Tip of the week # 423
13 June 2014


Applying and modifying Heading Styles to titles and subtitles (Microsoft Word)

I'm not superstitious or have Friggatriskaidekaphobia (as the fear of Friday the 13th is also known) but I flew home last night, instead of today. And as I didn't have any takers for today's PowerPoint course (perhaps everybody has bolted their doors and are hiding behind a pillow) I had the time to write a tip today...

Styles are used to quickly format chunks of text, such as titles and subtitles. When a particular style is applied to text, that text is automatically formatted according to the style definition, saving you the time it would take to manually apply the same formatting. I always recommend using Word's built-in styles so that you can take advantage of the fabulous options in the navigation pane (see tip_415.php) and quickly create a Table of Contents. OK, it's very likely that Microsoft's choice of formatting is not what you want, but you can easily apply and modify them.

Here's how:

  1. Click anywhere in the title or subtitle.
  2. Select a Heading style from the Styles group on the Home tab. (Or press CTRL+ALT+1 for Heading 1, CTRL+ALT+2 for Heading 2 and CTRL+ALT+3 for Heading 3.)
  3. If you want to reformat any of the styles, right-click it in the Styles group on the Home tab and select Modify.
  4. Make your required changes and click OK.

OK, there are a lot more things you might want to know about Styles (I used to offer a separate half day course on the topic) but I take great pride in keeping it simple and explain things in a language we can all understand and appreciate.