Using styles

A style is a collection of attributes, for example font, font size and paragraph settings, that you can apply to your text. At any point, you can edit the attributes and so cause your entire document to be updated to reflect the new style. This is a very efficient method of managing the appearance of long documents. Typically you may want to set a paragraph style for the paragraph as a whole and then apply a character style on top of this to certain words or sentences. If you do it the other round, applying a character style first and then a paragraph style, the character style will be obliterated.

A standard style (called simply a style) works at the paragraph level, that is, it affects every word and line within the paragraph. A character style can also be set up. This differs from a paragraph style in that formatting is applied to selected text within a paragraph, rather than to the paragraph as a whole.

Style

Applies to whole paragraphs.

Consists of font, font size, font effects, indentation, paragraph alignment, and line spacing.

Character Style

Applies to selected text within a paragraph.

Consists of font, font size, and font effects.

Here is an example of how styles can be used:

image\wp1.gif

The general idea is to implement different formats in your text. In line with the above example, there will be many headings throughout the document. These can all be formatted with a "Heading" style. The general text can be formatted as the "Normal" style.

To apply a style, select the text and then select the style name from the style drop down list on the toolbar. Alternatively, use the style shortcut - for example, Alt-Ctrl-Shift-N will apply the Normal style, unless you define it differently.

image\style.gif

See also:

Modifying styles

Creating new styles

Renaming and deleting styles