2. Click in the Find what box, then click Format. On the Format menu, click the type of formatting you want to find. In the dialog box that opens, specify the formatting, then click OK.

3. Click in the Replace with box. On the Format menu, click the command for the type of formatting you need. In the dialog box that opens, specify the formatting you want to substitute, then click OK.

4. Click Find Next to locate the first instance of the formatting.

5. Click Replace or Replace All as appropriate to substitute the new formatting.

To find and replace styles

1. Display the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box. If necessary, click More to display the Search Options area.

2. Click in the Find what box, then click Format.

3. On the Format menu, click Style.

4. In the Find Style dialog box, click the style you want to find, then click OK.

5. Click in the Replace with box.

6. On the Format menu, click Style.

7. In the Replace Style dialog box, click the style you want to substitute, then click OK.

8. Click Find Next to locate the first instance of the style.

9. Click Replace or Replace All as appropriate to substitute the new style.

To find and replace text by using formatting or styles

1. Display the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box. If necessary, click More to display the Search Options area.

2. Click in the Find what box, enter the text you want to find, then click Format.

3. On the Format menu, click the command for the type of formatting applied to the text or click Style to search for text with a specific style applied.

4. In the dialog box that opens, specify the formatting or style, then click OK.

5. In the Replace with box, enter the text you want to substitute.

6. Click Find Next to locate the first instance of the text.

7. Click Replace or Replace All as appropriate to substitute the new style.

Apply paste options

Pasting cut or copied text and other content is a common editing task that applies when you’re working with a single Word document, multiple Word documents, or content from another program. The document (or document location) where the content was cut or copied is called the source, and the document where the content is to be pasted is called the destination. As a general rule, if the styles in the documents you are working with have the same definitions, the text and other content will retain the formatting from the source. If the same styles in the source and destination have conflicting definitions, Word uses the style definition in the destination by default.

To control how styles get applied during a paste, or to resolve a conflict in styles between the source and destination, you can use the Paste Options button, which Word displays whenever you paste content. You click the button (or press Ctrl) to open a gallery of icons that provides options for how the content you are pasting should be formatted. You can use the destination formatting, use the source formatting, merge formatting, or keep only the text (so that the content is pasted using the default Normal style). If Live Preview is enabled, Word displays how each option affects the display of the pasted content when you point to the option’s icon.

Use the Paste Options gallery to specify how you want Word to paste the content.

Depending on the content you paste, the Paste Options gallery includes some or all of the following icons:

• Use Destination Styles Click this icon (or press S while the gallery is displayed) to paste the content using the styles as defined in the destination document.

• Picture (Word 365 only) Click this icon (or press U while the gallery is displayed) to paste the content as a picture object (that is, you end up with a noneditable image of the original text, not the text itself).

• Keep Source Formatting Click this icon (or press K while the gallery is displayed) to paste the content using the styles as defined in the source document.

• Merge Formatting Click this icon (or press M while the gallery is displayed) to paste the content without any formatting that was applied directly to the content, except for emphasis formatting (such as bold and italic) that has been applied to only portions of the content. The pasted content assumes the styles and formatting that are in effect at the insertion point.

• Keep Text Only Click this icon (or press T while the gallery is displayed) to discard all the source formatting (as well as any nontext elements such as images) and paste the content so that it assumes the styles and formatting that are in effect at the insertion point.

Tip

When you hover the mouse pointer over a Paste Options gallery icon, Word applies a live preview of the paste option to the pasted content, which enables you to see in advance if a particular paste option produces the effect you want.

By selecting settings on the Advanced page of the Word Options dialog box (or clicking Set Default Paste in the Paste Options gallery), you can control Word’s default paste option in four pasting scenarios: Pasting Within the Same Document, Pasting Between Documents, Pasting Between Documents When Style Definitions Conflict, and Pasting From Other Programs. You can also specify a default paste behavior for images.

Configure options for pasting content.

In the rest of the Cut, Copy, And Paste section, you can set other default pasting behaviors. For example, by default Word preserves bullets and numbers when you use the Keep Text Only paste option, but you can turn this off by clearing the Keep Bullets And Numbers When Pasting Text With Keep Text Only Option check box. Rather than using the Ctrl+V key combination to paste content, you can press the Insert key if you select the Use The Insert Key For Paste check box. In the unlikely event that you never use the Paste Options button and therefore find it just gets in the way, you can prevent it from appearing by clearing the Show Paste Options button When Content Is Pasted check box. Finally, you can click the Settings button next to the Use Smart Cut And Paste option to open the Settings dialog box. The Smart Style Behavior option in this dialog box also affects how Word manages style conflicts. When this option is selected, styles are handled consistently when the style in the document you are pasting from has the same name as a style in the document you are pasting to. The paste options allow you to choose between keeping the formatting and matching the formatting of the destination document.

To apply a paste option

1. Paste some content where you want it to appear in a Word document.

2. Click the Paste Options button (or press Ctrl).

3. Point to the paste option icons, refer to the live preview to view how each option affects the content you are pasting, and then click the option you want to apply.

To set paste options

1. Display the Advanced page of the Word Options dialog box:

   • Click File, click Options, and then click Advanced.

   • After you paste content, click Paste Options, then click Set Default Paste.

2. In the Cut, Copy, and Paste section, use the four Pasting X lists to select the default paste options you want to use.

3. Use the Insert/Paste Pictures As list to set the default paste behavior for images.

4. Use the check boxes in the rest of the Cut, Copy, and Paste section to set Word’s other paste options.

5. To customize Word’s Smart Cut and Paste feature, click Settings.

Objective 2.1 practice tasks

The practice file for these tasks is located in the MOSWordExpert2019\Objective2 practice file folder. The folder also contains a result file that you can use to check your work.

• Open the WordExpert_2-1 document, and do the following:

  • Use wildcards in the Find And Replace dialog box to locate words that start with calor.

  • Use the \n wildcard character to replace the phrase aisle cookie with cookie aisle.

  • Find instances of two consecutive paragraph marks and replace them with a single paragraph mark.

  • Find the instance of the Subtitle style and replace it with the Quote style.

  • Find all the bold text and change the font color to Dark Blue.

• Open the WordExpert_2-1_results document. Compare the two documents to check your work. Then close the open documents.

Objective 2.2: Configure paragraph layout options

This topic describes Word’s advanced paragraph layout options, including how to control hyphenation and add line numbers. Later in this section you also learn how to set paragraph pagination options.

Exam Strategy

The objective domain for Exam MO-101, “Microsoft Word Expert (Word and Word 2019),” requires you to demonstrate the ability to lay out a paragraph. You will not be required to work with layout options for larger document objects such as sections and pages.

Configure hyphenation and line numbers

A raging debate among desktop publishers is going on even as you read this: should you justify text—that is, align the text on both the left and right margins—or should you justify only the left margin and leave the right margin ragged? The answer is, “It depends.” Many people perceive justified text as a formal look and, therefore, more desirable for formal documents. Others insist that the drawbacks of right justification outweigh the perhaps more casual approach of a ragged-right margin. White space comes into play here, both as a positive and a negative.

When you justify text (that is, align the text on both the left and right margins), Word forces extra spaces between words to make the right margin even. These extra spaces can cause “rivers” of unwanted white space to run through your text. When you justify text in columns, Word has fewer words to work with and might insert whole blocks of spaces to even out the margin. Readers find these blocks extremely distracting. On the other hand, ragged-right margins created by aligning text on the left don’t force extra spaces into text and therefore don’t cause white space rivers and blank areas. Extra white space at the right margin also helps open up your text, but sometimes your right edges can look too ragged, particularly if you use many long words.

You can solve both problems using Word’s hyphenation feature, which hyphenates longer words rather than wrapping them onto the next line:

• In justified text, this means you get more text on each line, so you are less likely to have rivers of white space and blank areas are filled in with partial words.

• In right-ragged text, Word fills in the right edge of each line with either entire words, if they fit, or with partial words as part of the hyphenation process, so the raggedness of the right margin is greatly reduced.

Set your hyphenation options.

Unfortunately, if you hyphenate to reduce raggedness, you run the risk of having hyphens ending too many lines, which is another visual distraction for the reader. If you choose to have Word hyphenate a document automatically, you can set an option to limit the number of consecutive hyphens. If you hyphenate a document manually, Word displays a dialog box in which you can confirm the hyphenation Word suggests or reposition a hyphen within a word.

Tip

If you have a paragraph that you do not want hyphenated, you can tell Word to skip it. Right-click anywhere inside the paragraph, then click Paragraph. On the Line And Page Breaks tab, select the Don’t Hyphenate check box.

You can specify hyphenation breaks that meet your requirements.

Some documents require the lines to be numbered so that the reader (or writer) can more easily reference a particular line. Legal documents most often require line numbers, but they are also useful for programming code and literary analysis. You can also apply line numbers by section, so you can add them to some or all of a document. Word’s Line Numbers command inserts line numbers along the left margin of a document. You can also set line-numbering options such as the distance between line numbers and text.

Tip

If you have a paragraph that you do not want to display line numbers, you can tell Word to suppress them. Right-click anywhere inside the paragraph, then click Paragraph. On the Line And Page Breaks tab, select the Suppress Line Numbers check box.

You can display line numbers that use a specific interval by changing the value in the Count By list.

To automatically hyphenate a document

1. On the Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click Hyphenation, then click Hyphenation Options.

2. In the Hyphenation dialog box, select the Automatically hyphenate document check box.

3. In the Limit consecutive hyphens to box, enter or select the maximum number of consecutive hyphenated lines that a paragraph can contain.

4. Click OK.

To manually hyphenate a word

1. In the document, select the word you want to hyphenate.

2. On the Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click Hyphenation, then click Manual.

3. In the Manual Hyphenation dialog box, accept the hyphenation suggested by Word or insert a hyphen where you want to break the word.

To assign line numbers

• Select the paragraph or paragraphs you want to work with. On the Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click Line Numbers, then click a preset option: None, Continuous, Restart Each Page, Restart Each Section, or Suppress for Current Paragraph.

Or

1. Select the paragraph or paragraphs you want to work with.

2. On the Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click Line Numbers, then click Line Numbering Options.

3. On the Layout tab of the Page Setup dialog box, click the Line Numbers button.

4. In the Line Numbers dialog box, select the Add line numbering check box.

5. In the Start at list, click the beginning line number.

6. In the From text list, specify the distance the line number will appear from the left margin of the text, or keep the default setting of Auto.

7. In the Count by list, specify the increment by which line numbers are displayed.

8. In the Numbering area, select the option for how line numbers should be displayed: Restart each page, Restart each section, or Continuous.

9. Click OK in the Line Numbers dialog box, then click OK in the Page Setup dialog box.

Set paragraph pagination options

The Line And Page Breaks tab of the Paragraph dialog box provides options that you can use to control various aspects of page layout.

Select one or more of the Pagination options to control how text breaks across a page.

In the Pagination group, use the following settings to manage pagination:

• Widow/Orphan control A widow is a single line of text that appears at the bottom of a page, and an orphan is a single line that appears at the top of a page. Selecting this option controls widows and orphans by preventing single lines of text at either the start or the end of a page.

• Keep with next This option keeps the lines of text you select together with the paragraph that follows them. You might apply this setting to a heading and the paragraph that follows it so that the heading does not stand alone on the page.

• Keep lines together When you want to keep lines of text together on a page (the stanza of a poem or a quotation, for example), select that text, then set this option.

• Page break before Select this option to insert a page break before selected text.

In the Formatting Exceptions area of the Line And Page Breaks tab, there are two options:

• Suppress line numbers Use this option to turn off the display of line numbers for the active paragraph.

• Don’t hyphenate Use this option to turn off hyphenation in the active paragraph.

The Textbox Options area of the dialog box provides settings for controlling whether the text that wraps a text box is tightly wrapped. You can apply one of the following settings to the active paragraph: None, All, First And Last Lines, First Line Only, and Last Line Only.

To set paragraph pagination options

1. Select the paragraph or paragraphs you want to work with.

2. Either right-click the selection and then click Paragraph or, on the Layout tab, in the Paragraph group, click the dialog box launcher.

3. On the Line and Page Breaks tab of the Paragraph dialog box, do any of the following:

   • In the Pagination area, select any of the Widow/Orphan control, Keep with next, Keep lines together, and Page break before check boxes.

   • In the Formatting exceptions area, select either or both of the Suppress line numbers and Don’t hyphenate check boxes.

   • In the Textbox options area, if the Tight wrap list is active, select an option for how to wrap text around the selected text box.

4. Click OK to apply the settings.

Objective 2.2 practice tasks

The practice file for these tasks is located in the MOSWordExpert2019\Objective2 practice file folder. The folder also contains a result file that you can use to check your work.

• Open the WordExpert_2-2 document, and do the following:

  • Configure the VBA code listing so that it does not get hyphenated.

  • Configure the rest of the document (that is, the non-code text) to suppress line numbers.

  • Manually hyphenate the entire document, accepting Word’s default hyphen placements (for example, in the first paragraph, the words sentence and sentences should be hyphenated as sen-tence and sen-tences, respectively). However, if Word tries to insert a hyphen into a code word (that is, any text in a monospace font), decline the hyphen.

  • Add continuous line numbers to the VBA code listing.

• Open the WordExpert_2-2_results document. Compare the two documents to check your work. Then close the open documents.

Objective 2.3: Create and manage styles

Every paragraph in a Word document is assigned a specific style. You can create an entire document that uses only the default Normal style and then modify the text and other elements with direct formatting, which refers to font, paragraph, and other formatting properties that are applied directly (usually by selecting the text or element and then clicking one or more formatting commands in the ribbon). Examples of direct formatting include adding bold or italic, increasing or decreasing the font size, changing the paragraph alignment, and setting the line spacing.

However, even in a document that contains only one or two levels of headings and regular paragraphs of text, you usually need to do a lot of work to give similar elements a consistent look. Styles provide much more control and consistency in how the elements of a document appear, and after you apply styles to your document, you can change a style’s properties once and Word updates the style throughout the document.

Styles maintain a consistent appearance throughout a document.

Tip

To easily check which style is applied to each paragraph in a document, switch to Draft or Outline view. (You might need to increase the width of the style area pane, which you can do in the Word Options dialog box, in the Display section of the Advanced page.) Word also highlights the style applied to the selected paragraph in the Styles gallery.

This section describes how to create styles, modify an existing style—either a style you create or one of the styles defined in Word by default—and copy styles between documents.

Create paragraph and character styles

In creating a set of styles for a document or a template, you most often work with two style types:

• Paragraph Used to format entire paragraphs.

• Character Used to format one or more characters, words, phrases, or sentences within a paragraph.

Both paragraph and character styles include settings such as font, font size, and font color. Paragraph styles also include attributes for alignment, line spacing, and indentation and can include settings related to text effects, numbering, and other properties.

When you create a style, you work in the Create New Style From Formatting dialog box. If you select text and format it to reflect the style settings you want (by using options on the Home tab, in the Font and Paragraph groups, for example), the Create New Style From Formatting dialog box displays those settings when you open it.

You can use the controls in the Formatting area and the options on the Format menu to further define style attributes.

In the Properties area of the Create New Style From Formatting dialog box, you specify the style’s name, the type of style you want to create, and which style the new style is based on. If you are creating a paragraph style, you can also specify the name of the existing style that you want Word to apply automatically to the following paragraph—that is, to the paragraph that Word creates when you press Enter at the end of the paragraph the new style is applied to.

Use the fields in the Properties area as follows:

• Name Style names are case-sensitive (MyStyle and Mystyle would be considered distinct styles), and you cannot create a style that uses the name of a style built into Word—for example, you cannot create a style named Normal (although you can modify built-in styles, as described in the next section).

• Style type Besides the paragraph and character types described earlier in this topic, you can also select Linked, Table, or List:

  • Linked When you select a linked style, Word applies the character formatting defined in a style (font color, for example, but not line spacing) or the style’s full definition depending on what is selected in the document. When one or more words are selected, selecting a linked style applies the style’s character formatting. Text that isn’t selected is not changed and keeps the current paragraph formatting. If you select the paragraph or place the cursor within the paragraph, a linked style applies both the character and paragraph settings defined in the style.

  • Table You specify standard attributes such as font and paragraph settings, but you can also select settings for borders and shading and how many rows or columns (if any) are banded to display the same background.

  • List You can select settings for different levels. For example, you can set the top level to be numbered 1, 2, 3, with a second level identified with a, b, c, and so on.

• Style based on Select a style whose properties you want to use as the basis for the new style. If you base a style on the built-in Normal style, for example, and then change the font for the Normal style from Calibri to Garamond, Word also changes the font for styles based on the Normal style to Garamond.

• Style for following paragraph Select the style for paragraphs that follow paragraphs that use this style. Word assigns that style when you insert a paragraph break by pressing Enter. For a heading style, for example, specify Normal or another body text style in this list.

In many cases, you can capture all the formatting details you need in a paragraph style—indentation, font size, line spacing, and other such details. Within a paragraph, you can format characters by using the controls in the Font group on the Home tab or by choosing options in the Font dialog box. For more control over character formatting, you can also create styles specifically for groups of characters and then apply those styles as you format the document.

When you select Character in the Style Type list in the Create New Style From Formatting dialog box, the options in the dialog box change so that they apply only to character styles.

When you are creating a character style, the Format menu displays only formatting options relevant to character styles.

In the Style Based On list, Word displays Default Paragraph Font. Open the Style Based On list, then choose from among the built-in character styles if you want to use one of them as a starting point. In the Formatting area of the dialog box, only controls related to character formatting are available to define the style. The Format menu also restricts which formatting options you can apply to a character style.

To create a paragraph style

1. On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click the dialog box launcher in the bottom-right corner to display the Styles pane.

   Tip

   You can also toggle the Styles pane on and off by pressing Alt+Ctrl+Shift+S.

2. At the bottom of the Styles pane, click the New Style button.

   

   Use the buttons at the bottom of the Styles pane to create and work with styles.

3. In the Create New Style from Formatting dialog box, define the style’s properties (name, type, and others), then specify the font, font attributes, indentation, line spacing, and other settings that define the style.

4. For more detailed settings, click Format, choose the type of element you want to format, specify the settings you want in the relevant dialog box, and then click OK.

5. To save the new style in the current template, select New documents based on this template.

6. Click OK to create the style.

To create a character style

1. In the Create New Style from Formatting dialog box, select Character in the Style type list.

2. Use the controls in the Formatting area to define the attributes of the style.

3. For more detailed settings, click Format, choose the type of element you want to format, specify the settings you want in the relevant dialog box, and then click OK.

4. To save the new style in the current template, select New documents based on this template.

5. Click OK to create the style.

Modify existing styles

The basic settings that define a style include font properties (typeface, size, and color), formatting such as bold and italic, text alignment (centered, flush left, flush right, or justified), line spacing, spacing between paragraphs, and indentation. Style definitions can also include settings for character spacing, borders, and text effects such as shadows, text outlines, and fills. The styles you create and the styles defined by default in the standard Normal template are all defined by using attributes and settings such as these.

By changing these settings, you can modify a built-in style, a style you created, or a style that’s defined in the template a document is based on. The Modify Style dialog box lists a style’s properties in the preview area.

Select the New Documents Based On This Template option to save style changes in the template attached to the document.

Many of a style’s basic settings can be modified by using the controls in the Formatting area of the Modify Style dialog box. (These settings are roughly the same as the settings in the Font and Paragraph groups on the Home tab.) The Format button at the bottom of the dialog box opens a menu with commands that lead to dialog boxes that provide options to refine settings for basic elements, including font and paragraph settings, and also to define or update settings for borders, frames, list formats, and special text effects.

Tip

To select all instances of text that have a particular style applied, right-click the style either in the Styles gallery or the Styles pane, and then click Select All X Instance(s) (where X is the number of times that style has been applied in the document).

When you modify a style, be sure to review the check boxes and option buttons at the bottom of the Modify Style dialog box:

• Add to Styles Gallery Keep this check box selected if you have renamed a style, for example, and want it to appear in the Styles gallery on the Home tab.

• Automatically Update Select this check box only if you want Word to automatically modify a style’s definition with any formatting changes you apply to text that the style is applied to. Those changes are reflected in all instances of the style in a document.

• Only in This Document Select this option if you want your style modifications to apply only to the current document.

• New Documents Based on This Template Select this option if you want your style modifications to be stored in the current document’s template.

You can also modify an existing style by selecting text that uses the style and then formatting the text by using controls in the Font and Paragraph groups on the Home tab. When the text has the formatting you want for the style, right-click the style’s name in the Styles gallery (or the Styles pane), and then click Update Name To Match Selection (where Name is the name of the style you right-clicked).

Tip

In the Word Options dialog box, in the Editing Options section on the Advanced page, select Prompt To Update Style to have Word display a dialog box when you apply a style from the Styles gallery that includes updated formatting. In the dialog box, Word prompts you to update the style to include the recent changes or to reapply the formatting defined in the style.

To modify an existing style

1. In the Styles gallery or Styles pane, right-click the style, then click Modify.

2. In the Modify Style dialog box, revise the style’s properties by changing the font, font attributes, indentation, line spacing, and other settings.

3. For more detailed settings, click Format, choose the formatting category you want to work with (such as Font or Paragraph), specify the settings you want in the relevant dialog box, and then click OK.

4. To save the changes to this style in the current template, select New documents based on this template.

5. Click OK.

Tip

Applying styles by using keyboard shortcuts helps you format a document as you enter the document’s text and other content. Word provides keyboard shortcuts for several of its built-in styles. You can assign your own keyboard shortcut to a style when you create it or when you modify the style’s properties. In the Create New Style From Formatting dialog box or the Modify Style dialog box, click Format and then click Shortcut Key to open the Customize Keyboard dialog box.

Copy styles to other documents or templates

The styles that you create in one document or template can be copied or moved so that you can use them in others. By copying styles from one template or document to another, you can reuse styles, keep related templates more consistent, and cut down on the work required to define styles in each template you need. To copy specific styles from one template to another, you use the Organizer dialog box.

Use the Organizer to copy a style from one document or template to another.

The Organizer lists the styles defined in the templates (or documents) that you open by using the Close File and Open File buttons below the Organizer’s list boxes. (You only see the Open File button after you close a file in the Organizer.) The attributes of a style you select in either list box are displayed in the Description area. Read the description to determine whether you need the style in the template to which you are copying styles. In addition to copying styles from template to template, you can delete and rename styles in the Organizer.

To copy styles between document or templates

1. Open the Styles pane.

2. At the bottom of the Styles pane, click the Manage Styles button.

3. In the Manage Styles dialog box, click Import/Export to display the Styles tab of the Organizer.

4. In the Styles available in lists, click the documents or templates you want to copy styles from and to. If the template isn’t in the list, do the following:

   Click Close File to release the current file style list, then click Open File to display the content of the Templates folder.

   In the Open dialog box, navigate to and select the template or document you want to use, then click Open.

5. In the list box for the file you are copying styles from, select a style or styles, then click Copy.

6. When you are done copying styles, click Close.

Objective 2.3 practice tasks

The practice file for these tasks is located in the MOSWordExpert2019\Objective2 practice file folder. The folder also contains a result file that you can use to check your work.

• Open the WordExpert_2-3 document, and do the following:

  • Modify the CitationText style as follows:

    • Add a 0.25-inch indent to the left and right.

    • Change the font color to Black.

    • Add top and bottom borders with a width of 1 pt.

  • Create a paragraph style named Book Subtitle. Use the Cambria font set to 16 pt. and italic. Center the paragraph horizontally. Assign the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+9 to the style. (Use a different shortcut if that one is already assigned to something.) Select Heading 1 as the style for the following paragraph.

  • Create a paragraph style named BookTitle. Use 22 pt. Cambria as the font. Set the line spacing to exactly 20 pt. Set the spacing before the paragraph to 12 pt. and after the paragraph to 18 pt. Center the paragraph horizontally. Select BookSubtitle as the style for the following paragraph.

  • Scroll to the top of the document. Apply the BookTitle style to the text Dictionary of Bad Behavior and the Book Subtitle style to the text New Words for New Lows.

  • Create a character style named DictionaryTerm. Use Calibri, 11 pt., bold, and the Black font color as the style’s attributes.

  • Find all instances of the Intense Emphasis style in the document and replace them with the DictionaryTerm style.

• Open the WordExpert_2-3_results document. Compare the two documents to check your work. Then close the open documents.