The font that is used for title and text, the color schemes you choose, and background
all form the style of a document. Word provides you with predefined styles to
choose from, or you can create your own. Let's take a look at how styles work.
Select the text you'd like to format. I'll just select my title.
On the Home tab, in the Style group, you can see four different styles.
As you hover over each, you can see the selected text in your document change.
To see more than these four, click the More drop-down arrow.
As you move over each, you can see the style displayed in your document.
Now, this style is named Heading 1, but I can use it for my title, if I wish.
As I look a little closer, I actually think this style called Title will look good.
Just left-click it to select it. It now appears in my document.
Let's go ahead and apply styles to the rest of the document.
The Executive Summary is a main heading, so let me apply Heading 1.
Yeah, that looks good. Sales Team Structure and Process is another
main heading so I'll give it a Heading 1 style, also.
The Chain of Command and Process are subheadings, so let's apply a Heading 2 style.
I'm going to go through the rest of my document and apply the appropriate styles to my main
and sub headings. It looks a lot better than when I started,
but none of the predefined Word styles are quite what I want for this document.
But that's alright, because Word gives me the ability to modify the styles.
Let's start by modifying the Title style. Just select the text in the style you want
to change. In the Styles group, locate the style.
I'm looking for the Title style. Right-click the style and a menu appears.
Left-click Modify and the Modify Style dialog box appears.
We can see that the name of the style is Title and under Formatting we can see all the details
about the font. We can see the style, size, color, and alignment.
We also have all the tools to make changes to the style.
Let's see, I'd like for the year 2008 too appear on the line above
it. So let's decrease our font size and
see what happens. In the preview window, I can see that it is
going to work. Just click OK to apply those changes to the
document. Let's also modify the Heading 1 style, which
I'm using for my main headings. I just need to select Executive Summary in
my document, and then locate Heading 1 in the Style group.
And I'll just modify the font style this time. I think I'll change it to this font.
There, that looks pretty good. You can see that it changed all my main headings.
So far I really like the predefined styles that Word gives me, and the ability to modify
those styles. But what if I want to create a new style that
I specifically use for let's say our weekly memo? To do this, click the arrow in the bottom
right corner of the Styles group. This opens the Styles task pane.
Just click the New Style button at the bottom and a dialog box appears.
From here, you can name your style and make all the decisions about how you want the style
formatted. Let's see, I may want to call this Weekly
Memo Title. And since it's a title, I'll make the font
pretty big and I like Arial as a font and I think it will look nice centered.
Once you've made your formatting decisions, just select the button beside New Document
based on this template, so that it will be available to use in all your documents, and
then click OK. And now you can see that our Weekly Memo Title
style shows up in the list. To use it, you will apply it just like all
the other styles. Another option you have is to use a style
set. There are some predefined style sets that
include a combination of title, heading, and paragraph styles.
So instead of formatting your title and headings separately, you make one decision that applies
to the entire document. To Access these, click the Change Styles command
on the Ribbon, and then select Style Set from the menu that appears.
As you hover over the style sets, your document will change as Word displays a Live Preview
of how the style will affect your document. Although I like the way my report looks, let's
try one of the Style Sets. Here I like this one.
Just left-click a style set to select it. You can also change the Colors and the Fonts
of the style set from here, as well but the easier way to do this is to apply a theme
to the document. If you've ever spent time trying to find the
perfect fonts that look good together or choosing coordinating colors then you will love using
Themes in Word 2007. Let's go ahead and take a look at the themes
that come with your version of Word. Select the Page Layout tab and then click
the Themes command. A document theme is a set of formatting choices
that include font styles, sizes, and colors for different parts of the document and a
set of theme effects such as Lines and Fill effects.
You can see how the themes change the document and really give it a professional touch.
There are 20 different themes that are included with the software.
Once you find one you like, just left-click a theme to select it, and the changes will
be applied to the document. If you don't see a theme you like.
You can always create a custom theme or access even more on Microsoft Office Online -- right
from this menu. To create a custom theme, just click the Themes
command on the Page Layout tab. Once you've selected a theme, click the Colors
command in the themes group. Then select Create New Theme Colors.
A dialog box appears. Use the drop-down menus to change the colors
for each part of the document. I think I will stick with colors that will
compliment the company logo. It's now time to Enter a name for the theme
color. Let's name it AdWorks color.
Click Save to keep the changes. We can also choose a font that goes along
with our theme. Let's click the Fonts command.
Select Create New Theme Fonts. A dialog box appears.
Use the drop-down menus to change the fonts. To the right, I can see how my selections
will look together before making a final decision. Just because I like two fonts doesn't mean
they will look good together. Enter a name for your theme font.
Click Save. Effects often add that extra little accent
to your graphics. It could be as simple as a shadow or an embossed
look. To add a theme effect click the effects command
and select an option from the drop-down menu. Hover over several effects to see what they
will look like in your document. When you find one that fits your theme, select
it by left clicking. I really like Apex! I want to make sure all
of my choices are saved for this particular theme so I need to, click the Themes command
and select Save Current Theme. A dialog box appears.
Enter a theme name and click Save. Now the theme is available to use with other
documents. If I don't like the color or the
effects in my document, I can always make changes later.
One thing that is important to know is that Themes and Styles are connected.
You can not apply a Theme to a document without applying styles first.
Themes look for and replace the formats of each of the styles.
So, if you take the time to apply a style to your titles, headings, subheadings, and
body text, then you can take advantage of these really professional looking themes.
Spend some time practicing with Styles and Themes.
If you use Word at work, you'll find that these are both valuable features that allow
you to create a variety of documents that have a consistent, professional design.