Office X for Macintosh: The Missing Manual

chapter 4: styles, page layout, and tables 141

chapter

4

O

nce you’ve polished the content of your document, it’s time to work on the

packaging. Word can take you deep into the realm of page design and lay-

out.

For example, an endless block of text running across the page is fine, but columns

are sometimes easier to read—and they look more professional. Or perhaps you’d

like to add some well-placed borders, but you’ve never been sure how to work with

them.

This chapter builds upon the formatting concepts in Chapter 3 and describes how

to add the finishing touches that give your document polish and flair.

Styles

Creating Word documents usually requires a small assortment of formatting styles,

which you’ll use over and over again throughout the document. In a short piece,

reformatting your chapter titles (for example) is no big deal; just highlight each and

then use the Formatting Palette to make it look the way you like.

But what about long documents? What if your document contains 49 chapter head-

ings, plus 294 sidebar boxes, captions, long quotations, and other heavily formatted

elements? In such documents—this book, for example—manually reformatting each

heading, subhead, sidebar, and caption would drive you to distraction. Word’s styles

feature can alleviate the pain.

A style is a prepackaged collection of formatting attributes that you can apply and

reapply with a click of the mouse. You can create as many styles as you need: chapter

Styles, Page Layout,

and Tables

142 office x for macintosh: the missing manual

headings, sidebar styles, whatever. The result is a collection of custom-tailored styles

for each of the repeating elements of your document. Figure 4-1 should clarify all of

this.

After creating your styles, just apply them as you need; they’ll be consistent through-

out the document. During the editing process, if you notice you accidentally styled,

say, a headline using the Subhead style, you can fix the problem by simply reapplying

the correct style.

You’ll appreciate styles even more when it comes time to change the formatting of a

particular style. If you change a style’s description, Word offers to change every oc-

currence of that style in your document.

Styles

Figure 4-1:

Top: Suppose you want to call

special attention to the highlighted

paragraph. This before-and-after

shot illustrates the beauty of a

style: with a single click in the Style

pop-up menu on the Formatting

Palette, you can apply a special

font, style, and paragraph border

all at once. Better yet, you don’t

have to remember how you

formatted a similar paragraph

earlier.

Bottom: Word does the remember-

ing, and the formatting, for you.

chapter 4: styles, page layout, and tables 143

Styles aren’t one of Microsoft’s masterpieces when it comes to ease of understand-

ing. But grasping how they work, where they’re stored, and when they change helps

to explain many of Word’s idiosyncrasies, and pays off handsomely in the long run.

Where Styles Are Stored

Every document has a collection of ready-to-use, built-in styles, whether you’re aware

of it or not. (To be more precise, every document is based on a template that stores

a canned set of styles, as described on page 141.) Word opens each new blank docu-

ment with the Normal paragraph style preselected.

The styles available in your document are listed in several places: in the Font panel

of the Formatting Palette, the Formatting toolbar, the Ruler toolbar, and the

Format→Style dialog box (see Figure 4-2).

Tip: There are many more styles in the Style dialog box than in the Formatting Palette or the toolbar

menus, which contain only a selection of the most useful styles. To see that comprehensive list of styles

without opening the Style dialog box, just Shift-click one of those menus.

Applying Styles

To apply a canned style to text you’ve already typed, highlight the text. For example,

drag through some text, or click once inside a paragraph to select it. (You can also

choose a style for a new paragraph before you begin typing it.)

Styles

Figure 4-2:

Choose Format

→

Style to see

the styles available in your

document. Each document

comes with a few heading

styles, such as the Normal style

and Heading 1, because the

Normal template has these

starter styles built right in. (See

page 202 for more on

templates.) Starting from a

different template might

produce a different set of

starter styles.